Information on changes to the federal Fisheries Act, revisions to the federal environmental assessment process and attacks by Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver in January have raised the ire of people right across the country and left them wondering what Stephen Harper and the Conservative government will be doing next.
They expect the worst.
Some have said that the religious beliefs of the prime minister and those closest to him may have a significant influence on government policies.
Andrew Nikiforuk, author and long-time Albertan, provides us with a plausible answer in a recent article in The Tyee online newspaper, under the headline Understanding Harper’s Evangelical Mission. Nikiforuk says, “Signs mount that Canada’s government is beholden to a religious agenda averse to science and rational debate.”
Evidence surfaces almost daily that shows the federal government is being guided by those who favour Biblical fundamentalism or “evangelical religious skepticism.” Canada is becoming much like the United States and the decisions made by the government since the election of 2011 provide some proof.
Canada pulled out of the Kyoto agreement without a plan to combat carbon pollution.
Oliver, wrote an open letter in which he branded local environmentalists and First Nations people as radicals that seek to block opportunities to diversify trade. Greenpeace was called a “multi-issue extremist group.” He wrote the letter on the eve of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline hearings.
The Navigable Waters Protection Act has been gutted and proposals are forthcoming for dismantling the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act.
Federal scientists have been muzzled and cannot talk about their research without getting permission from the authorities for which they work.
Nikiforuk has taken a close look at the government’s actions and its attacks on anyone who dares to question its motives and he has drawn the conclusion that its position grows out of Stephen Harper’s evangelical beliefs. He writes:
“Unknown to most Canadians, the prime minister belongs to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, an evangelical Protestant church with two million members. Alberta, a petro state, is one of its great strongholds on the continent. The church believes that the free market is divinely inspired and that non-believers are ‘lost.’”
Harper has never disclosed the fact that he openly sympathizes with, and likely endorses, what it known as “evangelical climate skepticism” and he could be taking his advice from the Cornwall Alliance, a coalition of scholars, economists and evangelicals who are not Canadians.
Nikiforuk says, “The Alliance, questions mainstream science, doubts climate change, views environmentalism as a “native evil,” champions fossil fuels and support libertarian economics.”
The alliance is in deep denial on matters related to climate change. Carbon dioxide is a not a pollutant; there is no convincing evidence that the human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing global warming; environmental regulation is an impediment to God’s will and environmental groups are one of the greatest threats to society and the church today.
Dr. David Gushee, a distinguished professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and one of the drafters of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, says he disagrees with just about everything the alliance says. Gushee’s summary of the purpose of the new evangelical Republicanism is:
“God is sovereign over creation and therefore humans can do no permanent damage . . . God established government for limited purposes and government should not intervene much in the workings of a free market economy . . . The media is overplaying climate change worries . . . The environmental movement is secular/pagan and has always been a threat to American liberties . . .”
When dealing with a prime minister who is guided by radical evangelical beliefs on environmental matters, the work of preventing desecration is a huge challenge. He is unlike any other prime minister except perhaps Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest serving prime minister, who also believed in spiritualism.
– Roy Ronaghan is columnist for the Grand Forks Gazette.