The protection of at-risk species, once maintained so well by our government, has taken a backseat to business development. Now when habitat needs to be protected to ensure the survival of a species, government and industry often balk and backpedal. This signals a failure to understand that we depend on nature for our well-being and survival.

And where's the "humanity" in defending animal rights? Like me, devout animal lovers and environmentalists (often one and the same) betray an underlying misanthropy, a profound disgust and disillusion with humanity. We can love animals because they aren't our competitors; they're dumb and easily used to serve our ends.

Environmental groups in Canada are in the crosshairs of the government, and are under investigation for fiscal mismanagement. But what about groups like the Fraser Institute, which uses foreign money to feed misinformation to children, undermine national and global climate action and block shifts away from the most carbon-intensive energy on earth?

This emphasis of economy over environment, and indeed, the separation of the two, comes as humanity is undergoing dramatic changes.So we create departments of forests, fisheries and oceans, and environment whose ministers are less concerned with the health, and well-being of forests, fish, oceans than with resources, and the economies that depend on them.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has told Canadians: "Free your pennies from their prisons at home and donate them to charity." However, he does not want you to liberate American pennies from the prisons in your home by donating them to charity.

With a face shining with excitement my eight-year-old son Quinn turned to me with what he though was very exciting news, "Mommy, isn't it great that they have figured out how to do the oil sands better? Now we can get oil that we really need while leaving the forests and even the butterflies are okay." "What?!"