Hey, Remember Kyoto?

...because Harper sure doesn't!

From the Globe and Mail:

Federal Environment Minister John Baird arrives at the global climate summit Tuesday looking to administer last rites to the Kyoto Protocol, at least in its current form. But the funeral may have to wait for next year’s session in South Africa.

For Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the end of Canada’s commitment to Kyoto would achieve a long-standing goal, as he has opposed the accord since its inception in 1997 and distanced his government from it since taking office five years ago.

Harper refuses to support Kyoto because it's destined to fail. He knows this, because he does his level best to sabotage it. But don't worry, Harper knows that environmental issues are important to Canadians, so he'll make sure to come up with something better later... Maybe even something his big buddy the U.S. will sign onto!

Officially, the government denies it is aiming to kill Kyoto. However, it vocally supports the political deal reached last year in Copenhagen that would change key elements of Kyoto by demanding binding emission targets from major developing countries.

“We are seeking a legally binding treaty that includes all major emitters, which is what the Copenhagen Accord was all about last year,” Mr. Baird’s spokesman, Bill Rodgers, said. “That includes the emerging economies of China and India. It also includes the United States, which did not ratify Kyoto and has no intention of doing so.”

See, it's really important to get the U.S. on board because without the U.S. it's really just an empty gesture, so we'll follow their lead in whatever they OH WAIT!

The Harper government has no plans to follow a U.S. initiative to slash the greenhouse gas emissions of big polluters — even though Ottawa has pledged to harmonize its climate policies with the Americans.

The White House, stung by its failure to legislate a cap-and-trade bill before the recent congressional elections, has a Plan B set to be implemented within weeks.

The new U.S. rules — passed by executive order — are aimed at curbing emissions from large industrial facilities like refineries and cement factories. They go into effect Jan. 2.

Canadian climate experts say this country could contain the pollution growth from its own industries, notably the oilsands, by introducing similar standards north of the border.

But newly minted Environment Minister John Baird downplayed the plans from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as “patchwork.”

Baird goes on to say that the Plan B south of the border is just too weak so we won't be bothering with it. They'll do something better, for sure. They just won't say what their better plan actually is.

They'll say what it isn't, though! Like the Kyoto protocols. Because the U.S. isn't bothering with that, so we shouldn't, either. But they're very serious about this issue, for reals. They really aren't just waffling and stalling as long as they can in the hopes of getting out of even limp-wristed emissions standards.

Promise.

Harper Advisor Calls for Assange's Assassination

Why are conservatives so hateful of transparency that they'd rather see people murdered than know more about what world governments get up to when they think the plebs aren't watching?

Mr. Flanagan, it's not "being manly" to call for such. It's being so incredibly insecure that you can't face the idea of an independent media revealing the truth.

Either that, or it's having a tremendously small penis and needing to call for assassinations on public television to compensate. But I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, here.

UPDATE: I really have to wonder... All those people (some of whom are in powerful positions in the media) calling for Assange's death, what was their stance on the fatwa against Salman Rushdie? Or are such calls okay when it's a white guy making them?

How To Decipher a CPC Press Release

From here.

On Tuesday, Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, and Christian Paradis, Minister of Natural Resources, released an update on our Government’s economic and fiscal projections – for the first time showing a return to a balanced budget.

...by "balanced budget" they mean "largest deficit in history."

(In the interest of fairness, and to make sure I'm not misleading my readers, this is true in terms of raw numbers. As a percentage of the GDP, though, Mulroney's deficit was larger. So depending on how you look at it, this might only be the second-largest deficit in Canadian history. NOICE!)

With help from Canada’s Economic Action Plan, Canadians are recovering from the economic recession, and getting back on their feet. In fact, since July 2009, our Conservative Government has helped create over 400,000 new jobs across the country.

Notice they don't mention anything about all the jobs that Canada's been bleeding out lately. Nor does it point out how many of those 400,000 jobs are full-time, how many are part-time, and how many are seasonal. I won't go into any spoilers here, but here's a hint: Knowing these things makes that 400,000 figure a lot less impressive.

And while we continue to help Canadians make ends meet, our Government is looking ahead to balanced budgets, and building a strong foundation for future economic growth.

Help Canadians make ends meet... Except for all those Canadians who are unemployed. Or underemployed. Or having trouble with the rising costs of food or education or whatever. But it's not like they count.

Today’s update shows that our Government’s plan is on track. The federal deficit will be lower this year than previously forecasted.

This is really easy to do. I can do it myself, in fact. Watch.

Me: "I predict that I will lose $200 at this casino."

*enters casino, bets $150 at the craps table, loses it all*

Me: "My losses are much less than was previously predicted. Yay me!"

And for the first time since the global recession, we are forecasting a balanced budget.

"Forecasted." This means that they're really, really hoping the economy will grow enough that they can keep doing what they're doing and then, maybe, by 2015, everything will just magically fall into place.

I'm not kidding. 2015 is the year that they're talking about when they say

While Canada is on the right track, our recovery remains fragile. That’s why our primary focus must remain jobs and growth.

*cough* seasonal, part-time jobs... *cough*

Clearly, the Harper Government is helping solidify Canada’s recovery. By contrast, the Ignatieff/ NDP/Bloc-Québécois Coalition plans to raise job-killing taxes such as payroll taxes, by bringing in a 45-day work year. This would halt our recovery in its tracks and, according to experts, kill almost 400,000 jobs.

Ah, yes, the coalition boogeyman.

"Beware the Coalition!  It comes to devour your child-folk!  Ooga-booga!"

 Our Conservative Government will not put the economic recovery in jeopardy.  We will continue to prioritize the economy and the implementation of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.

This is the same Action Plan that I've previously made fun of. Well, aspects of it at least. To be fair, there are significant parts of the CEAP of which I'm in favour, even if I suspect it's not really being implemented in the best way.

* * * * *

By the by, if you're wondering what the 45-day work year this press release was talking about, it's a reference to Bill C-308. This was a Bloc bill that reduced the number of days required to qualify for EI benefits to 45. There's a bit about it here.

That evil coalition obviously doesn't have much of a united front, since Ignatief's Libs killed it.

Said Ignatief:

Ignatieff said upgrades of the EI benefits, an idea he once supported and an issue over which he threatened a year ago to force an election, are too expensive and no longer needed.

Just so's you know how big a shitheel Ignatieff is, when he supported the bill unemployment was at 8.3%. It's currently at 8.1%. WHY YES IGGY THAT IS ONE HUGE POLICY-CHANGING DIFFERENCE THERE.

To this unexpected change of vote, Layton rejoined:

"I guess there's not much room for the unemployed in the big red tent."

Oh, snap!

Tea Party rumblings in Canada

According to a recent poll, Canada may be seeing the first glimpse of a home-grown tea party.  Nothing official, of course, but the sentiment is there.  (Perhaps we'd call it the Red Rose Tea Party?  Pity.)

Of course, the above article is flawed in that it just lumps up distaste with government on all sides of the political divide and calls it "Tea Party-like," which is a poor descriptor.  The Tea Party in the United States is about a particular kind of distaste with government.  It's the sort of distaste that advocates for government getting out of health care (except for Medicare, of course, because that doesn't count for some reason.)  They're the sort of people whose distaste in government leads them to call for ever-lower taxes, and the dismantling of public transportation programs paid in part by tax dollars, but then yell, whine, and kvetch when there aren't enough buses to get them all to one of their rallies.  The sort that wants to privatize everything because government can't do anything right, except maybe kill brown-skinned people overseas and keep those gays from getting married.

However, by the data presented in the article, a significant portion of those in Canada fed up with "government and elites" are of the conservative bent, which suggests that crazy ol' Stevie isn't crazy or reactionary enough for them.  I do not consider this a good thing for reasons that should be obvious.

Just in case it isn't, though, let me present a case study of the sort of mentality the typical Tea Partier has.

Here's an example where an essential service is neglected out of greed.  Really, it's hard to get more essential than firefighting, but the people in Obion County didn't feel like setting something up for themselves - likely because of the costs involved in doing so.  The nearby city of South Fulton, in what I can only imagine was a fit of charity, offered to provide fire department coverage for Obion County.  As this was out of city limits, this was not something they could force on them; furthermore, it was not something they could simply do for free, because this sort of thing costs money.

The simplest solution is the socialized one - roll the fee into property taxes and ensure everyone's taken care of.  Obion County decided to make it an opt-in system - if a homeowner wanted the Fire Department to service his or her property, then that homeowner would pay the nominal fee of $75 a year.

You may have heard of this story already, as it's made a lot of distance over the blogging parts of the internet.  Anyway, the end result is that a guy named Cranick decided not to pay, his house caught fire, and when he called the Fire Department to come save it, they refused.  They eventually did come out, but only to save his neighbour's house when the fire spread.  Even when they were there, though, they still didn't help the guy out because he hadn't paid and by the time they got there it was too late for him to change his mind.

It's easy, for someone like me who lives in a country with universal access to health care, to get all morally indignant at the firefighters.  The U.S. doesn't have our health care system, though (because SOCIALISM!), and firefighters' work insurance coverage south of the border tends to be laser-precise.  There's a good chance that if they'd tried to help the guy, and one of them got injured, they'd be footing the bill themselves because their insurance simply doesn't cover them fighting fires outside of their jurisdiction.  That's outside of potentially losing there jobs due to disobeying orders from their superiors who are worried about the free rider problem inherent in the situation.

And it's not like Cranick couldn't have paid.  This wasn't some poor subsistence farmer scraping to get buy.  The home that burnt down is a 34-acre farm with three houses on it.  It's a beef cattle farm, and he likely still owns a second farm in Kentucky.  If he'd just applied a third of his USDA subsidy from last year to pay for this service fee, he'd still have his house.

He didn't, because

[quote]"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.[/quote]

The guy tried to game the system (a system he probably had a hand in setting up, by voting not to have a county fire department) and he lost.  And that's the Tea Party mentality for you, in a nutshell.

A mentality that's simply unsustainable for a culture such as ours - one that decries the taxes needed to ensure the health of our most cherished institutions, yet refuses to give up those institutions.  One that looks for loopholes that benefits oneself at the expense of one's neighbours, all the while bragging about bootstraps and free markets, and screaming about vague, barely-concealed racist fears of "the other."

A mentality that, sadly, we may be seeing the first glimpses of in our own Great White North. 

The irony here is that, despite the contempt in which I hold the Tea Party and likeminded individuals...  I still think they should be able to get make their voice heard democratically through proportionate representation.  I'll just do my best to shame them at every opportunity if a Canadian Tea Party ever does form.