Canadians Want Harpo to Clean Up

The Canadian public isn’t put off by skyrocketing gas prices, they still want urgent action to combat climate change from their government.

A Canadian Press/Harris Decima poll found Canadians, by a 2-1 margin, want strong action on the environment as a way to find greener, alternative sources of energy.

Gee, given the level of popular support, what could be holding our Furious Leader back? Oh, silly me, I forgot – it’s his boss in Washington and their mutual pals better known as Big Oil.

But wait, didn’t these guys just agree to a 50% cut in emissions by 2050 at the G8 summit? Of course they did but, then again, they would have as easily promised everyone a tasty hunk of green cheese from the moon by 2050 if only they’d been asked.

 

If Not Now, Then When?

Blowhard EnviroMin John Baird warns not to expect any climate change deal coming out of the G8 summit.

Bush and his Yo ‘Ho Clone of the North say no deal unless India and China sign on for equal cuts. I’ve already addressed their highly selective idea of what “equal” means but it ought to be more than enough to ensure that Big Oil isn’t given an enviro-wedgie anytime soon.

Leave Bush out of this. He’s finished anyway, a washed up malignancy. What about our own? No deal without China and India, eh? Okay then when will we see that kind of deal? How long can we wait? What are we going to do to entice/cajole India and China into a deal to our liking? Where’s our carrot and our stick? Better yet, what will be the fallout of insisting on a deal that India and China won’t accept?

Bairdo doesn’t like getting into these questions. He’s quite content to stonewall, depicting India and China as the recalcitrants without ever acknowledging any merit to their “per capita” arguments. Baird would rather throw up a smokescreen any day than clear the air.

 

Okay Lardo, It’s a Command Performance Now

Our Furious Leader, little Stevie Harper, may have to think twice about spurning Stephane Dion’s challenge for an “adult debate” on the Liberal Green Shift proposal.

A Toronto Star/Angus Reid poll found 70% of respondents absolutely keen on the debate idea.

The Big Greasy Splotch is going to have to tread carefully through this one. If he doesn’t debate, he won’t look good to most Canadians. If he does debate, he runs even greater risks. He might just give Dion the opportunity to show he’s not a wimp. Worse yet, he might give Dion a forum to showcase the real merits and limited downside effects of the tax shift proposal.

Poor old Lardo. He’s great at sniping from the weeds but now he’s being called out – by the Canadian people.

 

An "Adult Debate" on Climate Change?

Stephane Dion seems insistent on bringing Stephen Harper into the floodlights over climate change.

Dion has struck back, challenging our Furious Leader, Mr. “We’re Screwed” Harper, to an adult debate on the Liberals’ “Green Shift” plan to reduce carbon emissions.

“I call on the Prime Minister to debate with me any time on TV on this issue in a respectful, meaningful and adult way.”

No word yet on whether the Great Greasy Spot will take Dion’s challenge.

 

A Solid Case for Renewable Energy

$140 a barrel oil. Surely that’s enough to get us off our duffs and get serious about renewable energy.

Brit prime minister Gord Brown calls today’s oil prices “the most worrying situation in the world.” A bit of hyperbole in that one, perhaps, but still…

Brown said there was a growing view that the price of oil was “increasingly dependent, not just on today’s demands, but on what people perceive as demand outstripping supply next year and in the long term.”

So, you see, it all comes down to perception. It’s all about perception of what oil demand will be next year and there’s not a lot we can do on the supply side of the equation. But – and here’s the kicker – there are so many solutions open to us on the demand side. Everything from smaller, more fuel efficient cars; smaller and cheaper to heat housing; and, of course, renewable energy.

Of course, our Furious Leader might not see things that way. As a net producer of oil, admittedly dependent on ersatz oil production, the economic impacts are different for Canada than they are for major net importers such as that country just across the line. There’s gold in them thar tar pits, plenty of it, and the best part is that most of it is just where he wants it – in Alberta.

Remember when Stephen Harper denounced the global warming issue as a “great socialist plot” to transfer wealth. Well his tar sands pet project increasingly sounds like a “great capitalist plot” to suck wealth out of the rest of Canada and transfer a bit to Alberta and the lion’s share to the main beneficiaries, American oil companies developing Athabasca.

Isn’t it time for a government that’s not wed to the Tar Sands and Big Oil?

 

Another Harpie Heading for the Toolbox?

I never understood Jim Flaherty.

There was always something about the guy that didn’t add up, that seemed somehow off. He wasn’t what we’ve come to expect in a Finance Minister. He wasn’t that essential bit reserved and considered. Instead he more closely resembled the beer hall brawler on a Saturday night at closing time.

Flaherty exuded a dull and brutish tone, presenting a character that seemed to constantly embrace a simmering belligerence. He always struck me as a tad unhinged. Come to think of it, that could equally well describe Harper’s EnviroMin, John Baird. Maybe there’s something in that flawed character profile that genuinely appeals to our Furious Leader. But I digress.

In the Toronto Star, Chantal Hebert ponders what may be, for Flaherty, the end of the road:

“In the week since Bernier’s resignation, Flaherty’s future as finance minister has become the focal point of the upcoming cabinet shuffle. One way or another, his fate will reveal more about Stephen Harper’s mindset in the lead-up to a possible fall election than any other cabinet move.

Earlier this week Flaherty’s cabinet future, rather than Bernier’s romantic past, was the prime topic of speculation at Stéphane Dion’s end-of-session garden party. Almost to a man and a woman, senior Liberals expect the Prime Minister to seize the pretext of an unexpected shuffle to replace Flaherty with the less abrasive Jim Prentice.

With cabinet fever running rampant within Conservative ranks and with at least a half-dozen ministers pining for new assignments, the impetus for a major shuffle has been gaining momentum daily on Parliament Hill.

But the finance minister is a central figure of the cabinet. His role is ultimately more pivotal than that of the foreign affairs minister; to replace Flaherty at this advanced stage in the life of the government would be a delicate operation.

On the other hand, if the Conservatives do want to run as the team best equipped to deal with a flagging economy in the next election, Harper has no interest in going into the campaign with his current finance minister.

Flaherty may not have been the only minister from Ontario to engage in a war of words with Queen’s Park but it was his vocal part in the federal attacks on Dalton McGuinty that seemed to finally gel the province’s public opinion and send Conservative popularity on a downward spin this spring.

With satisfaction with the government declining in tandem with public confidence in the economy, Flaherty’s credentials as a former Mike Harris minister do little to dispel the perception that Harper’s regime is short on sensitivity and compassion.”

But we shouldn’t be too hard on Jim Flaherty. There’s no way he could have gotten away with his bellicosity toward Queens Park except with Stephen Harper’s approval.

Maybe we should pity Flaherty. After all, he’s coming out of this looking a bit like the loser in one of those internet street brawls where the rubbies beat the hell out of each other for a bottle of hooch.

 

A Government of Liars

I sympathize with the American people for, while they’ve made some stupid mistakes these past eight years, I can’t think of a time in the last six decades when the population of a Western nation has been so overwhelmed by such a malevolent pack of liars in office.

Word of caution here. I am NOT suggesting the Bush regime is on some sort of par with the Hitler administration, not at all, nothing of the sort. That said, I don’t think that state propaganda has been brought to bear on a populace so powerfully and effectively as by the Bushies since Joseph Goebbels and, even then, he openly called himself a propagandist.

It’s easy for us to judge and heap scorn on the American people but when have we ever been subjected to such a subversive onslaught of deceit, fear mongering and hate mongering from our own government? We haven’t. Not to say there aren’t those north of the 49th who wouldn’t try but we haven’t experienced the traumatic underpinning the Americans suffered on 9/11 to let them get away with it.

They lied their way into wars without end. They lied about their tax cuts and the prosperity it would bring to all. They lied about the danger of environmentalism. It’s been one lie atop the next until lie has become indistinguishable from truth.

Now we learn – surprise, surprise – that political appointees (commissars) in NASA’s public affairs office, “worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers’ findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general’s office said yesterday.”

From the Washington Post:

“James E. Hansen, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are two of the government’s lead agencies on climate change issues.

From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA’s public affairs office “managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.” It noted elsewhere that “news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution.”

Lest we yield to the temptation to get smug about this, remember this is pretty much exactly what Harpo has done by gagging Environment Canada scientists and requiring their communications with the outside world to be subjected to his political commissar’s censorship from the PMO.

“Kristin Scuderi, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in an e-mail that director John H. Marburger III “would not comment until he’s reviewed the report, and he has not yet done so yet. Therefore, OSTP has no comment at this time.”

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), one of the senators who pressed for the investigation, said in a statement that the report showed that citizens had been denied access to critical scientific information that should inform public policy.

“Global warming is the most serious environmental threat we face – but this report is more evidence that the Bush Administration’s appointees have put political ideology ahead of science,” Lautenberg said. “Our government’s response to global warming must be based on science, and the Bush Administration’s manipulation of that information violates the public trust.”

I suppose it must be some comfort to the White House to know that, even if John McCain loses in November, there’ll still be an administration nearby to keep alive the Bush legacy of secrecy and deceit. That is until we send them packing and restore democracy to Canada.

I remember the day when we used to mock and ridicule the Soviet Union for just this sort of thing.

 

Victoria to Fight Ottawa Over Insite?

The BC government has warned it may intervene to keep the Harper government from shutting Vancouver’s safe injection clinic, Insite.

Last week a BC Supreme Court judge, Ian Pitfield, ruled that Insite is a health care facility for drug addicts and, as such, can stay open despite the wacko fundamentalist views of the Harpies. The Cons have announced they’ll appeal that decision so they can shut down the clinic.

This is an issue that puts Harper squarely at odds with the people and government of British Columbia. The safe injection clinic where addicts are given clean needles and a place to use them under limited medical supervision is strongly supported in this province in part because it’s also the one place where addicts can get counselling and access to rehabilitation programmes.

BC Health Minister George Abbott was unequivocal in expressing his government’s support for Insite. “It is a very important case involving a health facility we believe is important in the continuum of care for people with addictions and for people with mental illness.” Abbott suggested that what British Columbia needs isn’t the end of Insite but more such clinics.

Most of this province isn’t keen on Harper’s social conservative ways, especially not in major population centres. BC is also more tolerant of drug use than other provinces which is reflected in relatively light sentencing in criminal cases.

But, if the Furious Leader wants a fight on this issue, he couldn’t have picked a better place for it in my view. If he wants a fight, a fight he’ll get and, next time, all the cameras will be on Lardo. He may suddenly find that he’s the one who’s really on trial out here. Welcome to Beautiful British Columbia, Steve, c’mon in!

 

Gomery Slaps Harper on Mulroney

There was a time when retired judge John Gomery was Stephen Harper’s darling. That was when the sponsorship scandal was underway and Gomery was handing Harper a ticket to 24 Sussex Drive.

Now it’s Harper who’s in Gomery’s crosshairs, this time over the enquiry into Mulroney’s shady dealings with KarlHeinz Schreiber.

Gomery’s comments to Canadian Press suggest he sees what’s coming as a set up:

“The man who headed the inquiry into the Liberal sponsorship scandal is questioning how serious Prime Minister Stephen Harper is about an inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair.

“It’s clear this is not a high priority for him, because he’s not treating it as a high priority,” retired judge John Gomery told The Canadian Press in an interview Wednesday.

“Once you’ve said you’re going to do something, usually you’re expected to do it within a reasonable period. And the period is getting beyond reasonable.”

But the prime minister has delayed action, first while the Commons ethics committee conducted hearings, and then while a special adviser, University of Waterloo president David Johnston, compiled two preliminary reports on the affair.

Johnston recommended a relatively narrow probe into lobbying activities that Mulroney undertook for Schreiber after leaving office in 1993. That would exclude the so-called Airbus affair that centred on Air Canada’s purchase of European-built jetliners while Mulroney was still in power.

Gomery called it “unprecedented” for Harper to ask an outside party to decide on the scope of the proposed inquiry.

The prospect of a narrow probe may be making it difficult for the government to find a judge willing to take the job, Gomery speculated.

Any commissioner “is going to be criticized from Day 1 if he follows that (mandate) and restricts the evidence to certain periods of time, certain facts. If he goes a little bit more broadly, he may be challenged in court for exceeding his mandate.”

It was a different story, said Gomery, when former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin gave him a broad mandate to delve into the sponsorship affair that erupted under predecessor Jean Chretien.

“Generally speaking, I was able to go where I thought I should go to get the answers that I needed to get. I don’t think that’s the case for the (Mulroney-Schreiber) inquiry, if it’s ever conducted.”

What, a set up? By our Furious Leader, Little Stevie Harpo? To let Mulroney off the hook and spare his government embarrassment? Ya think?

 

Long Live the King, King Harper?

Like his American Idol, George w. Bush, our own Furious Leader, Stephen Harper is dead keen on usurping the power of the legislature in order to concentrate it in his own hands. He and his faceless, unelected minions in the PMO are the Ringmasters of Harper’s parliamentary circus.

From the Toronto Star:

“When Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood in Parliament and introduced a bombshell motion to formally recognize the Québécois as a nation within Canada, he surprised not just the country but his own cabinet minister ostensibly in charge of the file.
Michael Chong, intergovernmental affairs minister at the time, says Harper never consulted him about the bold move – made in November 2006 – even though he was responsible for Ottawa’s relations with the provinces.

A few days later, Chong resigned his post, saying he disagreed with the intent of the motion.
Academic and author Donald Savoie cites that incident as one example of the growing concentration of power in the Prime Minister’s Office – at the expense of MPs, bureaucrats, cabinet ministers and ultimately the public.

He argues that Canada has evolved into a court-style government, where the prime minister sits as “king” and has a “court” of select senior ministers, mandarins and lobbyists that rule the nation. Savoie says Parliament has been reduced to a bit player and cabinet ministers are now mere pawns.”

Obviously imperial rule appeals to a leader who values secrecy above anything else and considers that notions of accountability stop well short of his elevated throne. This guy has no respect for our people, our Parliament or our democracy.

Update: h/t Ken Chapman for drawing attention to Lawrence Martin’s piece on the “Sun King” in today’s Globe & Mail.

“Not a team man. Not a big advocate of democratic decision-making. The flaws of Stephen Harper are spelled out in Preston Manning’s book, “Think Big.”

In the Reform movement of the late 1980s and ’90s, Mr. Harper wanted to do everything himself, Mr. Manning said. “He had serious reservations about Reform’s and my belief in the value of grassroots consultation and participation in key decisions and my conviction that the adjective to distinguish our particular brand of conservatism should be ‘democratic.’ ” Not only did Mr. Harper take a dim view of democratic tendencies, Mr. Manning recalled, but if he didn’t get his own way, he would get up and leave.”

That pretty much sums up Harper today, more warlord than prime minister, a creepy sort of guy to be hanging around in our prime minister’s office, too obsessed with plotting to have much time left over for serving the country.