Environmental Policy of The Harper Government - Critics

Critics

At the Nairobi summit, the Climate Action Network had given a "fossil of the day" award to the country along with Australia for contributing less to the battle of climate change. The country was also ranked 51st out of 56 countries of those who were part of a climate treaty in 1992 or contributed a least 1% of greenhouse emissions according to Germanwatch, a Bonn, Germany development group which ranked countries based on their contribution of fighting greenhouse emissions. The deputy leader of the Green Party David Chernushenko had included Canada in an "axis of environmental evil" along with the United States and Australia.

Due to the mounted controversy surrounding the Clean Air Act, there were reports according to the Canadian Press that Ambrose would be relieved of her duties as Environment Minister and replaced by Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice in a future cabinet shuffle. However, on January 4, 2007, Ambrose was replaced by the President of the Treasury Board John Baird

Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace's international executive director, has said, "I don’t think Prime Minister Stephen Harper has provided leadership on the climate question at all. If anything, he has held it back."

In 2011, Canada's commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, Scott Vaughan, stated that the government was not only failing to meet Kyoto standards, but also those of other agreements it had signed. He also criticized the Harper government of dramatically lowering its greenhouse gas emission targets since 2007, which have dropped by 90% (from 282 million tonnes to 28 million tonnes).