Kenney Denies EU Summit Would Address Climate Change

During Question Period on Monday, with Jason Kenney pitching for an AWOL Stephen Harper, Bill Graham accused Harper of cutting and running from the EU-Canada summit and even offered to present a motion to ensure that Harper's government was not in danger of being taken down if Steve attended the summit. (That motion was introduced following Question Period but was not carried).

Kenney also faced questions about Environment Minister Ambrose who, instead of attending the current Nairobi summit sent a video of herself:

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose of Canada, the outgoing president of the talks, sent a video message saying "all nations need to work together" to address warming.

What a crock! Maybe she'll just start sending videos of herself to Question Period too. Stay tuned.

But what really took the cake during Question Period was this exchange:

Layton: Mr Speaker, we know that there is no sense of priority on the part of this government. It has cancelled the trip to Helsinki to discuss climate change with the Eurpoeans but they are going to a NATO meeting that won't be long after that probably to talk about this unbalanced mission in Afghanistan. Why does the Prime Minister want to talk war with European leaders but not climate change?

Kenney: This is really ridiculous Mr Speaker. First of all, the leader of the NDP saw the agenda because we haven't seen the agenda of the meeting with the European Union. So, I don't know if climate change is a part of the agenda or not but the Prime Minister will be at NATO. He will meet with the leaders of the European Union and at APEC as well and there will be another summit in the near future.

Meanwhile, over in Europe:

"There was no definite plan to have a summit," [Harper spokeswoman] Stewart-Olsen told Reuters, adding that the prime minister's office had never seen an agenda for the trip.

However, on the Finnish EU Presidency's Web site, a news release on October 13 refers to the summit being fixed for November 27.

"It was definitely fixed, that is very clear," said Finland's ambassador to Ottawa, Pasi Patokallio.

He said that just a week ago Canadian and EU officials in Brussels had been working on the agenda for the summit.

The environment and climate change were on the agenda, he confirmed, as they were for EU summits with other countries.

"Obviously we're disappointed and the (Finnish) prime minister indicated that. We were in full swing preparing the summit," he said.

So, who's really being 'ridiculous', Kenney?

On a side note, Kenney is my MP and I received a newsletter from his office today which advertises a town hall meeting for Saturday, November 4 - two days ago. Thanks for the heads up there Jason. I'll be sure to pop into my time machine so I can make an appearance.

Update: Here's the link to the EU president's Oct 13th press release.