But They've Got One Too--Why Iggy's Cap And Trade Plan Shouldn't Get Him In Too Much Trouble

Ed Stelmach is whining again: the Liberal's enviro proposals are a scheme "to plunder Alberta", and so forth.  But I don't think we'll see a repeat of the 2008 "green shift" debacle for the federal Liberals, largely because, as the LPoC party platform notes, Harper and Co. themselves promised to set a price on carbon before the 2008 election.  Their plan was and is called "Turning the Corner" and you can read all about it on the Environment Canada website

However, the Lib platform is not being entirely accurate when they say the Tories have done nothing to implement Turning the Corner.  An inventory of Canadian emissions, which you need before implementing any carbon pricing mechanism, is still ongoing.  Just last month, as a matter of fact, the following RFP appeared on the MERX site:

2010 Inventory of Emissions from Commercial Marine Vessels in Canada

[...]

The Government of Canada continues to take action to understand and reduce emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Commercial marine vessels are a significant source of these emissions, to different degrees for different substances. To support ongoing assessment of program effectiveness, Environment Canada requires an updated inventory of emissions from Canadian and foreign commercial marine vessels in Canada during 2010, and associated hindcasts and forecasts. Where appropriate the work will make use of the Government of Canada’s “Marine Emissions Inventory Tool” (MEIT)

And when I contacted Neil Charbonneau, Environment Canada's procurement officer, I learned that this is the first time such an inventory has been compiled for both coasts under one project banner--the first national inventory of marine emissions, as it were, and under the Harper regime!

So, sorry Ed, if Iggy has plans to rip-off Alberta, so too does Stephen Harper.  The main difference is in the speed of execution

Now There's Real Class...All Of It 3rd

Should you be thinking of making snarky comments re Ed Stelmach's departure from politics, go for it; you can't possibly be a bigger heel than Ex-Tory Craig Chandler.

I have been wondering, incidentally, what Ed's departure means for the future direction of the Alberta Conservatives: can they stay Centralist? After all, most of the loons have gone WAP, so there's not (I would reason) a lot of pressure within the party to move right. However, this story suggests that some of the WAPers might come crawling back. Which is possible; I guess nobody surrenders their PC membership card in Alberta; they just join other parties in addition.

Stelmach Resigns

Says he will move to T.O. to find decent coffee, marry a football player. Says he's tired of defending the oil sands, the f**king one-way streets, and the uppity attitude. Quote: "If you ever see me back in this sh*thole, that means I've really f**ked up.

Tis Done

Heather Forsyth and Rob Anderson cross the floor. I hear Stelmach's next. He's tired of all the assholes.

The First In A Series?

Wildrose Alliance "strategist" Stephen Carter on Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach's Ukranian accent:

"Just saw da premier making a speech. Dat was quite a speech. Dem media better report it right."

...a tweet for which he has since apologized.

Ms. Smith can come off looking and sounding more or less normal, but when you get to the lower echelons, when The Wildrose Alliance start wheeling out nominees, they will, mark my words, have problems with teh crazy. Chandler and the separatists and the wall builders are still out there, waiting for their time to howwwl!

Update: Tory Rebellion in Alta. Not On?

The smooth operation of the Tory colossus has been a lifelong passion for thousands of Albertans. They run the riding associations, staff the campaigns, party together, marry each other, go crazy with joy when they win again.

Every Tory MLA is supported by a group like that. Leaving the gang that helped you get elected is an incredibly difficult thing to do.

[...]

The PC party will only be in real trouble, and MLAs could leave more readily, if riding workers themselves start sliding over to the Wildrose Alliance.

Braid considers it far more likely that rank and filers would abandon the Tory leader rather than the Tory party. The event to watch, therefore, is November's vote on Stelmach's performance as head of the Alberta Conservatives, not October's Wildrose Alliance Party leadership convention, which will (presumably) result in a victory by Danielle Smith.

Alberta Vs. The Creationists, Part III: In Which Minister Blackett Contradicts Himself And Others

"But Lindsay Blackett, the Tory minister responsible for human rights, said in an interview that the intention of the law is to only allow parents to pull children out when the curriculum specifically covers religions, something that only happens for a few hours each school year."

"It's talking about religion (such as) Hindu, or Muslim, or that type of religion, not ... the curriculum with respect to, for instance, evolution," he said.

[...]

Blackett said if people believe the wording of the bill is unclear and could lead to complaints beyond what the law is intended to cover, the government could tighten up the language before it passes.

"If that's the main worry than we can certainly narrow that down, we're reasonable people."

There are two problems with this.

1) Both Alberta Minister of Culture Lindsay Blackett and Premier Stelmach have said explicitly that Bill 44 would allow parents to remove their children from classes in which evolution was taught. So either one of these two guys is lying, or (more likely) they have misread the intention of their own bill, because...

2) the language does not need to be tightened up. In fact, Blackett is correct in the above: the wording of the law states pretty clearly that it applies only where the classroom subject "deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation". The problem is not with the language in the bill, but the language Blackett and Stelmach have used in talking about the bill.

A very confused government, out there in Alberta, I'm afraid...

Parental Rights In Alberta: Bill 44 & The Creationists

Alberta Minister of Culture Lindsay's Blackett's new bill overhauling the Alberta Human Rights Code says:

11.1(1) A board as defined in the School Act shall provide notice to a parent or guardian of a student where courses of study, educational programs or instructional materials, or
instruction or exercises, prescribed under that Act include subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation.

(2) Where a teacher or other person providing instruction, teaching a course of study or educational program or using the instructional materials referred to in subsection (1) receives a
written request signed by a parent or guardian of a student that the student be excluded from the instruction, course of study, educational program or use of instructional materials, the
teacher or other person shall in accordance with the request of the parent or guardian and without academic penalty permit the student

a) to leave the classroom or place where the instruction, course of study or educational program is taking place or the instructional materials are being used for the duration of the part of the instruction,

...and etc. Yesterday, one of my readers noted in the comments that:

Actually, after reading the legislation a bit more carefully, it's quite topic specific. Topics like science remain science, and the creationists would have to prove that the science curriculum is in fact a religion that they disagree with.

It's got a lot less wiggle room in it than Morton's bill had in 2006.

...which is to say that if, for example, there was a class devoted to the history of Buddhism, a Catholic parent might have their child pulled from it according to the new act. And, if so, then the legislation merely codifies what is already happening in Alberta schools. As Paula Simons writes in the Edmonton Journal:

Schools already send home permission forms that parents must sign before their children take classes in sex education. Parents can already pull their children from school programs that deal with religion. I pulled my own daughter from the classroom when the Gideons came to hand out New Testaments.

Yet Premier Ed Stelmach stated yesterday, and Blackett confirmed, that "parents would have the right to opt out of evolution classes".

So how does this square with the relatively narrow wording of the bill? Will the portion of biology class devoted to evolutionary theory get defined as a religion that it is possible to disagree with?

Can of worms indeed.

Alberta Human Rights Reform Spiked! I Was Right! I Was Gawddamn Fucking Right! And Ezra Got Stiffed In Alberta!!!

From the mouth Of The Ez Himself. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has pulled the plug on Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett's Human Rights reform:

Ed Stelmach, Alberta's weak premier, shows he's still strong when it comes to pushing his MLAs around. Today he put that uppity cabinet minister Lindsay Blackett...back in his place.

...specifically, the repeal of section 3 (the Alberta analogue of Section 13) is OFF THE TABLE!!!

I've been saying that these reforms were stalled for months now and, holy shit!, I didn't even believe it myself at times. But today I can Lord It Over the Alberta MSM and feel totally justified. I got the Alberta zeitgeist pegged better than the Calgary Herald. My glory approaches transfinite levels! Gay rights get added to the act explicitly, and Section 3 doesn't get touched!

And, yo Speechy's, you guys are a bunch of fucking total luzers! All you're doing now is paying Ezra's bills. He can't even advance his Speechy crusade in a conservative province with a conservative majority. Like he couldn't float a Conservative magazine in the same place! When you read his latest post you can taste the flop-sweat in his very choice of fonts. Gawd you Speechy people fucking fail, fail epically, fail utterly, fail fail fail fail!!!!!!

Booyah!! Booyah!!

PS. Thanks go out to the Aryan Guard. Couldn't have done it without you guys!

Alberta, Albion Of The Frozen Tundra

In which the Stelmach government uses photos of England in its Alberta re-branding campaign.

Apparently, they were trying to show off Alberta's beaches, and used a shot of Northumberland.

Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett says he can think of a multitude of vistas that could have been used in the campaign, but he adds that it's not his problem to fix.

For example, here's one of Alberta's most famous beaches:

Plenty of sand anyway.

PS. If you're planning a vacation, I think its called "Scab Lake".

PPS. Here's a picture of the beach in Northumberland. Apparently, it was used for its symbolic value rather than location.

A spokesman for Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, said: "The picture used just fitted the mood and tone of what we were trying to do.

Obama's Election Pays Off Immediately For Canada

OTTAWA — Canada hopes to achieve a North American climate-change deal with U.S. president-elect Barack Obama and will begin working on the file within weeks, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Wednesday.

Meantime, officials told The Canadian Press the Harper government has been waiting for the departure of President George W. Bush to work with his successor on an integrated carbon market.

I believe that Ed Stelmach has come out against even a national, let alone international carbon trading regime as being against Alberta interests. Certainly, Alberta companies will have to buy the lion's share carbon credits if anything like this goes through. Tory on Tory violence?

I Didn't Know This Kind Of Stuff Still Worked

Kevin Taft, Leader of the Opposition:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government can’t control the price of oil, but it could have controlled the rampant increases in costs by simply managing growth. Will the Premier admit that by ignoring industry requests, requests from former Premier Lougheed, and just about everyone else to manage growth, this government has made a serious mistake?

Premier Ed Stelmach:

Obviously, now we see the true colour of the Leader of the Opposition. He sure as heck isn’t a capitalist, talking about managing growth through the government. Sounds more like what they were doing in the former Soviet Russia.

That was said on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008. I especially like how Stelmach employed the folksy "heck" to show that he is a man of the people. That was a nice touch.

But What Will Ed Say?

It's a national cap and trade system, albeit a not particularly effectual one that caps emissions intensity rather than emissions per se.

Given Mr. Stelmach's previous remarks re such schemes

"A cap-and-trade scheme is a money transfer that does nothing to reduce pollution. In fact, it just allows companies to pay to pollute."

...his lack of outrage at John Baird's "Turning The Corner" plan is most interesting.

The EcoLibertarian has the best thing I've read on the plan, which he describes as Kyoto-esque.

The Cold Hand Of Conservative Censorhip, Part II

Records show that Tyler Shandro, the same Calgary lawyer who penned the stern letter to Cournoyer about identity theft, registered both Internet addresses [edstelmach.net & edstelmach.org] in the name of the premier and party Tuesday afternoon -- hours after the edstelmach.ca case made national headlines, and at least a month after the Tories became aware of it.

The address edstelmach.com was registered more than a year ago to an office in the Bahamas, and links to an unrelated search engine.

Ed Stelmach really ought to fire his lawyer.

And someone should ask Mr. Stelmach why he's so upset with what Dave Cournoyer (Daveberta) is doing when there are people based in the Bahamas that are using his name to sell, among other things, shaving gear and golf tickets.