You don’t know what you’ve got till Guilbeault’s gone |
A few tumultuous years ago, kvetching about Canadian climate policies over dinner, I got myself on the receiving end of one of those clarifying questions that really stick with you. “Would any of us, if we got elected to politics, do any better?” asked a friend, who now runs one of the bigger climate outfits in the country.
It was the era of Steven Guilbeault as minister of environment and climate change and he had just agreed to some outrageous compromise or other. In those bygone days, new policies were being proposed, adopted and fought over, the trajectory for Canada’s climate pollution was improving, but it was all far too slow and diluted by sops to the fossil fuel lobby, as far as most dinner guests were concerned.
My friend answered his own question: “No, we would not,” he pronounced, probing for challengers. It was one of those conversation-stopping moments as the table grudgingly grumbled its way into silent agreement.
You really don’t know what you got till it's gone, as the songstress sings. It’s got to be one of the truest maxims about our human condition. At least that’s what I found myself thinking, reading and watching Guilbeault do the media rounds after announcing he was leaving politics this week.
After the last few months of gaslighting from the feds about “decarbonized” carbon and pipelines as climate action, I’d almost forgotten what clarity sounds like. In that earnest way of his, with the slight stammering of someone who thinks faster than they can find the mots justes, Guilbeault patiently explained to his colleagues and then to reporter after reporter not only why he was leaving, but the importance of tackling climate change and the state of Canada’s role in the global effort.
“The struggle for our planet is defining for our generation, and I will continue to fight,” he promised.
There should be little doubt about it. Most of us know some of the high spots of Guilbeault’s climate advocacy — the climate deniers and their algorithmically-amped bots made sure of that. He scaled 340 metres up the CN tower at 4 a.m. to protest the failure of Jean Chretien and George W. Bush to ratify Kyoto in 2001. He made a far less treacherous climb to the roof of Alberta Premier Ralph Klein’s home to place solar panels on his roof one year later.
But........