Latest update on the catch 22
Looks like the liberals are finding out too late that their much vaunted coup last spring getting
Pablo's private members bill passed is going to push them into an election they cannot afford to fight both figuratively, financially, and physically.
And unless its not clear I'll explain it again.
The opposition parties must oppose the throne speech if it states the Kyoto targets cannot be reached by the Kyoto deadline. Especially Dion will have to make possibly the worst decision of his life to give his party more time to prepare, or let his pride get the best of him.
I'm counting on his pride, he is after all a liberal.
Start the countdown for a press release from Lizzy May saying the deal is off.
Labels: Conservative majority, kyoto, May's little green monster, useful idiots
Catch 22 update
Gotta love this story as it points out how the scenario I keep alluding to is unfolding.
link"No one should forget that emissions rose steadily under the former Liberal government, year after year, despite its Kyoto vows. Canada cannot meet its targets now. Mr. Dion should allow the clean air bill to lapse."
So here's Dion heading off to Newfoundland to make nice with Dannyboy, and making noise about how he was so honest.
Here's the rub. If Dion ever got his way not only would that favourite liberal whipping boy big bad Alberta pay a steep economic price, but so to would Dion's newest best friend Newfoundland. See as a federal plan it doesn't stop at the Alberta border, it goes wherever there is oil production in Canada....so Danny if you got upset cause Harper said chose the Alantic Accord or the new equalization formula, the guy will no doubt have an annurism over the effects of compliance with Kyoto.
Speaking of which.
With the new Hebron deal, Danny's contention of a poor province getting the shaft is starting to sound more and more like a inbred sense of "entitlement" and less a story of a fight for the common man. He also should be careful about the standard he wants to use, as it becomes obvious that Danny will have his own version of Adscam come and bite him on the arse.
As for Dion, sabre rattling like he is over Afghanistan or the enviroment seems more like preaching to the "converted" and less like outreach to disenfranchised liberals.
This is one individual that hopes neither Dion or Dannyboy reads articles like the one I've linked to. I'd like to see a Harper majority.
Labels: kyoto
Start the countdown to the next election
And so the game begins. This is the precursor of events to come....at least with regard to the next federal election.....or forcing the Kyoto crowd to run up the white flag.
The Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois pushed through the Kyoto Implementation Act last June, a law that says the government must submit a "Climate Change Plan'' for meeting the requirements under the international agreement within 60 days. The "plan'' it published Tuesday repeats the argument that trying to meet Kyoto by 2012 would wreak economic disaster on the Canadian economy. It estimates astronomical gas-price hikes and catastrophic job losses.At the end of the article was the part that says the liberals are still not getting it.
""They have no intention of being bound or honouring the obligations of Kyoto," McGuinty said. "They've been perfectly clear on this even before arriving in government.''"
Gee, you think?
McGuinty while he was so intent on grandstanding seems to miss the point that only the government can table legislation that involves spending and by making this statement McGuinty has made it clear the liberals are going to table a nonconfidence motion over this. The problem is that going into an election over this the opposition parties all (Lib, NDP, Bloc, and Green) are going to be restricted to a platform (no matter what they publish) of higher taxes, draconian legislation, and a lower standard of living. At the very least the best the oppositin can hope for under those conditions is that their core support just sits on their hands next election.
The other part they missed is that its hard to make a case against global warming in the middle of winter.
But the best part of all this is if the opposition cannot succeed in bringing down the Harper government over this their credibility will be destroyed. Its one thing to back off on a threat its quite another when you've invested so much on that one issue. The point is that if the opposition forces a nonconfidence motion on this they have to follow through....Harper knows the opposition can't backdown without seriously losing face with its hard core kook fringe.
For those scratching their head wondering how this is could be a bad case scenario for the lib-left its simple. The lib-left has always taken a non-position, when the issue is for or against with no mushy middle, we win they lose. They need that middle ground. In this case they lost it the day that private members bill was tabled. For them its impose the Kyoto protocol no matter what it costs
there is no other way, for the conservative government its do what you can how you can without turning the country into an economic basketcase.
I still give the following possible scenario as a plausible occurance.
The scene; election stop in the 905 area. When each leader comes to the place they get asked this question:
"Would your government impose the Kyoto protocol no matter what the consequences"?
The answer from the opposition cannot be anything other than yes, due to the fact that the reason the election was called was that all opposition parties tabled legislation that was suppose to force the government to impose Kyoto, the n/c motion was tabled because they refused to accept the governments plan that won't. All Harper has to say is that people have a right to earn a living and not have the crap taxed out them over a UN protocol.
If its still not understood, try this. Campainging on a platform of taxes, onerous legislation, and lower standard of living is not the liberal way. They like something for everyone platforms that paint a rosy picture. This private members bill is all about bad news. That means Harper gets the good news platform.
Update:
Looks like the Bloc is staking its position early this time they don't get holding the bag when the nonconfidence motion comes to the floor.
"
While Layton said his party would pursue other legislative options in Parliament, the Bloc Quebecois hinted that it might turn the matter of Canada's Kyoto targets into a confidence issue that could bring down the minority Conservative government and force an election in the fall"
Further in the article it states that Dion will be making a public statement on Thursday (today) to make the liberal position more clear. I predict that Dion doesn't want to be the last one to have to decide to support a nonconfidence motion over this mainly so the liberals don't get the blame for bringing forward the motion or be in the unpleasant position of supporting the government to avoid an election they can't afford.
Next update will be more info on Climateforchange.
Labels: Conservative majority, kyoto
A tale of two stories
Take these two stories
First oneSecond oneand try to figure out why only one is getting any exposure in the G&M?
Labels: kyoto
The big loophole in the Kyoto Protocol
Read
this article in the FP on friday, I must say its spot on.
First I did a bit of research on the writer Mr Herman and he is a lawyer by trade, has written on trade issues and global trade in particular. He's worked for UWO doing some work for the Ivey School. From the writers perspective this isn't one of Al Gore's disciples.
But I digress.
The article is in a well writen brief basically lays out an arguement that all we have to do as a nation to avoid being penalized under this "international agreement" is to rag the puck.
The part that nails it is this:
"But here's the rub. All this depends on the Kyoto parties defining the terms of the "second commitment period," post-2012. Without agreement on this post-2012 period, the compliance committee is just a paper tiger. It can't enforce anything against Canada because, so far at least, the period after 2012 remains a huge void.
Nothing has been agreed."
So if there is no agreement amoung the signatories before the deadline of 2012, nobody gets penalized. Let me be specific, if the rest of the signatories can't get the major emitters to sign on to a plan that is going to potentially constrict them economically the protocol is basically dead.
....Gee I can't see any reason why so-called major emitters like China, India, and the US would be reluctant to sign on.....sacasm off.
Long ago I prescribed to the idea that there is always someone else somewhere in this world that is smarter, or stronger, or wiser than me. So if Lawrence can figure this out, so did others including those in a position of power.....its they just didn't or can't say so. I'll go further and name names.
Jean Chretien knew when he signed us up without any debate in the house.
Oddly this logic that until the "major" emitters agree to targets Kyoto will not achieve its so-called goal is the type of talk we've been hearing from Harper and his past and present enviroment ministers. Go figure, they understand international agreements.
This begs the next question that I feel warrants some investigation.
Who might be the people that don't want to realize this reality?
Labels: Global tax regime, kyoto
Liberals new useful idiot part 3
I'm not going to preface any commentary on whether May should apologize to Harper or not.
What I will say is that if Harper is equated to Chamberlain, then an extention of the logic to what group of people are equated to nazi's can also be assumed to May's statement.
I will also say that in her official capacity, she cannot speak for herself alone but those that care to share the stage with her.
Again I won't demand an apology, or retraction.
However, I believe that Stephane Dion and particularly Glen Pearson need to make it clear whether they believe just as Elizabeth May does, that any of us who are skeptics of Kyoto should be equated with nazi's?
A collorary to this is the recent spike in gas prices.
You think this is bad? If Lizzy has her way the price at the pumps is going to be three times what it is now. This seems timely that the local A channel nightly news ran a piece on how an increase in gas prices is going to impinge on the volunteers that assist Meals-on-wheels and the local food bank.
Would this be the law of unintended consequences?
Labels: Global tax regime, kyoto, May's little green monster
Here it comes
Looks like Harper's strategy to make the election about the effects of Kyoto are coming to fruitition.
link"Robert Fife, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief, is reporting the following details from the study, which he said has been backed by independent economists:The economy would shrink by 4.2 per cent if Kyoto is implemented. "It says it will cause a recession on par with the 1981-82 recession." Job losses will total 275,000 by 2009 Electricity costs will jump by 50 per cent by 2010 Gasoline costs will jump by 60 per cent almost immediately, and Home heating oil will double."
Yep, and with the opposition parties falling over themselves to be "Kyoto, just Kyoto, and nothign but Kyoto" it will be hard for them to worm their way out of that corner without changing startegy halfway through the campaign.
Labels: Conservative majority, Global tax regime, kyoto
Harper will soon get his excuse to call a confidence motion
Proof Dion has the Martin gang working for him."Dion is calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to endorse the revised version of the Clean Air Act including its plan to have
a carbon budget for Canada that will help the country honour its Kyoto commitments."
Smooth move exlax. You and every opposition party leader is beating the Kyoto drum so loud you can't see the conservatives defining you as being Kyoto and only about Kyoto.
"Mr Dion can you explain how a global tax regime reduces green house gas?"
Labels: Conservative majority, Global tax regime, kyoto
The GTA gets a taste of the real Kyoto
Seems there is a bit of discontent over gas shortages in Ontario.
link"Panic would be the worst possible thing here in terms of the public, and only because it would cause more shortages and more price increases."
If folks are
upset now, just
what or
who will they blame if the Kyoto Kult gets its way?
All we need now are those
little stickers on the windshield of your vehicle like they existed during WWII.
"The 'A' sticker was issued to owners whose use of their cars was nonessential. Hand the pump jockey your Mileage Ration Book coupons and cash, and she (yes, female service station attendants) could sell you three or four gallons a week, no more. For nearly a year, A-stickered cars were not to be driven for pleasure at all.
The green 'B' sticker was for driving deemed essential to the war effort; industrial war workers, for example, could purchase eight gallons a week. Red 'C' stickers indicated physicians, ministers, mail carriers and railroad workers, and incidentally were the most counterfeited type. 'T' was for truckers, and the rare 'X' sticker went to Members of Congress and other VIPs."
Like I've pointed out, imagine the next election going into the GTA and telling soccermoms the truth about Kyoto.
Vote liberal, green, or NDP and Little Johnny or Janey can take the TTC to hockey practice.
Labels: kyoto
