Angry in the Great White North

a heat-seeking missile in the Conservative arsenal

Let's compare and contrast.

On August 21, 2006, Michael Ignatieff publishes "Kyoto and Beyond Options for Long-Term Reductions in Canada's Greenhouse Gas Emissions".

Let's go way back to March 2004, to the report "The Morning After: Optimal Greenhouse Gas Polices for Canada's Kyoto Obligations and Beyond".

If I could only say that the only common element was the use of the word "beyond" in the title.

And before we begin, to make it clear, nowhere in Ignatieff's report is this C.D. Howe report credited, in footnote form or by some general statement of thanks or acknowledgment. A different C.D Howe report appears in a footnote for an unrelated quote on page 4.

Sampling from the Ignatieff report:

This type of policy provides a strong incentive for privately-funded research, development, and commercialization of new technologies, without triggering prohibitive levels of production cost and energy price increases in the short- to medium-term, and without engaging government in the risky role of picking technology winners and losers. p3

The specific market-oriented regulations presented here are consistent with policies already implemented in some major regions of the US, and are growing in popularity there and elsewhere, which reduces the competitive risks to Canada from the US decision to not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. p3

Large Industry Emission Cap and Tradable Permit
Renewable Portfolio Standard
Vehicle Emissions Standard
Carbon Sequestration Requirement
Building and Equipment Standards

And from the C.D Howe report:

This type of policy stimulates privately funded research, development, and commercialization of new technologies without triggering politically unacceptable increases in production costs and energy prices in the short term, and without engaging government in the risky role of picking technological winners and losers. p2

Because our policies are consistent with those already implemented in major regions of the U.S., and are growing in popularity internationally, they also mitigate competitive risks to Canada from the U.S. decision not to ratify Kyoto or from the possible collapse of the entire protocol. p2

Large Industry Emissions Cap and Tradable Permit Program p6
Renewable Portfolio Standard for Electricity Generation p6
Vehicle Emissions Standards p6
Carbon Sequestration Standard p7
Building Standards p7
Appliance Standards p7

And now the irony. On page 3 of the Ignatieff report:

These policies have not been pulled out of thin air...

No, not out of thin air.

I'd like to offer an opinion, but I found another that says it so eloquently, concerning the Dion controversy:

What happened today was a real gaffe, or mistake, or whatever you want to call it. If it was caused by the campaign team, then the perception is a given tha Dion has a simple, amateur team.

Personally, I highly respect Dion and have met him, but I don't see the leadership abilities within him. I see an "administrator", the same kind that have led the country for the last 13 years.

That appeared on Michael Ignatieff's website yesterday, in the discussion forums, as a comment from an Ignatieff supporter suggesting that Dion's alleged plagiarism made him unworthy to be Liberal leader.

Update: From Brad Davis, National Director of Policy, Michael Ignatieff Leadership Campaign:

We are very pleased to learn that the Conservatives are carefully reviewing Michael Ignatieff's ambitious plan to meet the climate change challenge head on. Unlike Mr. Harper, Mr. Ignatieff, believes that Canada must stay committed to Kyoto and must set to work immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Demonstrating the leadership that is so lacking on the part of the Conservatives, Mr. Ignatieff has proposed a series of instruments to reduce emissions to at least 50% below1990 levels by 2050.

If the Conservatives were really paying attention to Mr. Ignatieff's climate change plan, "Kyoto and Beyond", they would know that Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers, who authored the 2004 C.D. Howe Report referenced in your post, were involved in developing Mr. Ignatieff's climate change policy and were both involved in the drafting of Kyoto and Beyond. Our plan also refers to an updated CD Howe report from 2006, written by the same distinguished authors. On August 19, 2006, the Globe & Mail reported "The Ignatieff plan is the result of months of consultation with experts, including: Mark Jaccard, a Simon Fraser University energy economist; the David Suzuki Foundation; Matthew Bramley, director of climate change at the Pembina Institute in Gatineau, Que.; and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers."

As set out in Kyoto and Beyond, "Over the past few months, we've done research, we've listened to stakeholders, and we've talked to many experts. This document is our attempt to pull together their best policy ideas to help facilitate debate and an emerging consensus on how to put Canada on a low-emissions path."

Unlike Mr. Harper and the Conservatives, Mr. Ignatieff believes that real leadership requires consultation with all stakeholders, especially on a critical issue such as the environment.

Mark Jaccard is one of the authors of the document in question. Does that give Ignatieff a pass? From the Harvard policy on plagiarism:

Students should always take great care to distinguish their own ideas and knowledge from information derived from sources. The term "sources" includes not only published primary and secondary material, but also information and opinions gained directly from other people. [emphasis added]

The Ignatieff document does not credit Jaccard or anyone else for helping write the document. It makes no attempt to distinguish ideas, but instead weaves material from the C.D. Howe report directly into the text of the Ignatieff report. As for the C.D. Howe Institute, the policy is clearly written on the report itself:

C.D. Howe Institute Commentary© is a periodic analysis of, and commentary on, current public policy issues. Kevin Doyle edited the manuscript; Priscilla Burry prepared it for publication. As with all Institute publications, the views expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Institute's members or Board of Directors. Quotation with appropriate credit is permissible.

So the authors (Mark Jaccard, Nic Rivers, and Matt Horne) are responsible for the opinions. But the copyright is held by C.D. Howe, not by the authors, as indicated by that little "c" thingy in the circle.

Can Jaccard share his ideas? Yes. But if he has written his ideas down in a C.D. Howe Institute document, quoting from that document requires credit, regardless of the participation of the author in the new project. I know what this is like -- any idea I come up with belongs to my employer by default. That it popped out of my head doesn't give me the right to let someone else use it without the permission of, or without compensation being paid to, my employer.

Now the C.D. Howe Institute provides reports in the hope of influencing public opinion (as opposed to a commercial enterprise that tries to keep intellectual property confidential). As such, it would like to see the intellectual output of its authors end up in government programs. So far, so good. But that does not mean that it gives it away for free. People are allowed to use quotations, and that is a very specific documentary instrument. It means enclosing in quotation marks or offsetting in a quotation block. It also means sourcing the quote (the "credit" mentioned) to the C.D. Howe Institute.

As for the participation of Jaccard, that would help explain the reason why the programs being touted have similar names as the ones in the C.D. Howe report. Presumably Jaccard is still pushing the same set of programs. That still requires crediting, but it would make sense.

I am particularly troubled, tough, by the examples of actual verbage repeated in both reports. That means that whatever consultations Davis says happened with Jaccard, when it came to writing the Ignatieff report, the author had the C.D. Howe report open on the desk beside him, and was copying in entire portions of text, and then incorporating that text into the report. It makes me wonder just what exactly Jaccard was being asked, since they ended up using his written report anyway.

In fact, if you quoted and sourced everything properly, you might find the Ignatieff report to be a lot of quotes with only a some filler text to hold it together. That might be something they wanted to avoid, either for aesthetic reasons or to avoid the appearance of a patchwork policy.

If for aesthetics, then a general comment saying that a great deal of the contents of the document were drawn in part or in full from the original C.D. Howe report of 2004 would have avoided this whole issue (or at least made it far less severe). Such a global reference wouldn't meet academic standards, but then this isn't an academic document. But it would be an honest attempt to meet the spirit of the conditions set out by the C.D. Howe Institute concerning fair use of its materials.

If the reason for not using of credited quotations as demanded by the C.D. Howe Institute was to avoid looking like the the majority of the plan was cobbled together from many other sources...well, that really didn't work, did it? And you still have the problem that the copyrighted property of the C.D. Howe Institute was (1) not properly quoted, and (2) not properly credited.

That Jaccard apparently participated in the preparation of the Ignatieff report takes out some of the sting, but not much. The C.D. Howe Institute has still been cheated of the full recognition of its contribution. There is stiill no way by reading the Ignatieff text to know which material is original and which is copied (lack of quotation marks). The reader still has no way of going back to original material to determine just how Jaccard's ideas were being used by Ignatieff (lack of credits).

By the way, we don't know which ideas belong to Rivers and Horne, so we don't know how they might feel about not being given credit. That's why you have to accurately reproduce quotes from the fully credited original, especially when multiple authors are involved.

In any case, after careful consideration, I have to say nothing has changed for me. The C.D. Howe Institute was not provided full and proper credit for the use of its work. The work was not quoted in a permissible manner. The reader has no idea of the pedigree of the policy Ignatieff is proposing, and is cheated of the opportunity to read original source material and so fully evaluate the Ignatieff plan.

This still looks like an attempt to pass off someone else's work as his own. Or at least an attempt to obscure just how much of this plan was really someone else's work. Professor Ignatieff knows better. Harvard professor, indeed.

Bottom line is this. Whether it's the C.D. Howe Institute or the David Suzuki Foundation or the Globe and Mail, many people are involved in preparing these reports and articles who aren't the authors. Editors, typesetters, graphic artists -- only some of the many skilled people whose livelihood depends on these institutes maintaining membership levels, and that depends on credibility. When you cheat the institutes by denying them the credit they deserve, you steal money away from these hard-working folks.

[On the other hand, thanks for noticing the blog, Brad. Nice to know people are reading.]