Environment Minister Catherine McKenna was forced to step in late last night and overrule bureaucrats in her department who wanted to muzzle MPs, First Nations leaders and others invited to accompany her to next month’s United Nations climate change conference.
The twenty-second session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) will be held Nov. 7-18 in Marrakech, Morocco and invitations were sent out over McKenna’s name to, among others, her official opposition critics, including Conservative Ed Fast.
The invitation, dated Oct. 24, offers to reimburse Fast for his travel and accommodation to a maximum of $4,500 but only if he’ll sign an agreement promising not to give any media interviews and that he would “respect the authority of the Head of the Delegation (McKenna) on all matters regarding your conduct as a member of the delegation.”
Fast, who served in the Harper government as Canada’s minister of international trade, was part of the Canadian delegation to COP21, held last fall in Paris, and travelled there at the government’s expense with no strings attached.
Fast replied to McKenna’s invitation on Oct. 27, telling McKenna that he would not attend COP22 on those conditions.
“Canadians elected me to promote Canada’s national interests wherever and whenever I have the opportunity to do so,” Fast wrote to McKenna. “This effort to muzzle my ability to communicate with Canadians on issues they deeply care about is highly objectionable and contrary to the democratic principles we are both entrusted to uphold.
“As your (Official Opposition) Critic, it is my constitutional responsibility to challenge the Government of __canada and to offer Canadians alternative policy and legal perspectives when and where appropriate. I do not intend to shirk that responsibility,” Fast wrote.
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Late Thursday evening, McKenna’s office intervened.
“The COP 22 Delegate Agreements provided to opposition MPs, indigenous groups, provincial, territorial and municipal representatives, NGOS, youth and business included an error made by [Environment and Climate Change Canada] officials that suggested limits on interactions with media,” McKenna’s press secretary Caitlin Workman wrote in an e-mail. “We have asked [department] officials that all invited delegates be contacted immediately to rectify this error.”
The Canadian delegation to COP22 will be much smaller than last year’s massive delegation which included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, almost all the premiers, and more than a hundred others. While the size of this year’s delegation has yet to be set, McKenna hopes it will include MPs as well as representatives of provinces, municipalities, indigenous groups, advocacy and environmental organizations, youth and business.
“Minister McKenna’s office made it clear starting last year that Canadian delegates at COP 21 were not required to submit to any conditions on interactions with media,” Workman said. “We look forward to Mr. Fast or any of our critics joining us at COP22, just as they did at COP 21 to build on the important work underway.”
Workman also noted that the Trudeau government’s policy of inviting opposition MPs to international conferences “is in stark contrast to the previous Conservative Government which routinely failed to invite opposition representatives to international events in which Canada was a participant.”
Correspondent between Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and MP Ed Fast by David Akin on Scribd
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