Heather Conn Blogs

                                                     — Rae Ellingham photo

From feral to favorite . . . She’s gone from sleeping on a shelf in our garage to lounging on the couch at the Royal Canadian Legion in Roberts Creek.  Nina, the Legion’s adopted cat, now looks on with calm contentedness as members play pool or cribbage, watch hockey games, sing community Christmas carols, slurp beer, eat one of Tony’s delicious salmon burgers, and gossip with the locals from a bar stool.  Maybe she’ll forget how to chase rats.

My guess is she’ll never forget her wild roots.  My husband and I first encountered her as a feral cat in full stalking mode in our yard. She would not let us come near her. After she had a litter of kittens, the Happy Cat Haven in Gibsons somehow managed to round her up and have her spayed, bless ’em. Nevertheless, she continued to hang out in our garage and yard and still does. Sleeping under our wooden deck is one of her favorite spots.

We’re delighted that Nina now has an adoptive parent: Gail, the barkeep at the Creek Legion. She managed to woo Nina indoors with coos and a bowl of milk. Kudos to her.

I feel embarrassed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his poor showing for Canada at the world climate talks in Copenhagen. He didn’t even bother showing up to hear the speeches made by other world leaders expressing their concern about climate change. He clearly has no interest in threatening Alberta’s oil and gas industries or taking the Kyoto treaty seriously.

I’m glad that President Obama officially snubbed Harper at the conference. The U.S. President left him off his guest list for an emergency meeting with 19 other world leaders at the conference. This publicly acknowledges that Obama doesn’t view Harper as a serious decision-maker in the climate change debate. Now our prime minister won’t get to strategize with global players like Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown; French President Nicolas Sarkozy; German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei; and Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva.

Go back to your sandbox, Harper. The big boys don’t want you in the game.

 Thanks to Harper, Canada deserves the Fossil of the Year award, presented in a mock ceremony at the Copenhagen conference by the activist group Avaaz. Because of his lack of action, Canada also deserves the two consecutive “fossil” awards from the Climate Action Network, which “honor’  the countries deemed to have done the least to control their greenhouse gas emissions.

What can we do? Vote him out of office. Stay informed. Write to your MP. Support environmental and advocacy groups that work to stop initiatives like the proposed Enbridge pipeline through northern B.C. and serve as watchdogs for Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. There are many climate-concerned organizations out there, from the David Suzuki Foundation and Climate Action Network to Pacific Wild and Forest Ethics.