At the federal Conservative Party’s policy convention on Saturday, MPs voted down an amendment to include “climate change is real” in its policy book, but Kootenay-Columbia MP Rob Morrison said the issue is important for the party to embrace.
On Saturday, the party voted 54% to 46% against the proposed change in policy towards an eco-friendly platform.
Morison feels, however, that the issue needs to be dealt with.
“The climate has been changing since the beginning of time, climate change is real. What’s happening with the environment as far as natural changes is one thing, but with human intervention, that’s what we want to address. That’s where the Conservative Party is developing a climate change program to deal with that,” said Morrison.
Morrison said the Conservative Party acknowledges climate change in other places in its policy book.
“Climate change was a clause as part of a policy, yet we have climate change as real as part of three other policies in our policy group as the Conservatives,” explained Morrison.
The vote comes as party leader Erin O’Toole said the party needs to make some changes in policy if it wants to win an election.
“We have lost two elections in five and a half years; in that time, we’ve had four leaders. We must present new ideas, not make the same arguments, hoping that this time, maybe, more Canadians will come to our position,” said O’Toole in a speech at the convention.
The MP added that he is an advocate of change within the party.
“I believe that our action plan should be an emission tax, carbon tax is not working. Let’s tax the high emitters, put those tax dollars into research and development so we can start developing green technology,” said Morrison. “We have a lot of smart people in Canada, a lot of smart scientists and geologists that are going to help us. That’s where we have to go to focus on so we can move forward with cleaner energy.”
Morrison said Canada should also consider working with other countries to bring down emissions on a global scale.
“Even if Canada did 100%, some other countries are so big that it wouldn’t make a difference. We need to be leaders, and I think by our research and development we can do this internationally. We need to keep focusing on international as well as being a leader in developing green technology.”