INTERNATIONAL WILDFIRES (21ST CENTURY)

2014

ECOCIDE
noun
destruction of the natural environment,
especially when deliberate.

INTERNATIONAL WILDFIRES

(Largest Fires of the 21st Century)

Canadian Northwest
Territories Fires (2014)

(Stephen Harper, Prime Minister, 2006-2015)

#7

LARGEST FIRE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The Official Story

2014 NORTHWEST TERRITORIES FIRES
(7th Largest Fire of the 21st Century)

STEPHEN HARPER
(Prime Minister of Canada, 2006-2015)

Stephen Joseph Harper PC CC (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who was the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. Harper is the first and only prime minister to come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, serving as the party’s first leader from 2004 to 2015.

Harper studied economics, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1985 and a master’s degree in 1991. He was one of the founders of the Reform Party of Canada and was first elected in 1993 in Calgary West. He did not seek re-election in the 1997 federal election, instead joining and later leading the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative lobbyist group. In 2002, he succeeded Stockwell Day as leader of the Canadian Alliance, the successor to the Reform Party, and returned to parliament as leader of the Official Opposition. In 2003, Harper negotiated the merger of the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to form the Conservative Party of Canada and was elected as the party’s first leader in March 2004. In the 2004 federal election, the new party lost its first election to the Liberal Party led by Paul Martin. From 2002 to 2015 as party leader, leader of the Official Opposition, and then prime minister, Harper represented the riding of Calgary Southwest in Alberta. He represented Calgary Heritage from 2015 until 2016.

The 2006 federal election resulted in a minority government led by the Conservative Party with Harper becoming prime minister of Canada. During his first term, Harper confronted the In and Out scandal, reduced the goods and services tax to five percent, and passed the Federal Accountability Act, the Québécois nation motion, and the Veterans’ Bill of Rights. After the 2008 federal election, in which the Conservatives won a larger minority, Harper prorogued Parliament to defeat a non-confidence motion by a potential coalition of opposition parties, passed the Economic Action Plan of major personal income tax cuts and infrastructure investments in response to the Great Recession, introduced the tax-free savings account, and ordered military intervention during the First Libyan Civil War. In March 2011, a no-confidence vote found his government to be in contempt of Parliament, triggering a federal election in which the Conservatives won a majority government. During his third term, Harper withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol, launched Operation Impact in opposition to ISIL, repealed the long-gun registry, passed the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, launched Canada’s Global Markets Action Plan, and grappled with controversies surrounding the Canadian Senate expenses scandal and the Robocall scandal.

In the 2015 federal election, the Conservative Party lost power to the Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau. Harper officially stepped down as party leader on October 19, 2015, and resigned his seat on August 26, 2016. Since then, Harper has taken on a number of international business and leadership roles, founding a global consulting firm, appearing in US and British media, and being elected leader of the International Democrat Union.

Source: Wikipedia

Prime Minister during the:

– 2014 Northwest Territories Fires