Toronto Mayor Rob Ford isn’t this country’s only global embarrassment; Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s appalling record on the environment and contempt for international diplomacy has also shamed Canada around the world.

Though governments everywhere have handed over their national agenda to corporate interests, Harper’s conflation of the two has been total. His abject servitude to business, especially the oil industry, knows no bounds.

In his recent speech to the Tory hordes in Calgary, the PM made this frighteningly clear: “In this party,” Harper declared, “we will not accept that environmental protection must stop economic development.”

Though he went on to insist that “we must have both,” his words — like his actions — speak for themselves.

Most revealing was Harper’s distinction between environmental protection and economic development. His insistence that it must be one or the other is the lie often used to justify Canada’s gutting of its own regulatory system, notably the Navigable Waters Act, as well as its abandonment of international legal obligations such as the Kyoto Accord, which began under the Liberals.

This convenient untruth is also trotted out whenever business feels it’s too much to ask it to clean up after itself.

But Harper’s recklessness toward the environment will surely come back to haunt not just him and his scandal-ridden cohorts, but his kids and the rest of the country.

As one of our most prominent environmentalists, David Suzuki, points out, “Canada is probably the most vulnerable country to the consequences of environmental change. We are a northern climate; global warming will affect Canada more than any other nation on Earth. To ignore the impact climate change will have on Canada is to ignore the impact it will have on the Canadian economy.”

Indeed, we have watched passively as the Arctic melts before our eyes. The Inuit have been warning us for decades, but we do little more than wring our hands over the fate of its most appealing icon, the now threatened polar bear.

We shrug as Harper undoes half a century’s worth of environmental legislation, opening up the country to unfettered exploitation.

Though Canadians are concerned about the environment and most don’t trust Harper on the issue, government rhetoric scares us into obedience. For example, a recent poll claimed that 60 per cent of Canadians fear their own family’s economic well-being would be hurt if the Keystone XL pipeline is not approved.

Responsible resource development, Canadians now accept, is something we cannot afford. The mantra of economic growth at any cost has made us willing participants in the rape that Harper and his corporate masters have enabled.

At best, Harper’s promised prosperity is temporary; the ultimate price will be horrific, well beyond any nation’s ability to pay.

“Growth forever is the creed of cancer cells,” Suzuki argues. “We have elevated the economy above the very atmosphere that keeps us alive. Surely that should come before anything else? It astounds me that the Harper government can still think that way.”

Given the state of Canadian politics, this is simply business as usual. When each new day brings fresh revelations about the Prime Minister’s mendacity and Rob Ford’s endless stupidity, it’s no surprise the environment is the last thing on anybody’s mind.

The meltdown happening in Canada’s leadership is much more immediately gripping than that unfolding in the Far North. It has a beginning, a middle and at some point, an end. Besides, it makes for better TV.

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And though these dual disasters leave Canadians feeling frustrated and impotent, we are responsible for both. The difference is that one will go away; the other will be around forever.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca

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