A blistering new report on Canada's environmental track record has served as a harsh wake-up call for a nation whose environmental consciousness has outgrown its 'green' initiatives.

The report, which calls for a "massive scale-up" in federal initiatives, says the former Liberal government's work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fell far short of the mark and Ottawa has done an inadequate job preparing for the effects of global warming.

Federal Environment Commissioner Johanne Gelinas dropped the report like a bomb last week, confirming environmentalists' fears that Canada is falling behind on environmental issues and drastic action is needed to catch up.

It comes at a time when, perhaps more than ever before, Canadians have become acutely aware of the state of the environment and are calling on government to take action before it's too late.

The groundswell of public opinion has been fueled by former U.S. vice-president Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, which made global warming a mainstream issue, the fact the Green Party of Canada has been steadily gaining support and credibility, and grim reports, such as the one released by Gelinas, that demand action.

Quite simply, at home and abroad, it's an issue that isn't going away any time soon.

Scathing report

The recent report illustrates a sad state of affairs in Canada.

Gelinas says the former Liberal government's efforts to curb greenhouse gases, or 'GHGs,' were inadequate and lacked accountability. For example, the report states that although the federal government anounced $6.3 billion in climate change funding since the former Liberal government endorsed the Kyoto Accord and agreed to cut emissions in 1997, greenhouse gas emissions have actually gone up. A lot. 

The Liberals had agreed to cut 1990 emissions levels by 6 per cent by 2008-2012. But in fact, emissions were 26.6 per cent above 1990 levels by 2004, the report found.  

Some suggest that in order to meet the Kyoto targets now, Canada, along with a number of other industrialized Kyoto members, would have to spend billions to purchase greenhouse "credits" from third-world countries that haven't used up their pollution quota.

Gelinas admits the targets are unrealistic, but she posed a major challenge to the new Conservative government to take action and turn those numbers around.

"The government urgently needs a believable, clear and realistic plan to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions," she writes in her report.

"It must establish and commit to short-and long-term national goals."

But Canada's energy sector -- the crown jewel in the nation's natural resources treasure chest -- receives most of Gelinas' fury.

The commissioner concludes that more than 28 per cent of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions are the product of oil and gas exports that are gushing out of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

In fact, Alberta's oil sands are Canada's top source of greenhouse gases, and they've been rising steadily with the province's oil and gas output, which the National Energy Board estimates could rise from 1.1 million barrels per day in 2005 to three million barrels per day by 2015.

Meanwhile, GHGs from the energy sector have gone up by more than 50 per cent since 1990, and emissions could double again by 2015, the report found.

Ambrose responds

Rona Ambrose, the federal environment minister and an Alberta MP, responded to the report quickly, vowing to wage war on the oil and gas industry that has swelled the coffers of her home province.

"The time of politely asking industry to do the right thing is over," she said during a recent interview on CTV's Mike Duffy Live. "We need national standards."

The day after the report came out Ambrose announced the outline for her Clean Air Act which will be released next month. Details have been scarce so far and Ambrose has spoken mostly in broad terms, but she says the program will target greenhouse gases and pollution in the energy sector and transportation industry, and there will be penalties for non-compliance.

The legislation, Ambrose says, will set the mandatory emissions-cutting targets for industry that Gelinas called for, giving the government "the accountability we need to be able to enforce the measures that we put in place and also be able to show publicly to Canadians that we're achieving the results."

"It's time for us to move past the rhetoric and address this with national legislation," Ambrose says.

Gelinas' report comes at a time when more and more Canadians are concerned about the environment and are calling on the government to be an international leader.

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth -- the film version of Al Gore's travelling slideshow and lecture on climate change -- painted a compelling portrait of the effects of global warming and brought the issue home for many North Americans this summer.

The film documents Gore as he presents his argument in a bid to save the planet from what he describes as the greatest threat ever faced by mankind.

The release of the documentary and a book by the same name are part of Gore's mission to change the way people think about the world around them -- before it's too late.

"The cause is changing the minds of the American people and people in Canada and the rest of the world, because only then will politicians from every party face demands from the people to do the right thing," Gore told CTV's Canada AM during a publicity tour this summer.

Perhaps the message is finally getting across, and not just to environmentalists who already subscribe to Gore's green ideals, but to ordinary Canadians who saw the film or read the book and decided that the time for action is now.

Green Party growth

The Green Party of Canada has certainly seen its support base grow in recent years. The party that puts the environment first has reached some major milestones in its attempt to move from the fringe to the mainstream. And although they haven't arrived yet, those strides show that more and more Canadians are beginning to take the Greens seriously.

In 2004, the party received more votes than double what it had previously received in its entire history, party membership has gone from 800 to 10,000 in the past five years, and the recent national convention in Ottawa attracted over 400 members -- 300 more than attended the 2004 event.

Perhaps most importantly, however, members elected Elizabeth May, a lawyer and long-time executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, as their new leader this summer.

A respected environmentalist with connections to people like Bill Clinton and David Suzuki, May won her leadership bid handily, pulling in a solid 65 per cent of the vote.

Her victory may put the party in its strongest position yet to actually win a seat in Parliament in the next election -- the objective that overshadows almost everything the party does.

With every step towards mainstream credibility, the Greens are drawing more attention to the environmental issues that they hold close to their hearts.

Jim Harris, the former leader of the Green Party, maintains that the party has helped put environmental issues in the hearts and minds of Canadians, and as a result those issues have often found their way onto the Conservative and Liberal agendas.

That theory is a perfect fit with Gore's belief that political action only occurs after a swell of public sentiment has developed -- and that as a result, ordinary people push political agendas.

If the theory holds true around the world and the Canadian consciousness, as well as the global one, continues to focus more intensely on the environment and the threat of global warming, then the conversation isn't going to go away any time soon.