Last week’s activities of the Canadian Prime Minister have created some confusion on how serious Canada is on helping to create a post-Kyoto Protocol but one thing is for sure: The importance of a donut has never put the international community in such a position.

On September 23, Prime Minister Harper showed that he chose donuts and tax policies over a meeting of global leaders at the largest ever United Nations Climate Summit, called by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York.

The purpose of the Summit was to build the driving force needed to ensure that the final 75 days left until the United Nations Conference in Copenhagen would put the planet on the correct path to address climate change. The international leaders who attended included U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chinese President Hu Jintao; but Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper was not in attendance and sent Environment Minister Jim Prentice instead.

It may be understandable that being in the position of being Prime Minister does cause for some conflicting scheduling but upon visiting the Canadian Environment Ministers website the apparent conflict of schedule does showcase the need to address our domestic donut issue and allow the rest of the world to worry about the international ones.

Tim Hortons Inc. is a Canadian fast food restaurant founded in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario by Canadian hockey player Tim Horton and Jim Charade. The first stores only offered two products – coffee and donuts which combined with the popularity of a hockey player turned businessman launched it into its Canadian icon status.  In March 2006,  Tim Hortons completed an  public offering, becoming a separate company as of September 29, 2006. Tim Hortons began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as well as the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) which caused a drastic loss creating a timbit sized recession in Canada’s economy and removing Canada’s monopoly on the first Coffee Donut Mechanism (CDM).

While there could be much detailed information provided around the less than stellar ethics of Tim Horton’s since it does not sell organic coffee, nor do they sell Fair trade coffee the only previous direct linkage to attributing to climate change would be the emissions from the many drive-throughs across Canada. While the issue of Canada’s loss in the CDM market was an issue on many Canadians’ minds, there also has been many citizens urging for international leadership from Canada in the UNFCCC process.

Watch The PM Harper Puts Donuts Before Planet Video

Tagged: Bangkok, Barack Obama, British Prime Minister, Canada, CDM, Chinese President, Climate Change, Coffee, Doughnut, French President, Gordon Brown, Hu Jintao, Jim Prentice, Nicolas Sarkozy, Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, Tim Hortons, U.S. President, UN, UNFCCC