Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day was ordered to remove an embarrassing comical commentary that ridiculed the science behind global warming from his personal website to avoid embarrassing his government about its real views on climate change, critics said yesterday.
"Apparently, the ministry of truth is still alive and well in Canada," said John Bennett, executive director of Climate Action Network, a coalition of environmental groups. "Clearly, this government is perfectly willing to try to erase its past in order to fool us in the future."
Day stirred up controversy last week because of an article posted Dec. 1 on his website, www.stockwellday.com, in which he ridiculed former U.S. vice-president Al Gore's current crusade against global warming. In the article, reprinted in newspapers in his Okanagan-
Coquihalla, B.C. riding, Day joked he was "begging for Big Al's Glacial Melt," because of recent snowstorms and cold weather in Western Canada.
But the offending article, along with all other commentary posted by Day since he became a cabinet minister, were removed from the site by the end of the week. Officials at Day's office had no explanation. "Were they (articles) there before?" wrote Melisa Leclerc, Day's director of communications, in an email. "I hadn't noticed."
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