Liberal Leader Stephane Dion calls on Harper to clarify Quebec Nationhood

Opposition leader, Stephane Dion, is now calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to clarify what he means when he says Quebec is a nation.

It is very strange that Mr. Dion is now questioning the wording of a motion that was passed with an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. Especially since he, Interim Liberal leader Bill Graham and NDP leader Jack Layton, were consulted by the Prime Minister when the motion was being drafted.

…the leaders of the two other federalist parties were consulted on Harper's resolution, as was Liberal leadership candidate Stephane Dion, an academic and battle-hardened Quebec federalist…

The House of Commons passed the motion recognizing Quebec as a nation within Canada on November 26th, 2006 with an overwhelming majority of 266 to 16. It was supported by a majority of MP’s from the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Bloc parties.

If Mr. Dion needed clarification on the wording of the motion, which he ended up supporting, why didn’t he seek it at the time he was being consulted? Why is he suddenly asking for clarification seven months later? Is he really being serious or is he just trying to score political points?

Un-elected Senate Passes Kyoto Bill

Fellow blogger, Unambiguously Ambidextrous, wrote a very interesting article, Stephen Harper Tries To Teach Liberal Party Math, on the constitutional impossibility of the Conservative government complying with the new law passed by the “un-elected senate” that requires the federal government to adhere to Kyoto commitments. It is not a money bill, so it will be difficult to see how the government will be forced to implement it, taking into account the enormous costs estimated by economists to be in the billions of dollars.

According to Jayson Myers, chief economist for the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, in a Feb 9th, 2007 article featured in the National Post

"To implement the protocol we need to reduce fossil fuel energy by about 30% in order to get a 30% reduction in emissions and you need to do that in a four -to-five-year period," … "It is impossible to do”

...

"To reduce emissions in Canada by 30% you could eliminate the entire manufacturing sector, you could take all of the cars off the road, and together that would still not close the gap. So anyone who says we can ever meet Kyoto has absolutely no idea what the immensity of this problem actually is."


Mr. Myers also mentioned the staggering costs that Canada would face if it simply goes ahead and buys “emission credits”, as many of the countries in the EU are doing.

"That's $25-billion that's going offshore and is not going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, so we lose $25-billion. It's a poor use of money."

Despite revelations such as this from Mr. Myers and other credible economists, the "Un-elected Senate" still went ahead and passed the Kyoto bill, knowing full-well that it would never be accountable to its constituents for the massive cost or significant job-losses that would affect the Canadian economy if it were ever implemented.

The irony of this bill is that it compels the Conservative government to implement a plan in 60 days that the previous Liberal government was not able to do in the 13 years that it was in office. So the true intent of the bill seems to be designed to back the Federal government into a corner and chose between two unpalatable options. They can either ignore it and be accused of snubbing parliament and the constitution, or implement policies that would have such devastating consequences for the Canadian economy and cost our country thousands of jobs, higher taxes and a significant increase in the cost of living.

Fred made a brilliant comment in response to the article that sheds some light on some of the drastic measures that would have to be taken, should PMSH chose to implement policies to reduce Canada’s GHG from its present level of 30% over the 1990 level (Thanks to the Liberals) to 6% below the 1990 level by 2012. I have chosen to include it for the benefit of the readers

This comment is in the form of a hypothetical speach to parliament :)

“Mister Speaker, since the Liberal dominated Senate rushed approval of the Bill, I rise today to announce measures that my government must take to comply with C288, otherwise known as the “Pablo Rodriguez Law of Unintended Consequences”.

In order to comply with the Bill and Kyoto, it is necessary to take some drastic measures to either reduce emissions I Canada. Because it is not a money bill, we cannot buy credits from other signatory nations of the Kyoto Protocol who do not need to reduce their emission but get to sell these credits. We can force ordinary Canadians to use their disposable income to buy the needed credits.

Canada got hosed at Kyoto. Jean Chretien’s Liberal government signed Canada to a treaty that means we must reduce our standard of living in order to comply. Bill 288 further obligates Canada to reduce its economy in order to comply and because of the way the Bill is worded, our Government must achieve the 2008 - 2012 targets within 180 days of the Bill being granted Royal Ascent, so we must act NOW.

I am instructing a number of government department and agencies to enact the following emergency measure so that we can comply with the will of Parliament, or at least the Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecois parts of parliament.

1. Immediate shutdown of all coal fired power plants in Canada. We realize that this will hit Ontario very hard – 1/3 of Ontario’s electricity is coal generated, but look on the bright side, the lack of power will also cause the shutdown of thousands of plants and factories, throwing hundreds of thousands out of work. While we are it, we’ll close down all the top ten GhG emitters, as researched by Pollution Probe, listed below:

Rank Company Name Province

1 Ontario Power Generation On
2 Transalta Utilities AB
3 Sask Power SK
4 Alberta Power Corp AB
5 Nova Scotia Power Inc NS
6 Syncrude Canada Ltd. AB
7 Suncor Energy inc. Oil Sands AB
8 EPCOR Generation Inc. AB
9 Petro-Canada AB
10 Dofasco Inc. On

2. Immediate shutdown of the entire Petroleum industry across Canada – we will need to import our oil but we are only going to import oil from countries that will sell us Kyoto Credits. Besides we won’t need gas or oil because we won’t have the money to buy these big GhG emitters.

3. Immediately ban all wood burning fireplaces, charcoal and propane BBQ’s and summer campfires. All recreational vehicles and activities are deemed frivolous and will be banned. Sorry Bombardier, you are jusr screwed. No more skidoos and water jet boats. We are investigating how to ban forest fires as well, but that has its challenges.

4. A 50 cent per litre “GhG Kyoto Credit Buying Tax. Based on recent data that we use about 45 Billion liters of gasoline every year, this new tax revenue should make up the shortfall in general tax revenues caused by the overall collapse of the Canadian economy caused by the cheap political theatrics of the Liberal Party of Canada. It will not make up for the billions in lost income taxes the Federal and Provincial governments will not collect by the 35% contraction of our economy we need to achieve to be Kyoto compliant.

5. We will not be able to afford generous EI support for all the laid off workers because the numbers will reach in the millions. Shutting down the oil sands alone will result in huge job losses in Alberta, but also in Quebec and Ontario, where tens of thousands of workers make the pipes, valves, machinery, trucks, tires, computers and other equipment that would have been purchased had we not put these actions in place to meet the requirements of the “Pablo Rodriguez Law of Unintended Consequences” Bill. Buzz Hargrove is going to be really, really, pissed off at Steffi & his best buddy Pablo “The economy Killer” Rodriguez. Shutting down the transportation industry will also be hard on employment, but we haven’t had time yet to count how many truck drivers there are in Canada, so we can’t tell you yet how many of their jobs will be toast.

6. For the tens of thousands of workers in the Financial sector, we are aware that the mortgage and credit crisis these moves will cause will result in the devastation of your industry as well, but we expect that the Barons of Bay street will be able to salvage a few jobs scamming a few bucks in the International Carbon Credit Trading Market, or as some have come to call it, the Kyoto Hot Air Credit Socialist Money Sucking Ponzi Scheme. Hopefully you will be one of the few out of the tens of thousands Financial Sector workers who will get one of these new jobs – you might even make megatonnes of money.

7. Since there will be a huge rise in the number of corporate and personal bankruptcies, our government will be enacting new legislation to simplify the process. Simply nail a sign to the front door of your home saying “WE QUIT” or for consumer debt, place your cut up credit and bank cards in an envelope and mail them to Pablo Rodriguez. That’s all, no lawyers or courts needed

8. We will also be reducing the size of the federal government payroll by at least 35% to meet the requirement to keep the budget balanced to the new and much lower levels of Federal revenues. That should be a few hundred thousand fewer Civil Servants at the Federal Level and many, many more at the Provincial level. We understand this will devastate the economy of Ottawa, but what the Hell, the rest of Canada doesn’t care about what happens in Moonbat Land sur Rideau, so no worries. To the 150,000 or so Civil Servants who will lose their ticket to the Golden Pension Plan, tough shit.

9. We will be forced to make massive reductions to the Federal government’s transfer of Social Services & Health dollars to the provinces to fit within the new fiscal capabilities of Canada’s Federal government. We will leave it up to individual provinces to decide to close schools or hospitals, or both, or whatever. It’s a provincial responsibility, but at the very least, expect much longer waits for even basic medical service. Since Canada, in addition to using “more than our fair share of Carbon” also uses more than “our fair share of global health care”, it’s about time we cut back, suffered more, did away with excessive health care and just suffered along with the rest of the world.

Its not all bad news. Canada should be able to save a fortune in Immigration costs. We have a forecast from government experts that Canada will go to last place in the quest for skilled immigrant labour. Somehow they don’t want to come to a country with power shortages, no air conditioning, limited winter heating, no jobs a Health Care system modeled on Zimbabwe and a devastated economy. Go figure. The USA and Australia will benefit from these immigrants and their skills.

Mr. Speaker, let me close by thanking the Liberals, especially Mr Chretien who’s stupidity, ego and driving need to buy himself a political “good-guy” legacy got us into this mess, the current Liberal mega green leader Citoyen Dion, the NDP, under the leadership of Jack “Talban” bin Layton, the Bloc Quebecois and their inspired of Gilles “Hairnet” Duceppe for voting for Bill C288. But especially all Canadians want to thank Liberal Pablo Rodriguez for devastating our economy and depressing our standard of living to upper third world status. And of course, all those unelected, self-serving Liberal Senators with a life long lip-lock on the public, taxpayer funded teat would actually have to work for a living instead of sucking the blood of taxpayers like a swarm of malarial mosquitoes.

As we huddle in the cold and swelter in the summer heat, as we stare at our old car we can’t afford to drive, as we fondly remember how hard it was to get out of bed on a Monday morning to go to the job we used to have, we can take pride in being the best-est, wonderful-est, the most moral-est international goody-goody boy scout country supporting the great socialist ponzi scheme called Kyoto and proving we are doing our part to help the planet be saved.

Thank you Mr. Speaker”

Canadian Wheat Board Taking Federal Government to Court

The Canadian Wheat board is taking the Federal government to court to challenge an end of its monopoly on the sale of barley as of August 1st. Its supporters in the NDP are already expressing delight at this development. This is not surprising, as this party along with the Liberals have always advocated for and supported bloating government bureaucracy at the expense of the free-market.

NDP agriculture critic, Alex Atamanenko ( Southern Interior ) made the following statement:

"Ever since this Conservative government was elected they have been openly hostile in to the Board and have caused nothing but harm and confusion to everyone involved,". "This timely scrutiny by the courts will hopefully cause the government to be a little less heavy handed in future dealings with the Board"

This is despite a democratic vote by Western farmers in the Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia to end this monopoly.

Approximately 29,000 votes were cast. Out of this, 48.4 % of farmers voted to end the monopoly and allow Western farmers to market their own barley, but still have the option of marketing through the Canadian Wheat Board. 37.8 % voted to retain the CWB monopoly, while 13.8 % voted to abolish the CWB role in the marketing of barley. This means that approximately 62% of the Western farmers voted to have the option the to independently market their own crops.

By moving to end the CWB monopoly, Federal agriculture minister, Chuck Strah is courageously defending the rights of Western Farmers. For too long, these farmers who assume all the risk in growing and harvesting their own crops have been denied the right to independently market their own crops. It is expecially unfair, when farmers in Eastern and Central Canada are free to do so. There is something inheritantly wrong with a system where many western farmers have been thrown in jail for attempting to do sell their barley independently, when all they want is to get the best price for their products.

For too long many farmers have been complaining of being shortchanged by the CWB not paying them a fair price for their product. Some are complaining that they can get between $4.00 and $4.50 a bushel on the open market, while the CWB is only paying $3.00.

Federal Agriculture Minister, Chuck Strahl

"If you go the prairies right now, I'm telling you, the farmers will tell you what they want is to finally get from the market what's coming to them"

One of the arguments made by the CWB is that they cannot survive as a voluntary marketing agency. MP David Anderson (Cypress Hills – Grasslands) refutes this.

“It would appear that they are either insincere, incompetent, or ignorant: Insincere because they know better but aren’t saying; incompetent because they truly can’t figure it out; or ignorant because they are unaware that prairie farmers already accomplished this feat in the 1920’s”

The CWB manopoly is a system that should have been abolished many years ago. A system that applies 19th century economics, does not belong in the 21st century. Especially one that does not share in the labour of growing and harvesting crops, but has the right to tell the farmers who did all the work in that it knows what is best for them when it comes to marketing their own crops. Hopefully the Federal government will prevail and give the Western farmers the freedom enjoyed by their counterparts in Eastern and Central Canada.

Canada's No-Fly list goes into effect

Canada’s starts its own version of the no-fly list goes into effect today. There are approximately 1,000 names on this list and anyone who has the misfortune of being on it will be denied boarding on domestic and foreign flights.

Many of its critics have expressed fears, because of problems experienced in the United States with its version, even though it has been in effect since 2001. According to various estimates, the number of names on the American version is between 40,000 and 100,000 names.

About 2 weeks ago, CBS news show, 60 minutes did a feature on issues with this list and they found the following problems.

1. There were many innocent civilians who had the misfortune of having their name on the list, even though they had no connection to any terrorist activity. Several members of congress, including Congressman Don Young, John Lewis and Senator Ted Kennedy have been delayed or denied boarding on flights because their names were on it.

2. There is no transparent system by which one could plead his or her case to have their name removed from the list

3. There was the problem of anyone with the misfortune of having the same name as a suspected terrorist. The airlines only had the name and not much else, no picture, no birth date, so there was no way in which they could distinguish between an innocent person and the suspected terrorist.

Donna Bucella, who runs the FBI’s terrorist screening center, acknowledged that the list was not perfect, but expressed confidence that her department was doing its best to correct it.

“It's like painting a bridge. Once you finish one end, you gotta come back. So we endeavor to get the list as current and accurate and thorough as possible."

Federal Transportation Minister, Lawerence Cannon, has downplayed these concerns and have assured Canadians that they do not have anything to worry about.

"I can assure passengers that they'll be okay. The people who are going to be on this list are convicted terrorists, people who have made threats against both airlines and aircraft and people who have threatened air safety," Cannon said.
"Certainly that's not the case with the vast majority of Canadians."


Passengers over 18 will be required to carry at least one government issued photo ID or two pieces of non-photo ID, that will be screened against the “no fly list” at the airline ticket counter. If their names appear on the list, it will be cross-referenced against the date of birth, address and passport number listed. If there is a difference, the passenger will be cleared to board the flight


Hopefully the implementation of this “no-fly” list will make flying airlines in Canada safer from passengers while minimizing delays and inconvenience that they may experience. Its critics are already predicting long delays at Canada's major airports. Only time will tell how this issue will play out with the Canadian public.

Anti-free-trade protesters in Halifax blame the media for violence

Organizers of an anti-free-trade protest in Halifax are blaming the media for the violence. According to the organizers, violence was the only way to bring media attention to their cause.

As usual, these groups refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, and the organizer refused to condemn his peers, that were vandalizing buildings and attacking the police

....organizer Pierre Blais says dozens of protesters that hurled paint balls and bottles at buildings and police on Friday weren't part of his group, but he doesn't condemn their actions.

It is time for the judiciary to apply stiff prison sentences to anyone convicted of committing violent acts during a protest, but knowing the weak justice system that we have in Canada, I am not holding my breath.

Culture of Violence

A little over 2 weeks ago, 15 year-old teenager, Jordan Manners was shot to death inside his school. It was an extremely tragic event, but just the latest chapter to the ever- increasing black-on-black violence that seems to be permeating the city of Toronto. As usual the political opportunists immediately started coming out of the woodwork. "Ban handguns!" chanted Toronto Mayor, David Miller and Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty.

Unfortunately this has not worked in countries such as the UK and Australia that have tried it, as a majority of criminals obtain their weapons illegally anyway. It would only serve to deprive the law-abiding citizens of a means of protecting themselves from these thugs.

In several Toronto communities, such as "Jane and Finch" and "Rexdale", its inhabitants have only unwittingly contributed to this problem by refusing to speak to the police. As was witnessed last week, many of them screamed with indignation when the police took very drastic actions against the gangs plaguing their communities in a series of well-coordinated police raids. What the police found was that there ware several females and minors who assisted these gangs by storing its weapons, running drugs for them and acting as lookouts to thwart any police activity. Yet whenever there is a shooting, these same people accuse the police of not doing enough to stem the tide of violence affecting them.

It is time for these communities to make a decision. They need to stop offering protection to these criminals and deprive them of a safe haven. It is only then that will see a break in the culture of violence affecting these communities.