Fiddling, bread and circuses in Government today

The Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand reports that Canada’s failure to fight climate change is disturbing.

Water level watch

 She says neither Conservative nor Liberal governments have met their own targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and Canada is not on track to hit its 2030 target, despite policies like the new national price on carbon.
Gelfand's audit today says the Liberals are not keeping a promise to get rid of inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies, which are undermining efforts to combat climate change, encouraging wasteful consumption of fossil fuels and discouraging investments in cleaner energy sources.1

The image that Nero fiddled while Rome burned comes to mind as successive governments neglect to give climate change action the priority it needs.

Moving in Rome

 Secondly, the story may be completely false and Nero may very well not have neglected his duty at all. Nero died four years later, and we should remember that history is written by the victors. The historian Suetonius records the Nero was responsible for the fire and that he watched it from a tower while playing an instrument and singing about the destruction of Troy. Others record this story merely as a rumour.2

The Roman Empire offered bread and circuses to satisfy the immediate demands of the populace.

To the Roman Circus

"Bread and circuses" (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metonymic phrase critiquing superficial appeasement. It is attributed to Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD — and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts.
In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace[1] — by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).3 

Who is fiddling today in Canada? What political distraction is offered the people to divert our attention from calling government to account to address the real problems?

Beware bread and circuses

The serious issues confronting Canada call for (1) climate change leadership, (2) indigenous reconciliation, and (3) investment in jobs to transform of energy and transportation infrastructure.

References

1	(2019, April 2). Canada's failure to fight climate change 'disturbing ... - CBC.ca. Retrieved April 2, 2019, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-commissioner-julie-gelfand-disturbing-climate-change-1.5081027
2	(n.d.). 'Fiddling while Rome burns' - the meaning and origin of this phrase. Retrieved April 2, 2019, from https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fiddling-while-rome-burns.html
3	(n.d.). Bread and circuses - Wikipedia. Retrieved April 2, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses