Why did he do it? Well, it was clear from the Libs Senate Leader, Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette, that C-288 would not necessarily be fast-tracked through the upper-house, which meant that the timing of its passage would remain in Liberal hands. This would make it impossible for Harper to use the bill as a trigger for a March election call. And any other response (for example, doing nothing and waiting for lawsuits) would have looked like more Tory stalling.
So what is our situation now? As Antonio over at Fuddle Duddle notes, the opposition has just written the environmental law of the land:
Yesterday was already a non-confidence motion. The Liberals, BQ, and NDP already agree on enough things like Child Care, Kelowna, Status of Women Canada, etc., that they can pass legislating mandating the government to do something about it.
Technically, they cant spend any money, but they can get all kinds of bills through parliament and make the Conservative budget contradict parliament’s will.
I think this is hilarious and John McCallum should begin drafting a budget which should also be another Private Members’ Bill. I think we still have the old platform somewhere. The NDP and the Bloc have seen the poll numbers, neither wants an election. After seeing our numbers I wouldn’t want one either. Who needs an election anyway?
Well, exactly. I don't know why the three opposition parties don't just seize control of the Clean Air Act, for example, rewrite it with teeth, pass it over Conservative opposition and tell Stephen Harper to go squeal like a pig. Certainly, they can pass new regulations.
I might even suggest writing legislation proclaiming Same Sex Marriage compulsory in Alberta. Make the Tories beg for an election.
Also, I would just second Antonio's words to the effect that Pablo Rodriguez, the Liberal MP behind C-288, is an extraordinarily sexxxy guy.In fact, Antonio himself is pretty damn sexxxy. Between these two fellas and Mitsou, is it any
wonder that federal governments of all political stripes feel the need to give Quebec money whenever it pouts?
16 comments:
BLAME COSMIC RAYS NOT CO2 FOR WARMING - The Times of London
"Researchers have managed to replicate the effect of cosmic rays on the aerosols in the atmosphere that help to create clouds. Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist in Denmark, said the experiments suggested that man’s influence on global warming might be rather less than was supposed by the bulk of scientific opinion.
Cosmic rays — radiation, or particles of energy, from stars, which bombard the Earth — can create electrically charged ions in the atmosphere that act as a magnet for water vapour, causing clouds to form.
Dr Svensmark suggests that the Sun, at a historically high level of activity, is deflecting many of the cosmic rays away from Earth and thus reducing the cloud cover.
Clouds reflect the Sun’s rays back into space and are considered to have an important cooling effect. However, if during periods of high activity the Sun’s magnetic field pushes a greater proportion of cosmic rays away from the Earth, fewer clouds will form."
My apologies for the long post but BCL's Wal-Mart, bargain bin blogware wont accept long URLs in the Comment section. Go to timesonline.co.uk and scroll down to find the full story.
My apologies for the long post but BCL's Wal-Mart, bargain bin blogware wont accept long URLs in the Comment section.
Like this?
For God's sakes, these GW deniers (and Rightwingers in general) lie about EVERYTHING. Big lies, small lies, it doesn't matter. Lie, lie, lie...
Mister Speaker, I rise today to announce measures that my government must take to comply with Bill 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 ort buy credits from other signatory nations of the Kyoto Protocol who do not need to reduce their emission but get to sell these 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 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.
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, 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
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.
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, no more skidoos and water jet boats. We are investigating how to ban forest fires as well, but that has its challenges.
A 30 cent per liter “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 provide enough money to both buy the $10 billion in foreign credits we need annually and 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.
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”. 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, but their jobs are all toast.
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 trading in the International 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.
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 your property say “We quit” or for consumer debt, place your cut up credit and bank cards in an envelope. That’s all, no lawyers or courts needed
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 government funds. That should be a few hundred thousand at the Federal Level and many, many more at the Provincial level.
We will be reducing the Federal government transfer of dollars to the provinces to meet 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 whatever. It’s a provincial responsibility, but expect much longer waits for even basic medical service.
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 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 the 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, depressing our standard of living to upper third world status. 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 moralist international boy scouts out to help the planet be saved.
Thank you Mr. Speaker
Shriek some more, wingnut.
Marvelous post Anon 10:16.
DION STRIPPED OF HIS ENVIRONMENTAL EDGE - Chantal Hebert, TorStar
"Over a period of little less than three months, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has turned his green armour into a straitjacket.
Now that he has led the opposition parties into passing a bill forcing the Conservatives to implement the Kyoto Protocol, the worst thing that could happen to him would be to win a snap election this spring and then be forced to live by the terms of Bill C-288.
A Liberal government would face two stark choices:
# Preside over a major federal-provincial crisis that would make the occasional Ottawa-Quebec blowouts sound like Chinese New Year firecrackers.
# Own up to the fact that the bill the party sponsored is a legislative sham, on par with the 1993 Liberal promises to eliminate the GST and renegotiate NAFTA."
I love Chantal, the only voice of sanity at the Star.
Great post BCL!
No wonder Harper looked so constipated this morning.
To all the naysayers regarding Kyoto, remember the poem "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp Or what's a heaven for."
Even if Canada fails to meet it's Kyoto targets, at least now we can try.
*Everyone pray for the kitties under Harper's chair(s).
''I don't know why the three opposition parties don't just seize control of the Clean Air Act, for example, rewrite it with teeth, pass it over Conservative opposition and tell Stephen Harper to go squeal like a pig. Certainly, they can pass new regulations.''
Canadians (and Suzuki) are wondering that too.
Why the theatrics when the CAA has been on the table for a month.
Could it be that the Libs have ignored the CAA because...they don't want any real action on the enviro file?
Kinda looks that way, now.
Marvelous post Anon 10:16.
Do your man-boobs bobble up and down when you cheerlead like that, Mr. Maudlin?
Hey, Locusta, BCL...The Righties are on the ropes now. High Five!!!!1!
Wilson61...so, the new meds didn't work, eh?
You can always tell when righties score a home run on this board, ti-guy (BCL) goes ape shit.
Instead of TELLING others how to live their lives (or MANDATING how to live our lives), why don't Liberals EVER lead by example? Why does your ideology not allow people the freedom to make their own choices?
Where is your vaunted 'moral authority' on the home front? Or is it as shallow as your 'moral authority' on the international stage - all talk, no action?
And Suzuki says the rich First World countries 'caused' the problem, so they should clean it up; Third World countries are excused. Well, I haven't been on this earth very long spewing CO2 into the air; I don't think I should have to clean it up either.
If the boat really is sinking, we all have to bail it out. Unless of course it is just a money-sucking socialist scheme, in which case only the rich need to bail.
HOLY GREAT NOSTALGIA BATMAN
"Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects."
From IPCC 2007 report? Guess again.
Newsweek, April 28, 1975. Check it out, a great read, its got charts, maps, even quotes from NOAA scientists. It will have you stocking up on food and looking for land in Australia!
denisdutton.com/
newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
Gawd, pick a pseudonym, anonymi.
Did you check the Newsweek article, frightening isn't it?
I particularly like their suggestions about "melting the arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers". Now these dudes took their climate action seriously!
"I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, too sexy."
Well, that's why I voted for him, anyway. I knew he was a complete airhead, but gawwwwd, he's sooooooo sexy!!!!
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