Public Eye Online: Sherrod: "...many of us are shocked and appalled."

April 21, 2009
Sherrod: "...many of us are shocked and appalled."
"I certainly want everyone to know - and I've been writing around, sending letters to editors and such - that not all environmentalists are on side with what Tzeporah Berman and the David Suzuki Foundation and The Pembina Institute are doing." That's what Valhalla Wilderness Watch director Anne Sherrod said when we asked her about their decision to pan the New Democrats' climate change plank while praising the Liberals' greenhouse gas reduction policies.

"Not all of us are castigating the NDP for (their opposition to) the gas tax," said Ms. Sherrod. "And I think it's probably well know it has caused a great deal of division in the environmental movement over what they've done. But the newspaper in our local area - the Nelson Daily News - ran a story saying environmentalists all across the province were denouncing the NDP. And that absolutely is not true. And there are many environmentalists - myself included - that fervently believe the Liberal government is the worst government for the environment that B.C. has ever had. And that they've been disastrous for our environment. And we are desparate to get a change of government."

"Now the NDP policies on global warming - on energy - should be stronger," she continued. "And there are legitimate differences of opinion about the gas tax versus cap-and-trade. But many of us - in fact perhaps most of us - do not let that weakness or flaw in the NDP platform eclipse what the Liberals have done over the years."

"I'm in communication with a lot of environmentalists. And many of us are shocked and appalled. They claim - those groups - that they did not mean to endorse the Liberal government. And after the fact Pembina and David Suzuki came out and made a few little criticisms of the Liberal government. But the fact is - given what they know about the election happening right now and what they know about the respective parties - that's exactly what they did. You don't have to call something a horse for it to be a horse. It's a horse if you call it that or not. So that's what they did."

http://www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/003828.html