Apolitical Staples

Agree Canadians don’t want to “back there”. But eventually economics and global trade will drive the agenda. Ideally Canada needs to replace it’s chattering political class composed of academics and MSM with an investment class – which we don’t yet have because we tax and redistribute – because wealth is viewed as a sin.

But the fact remains that Canada is the second largest land mass in the world with about distinct 5 regions –Canada defies logic.

Canada is officially bilingual. But few Canadians are bilingual unless their mother tongue is French. That’s because there is almost no commercial need to speak French in this world. Face it, Quebec is distinct. Let’s work with it and try to evolve.

The Clarity Act makes it clear what happens if we break up. It doesn’t tell us how to stay together. Ignatieff and Harper are leaders that are trying to tell us this problem won’t just go away. For those that don’t like talking about problems -then find yourself a Chrétien -look happy – then wake up at the 11th hour and find yourself losing a referendum and your country.

Bottom line: Devolution! The big items of education and health are provincial. Ottawa needs to shrink and allow provincial taxing powers to grow. Heavy duty centralization worked with about 12 million people. Commanding Heights control with Crown Corporations doesn’t work in a competitive globalized economy. It doesn’t work in a larger population with about 5 regions.

Quebec likes socialism, high taxes, and government run day-care and big unions – fine.

Alberta wants to keep taxes low and attract scarce capital and grow – fine.

Let the provinces compete for the best economic model. Then see who ends up with the best education and health care models.

Nomdenet gets it - It’s all about exit

My question to Ignatieff is simply this: how many nations does he think exist in Canada, and what are they?

Mr. Ignatieff, like all good Liberals, is a centralizer. It does not matter what powers the constitution gives to provinces the federal government needs to exercise its power in those jurisdications all in the name of national unity. If we can believe Quebec they want to manage their jurisdiction and not be dictated to by the federal government. How difficult is this to understand? Liberals don’t get it. They want to stick their noses in everything thereby doing nothing well.

Sorry, Greg, totally off topic, but you’ve posted about similar issues in the past. Today’s Margaret Wente’s column is worth a read.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060912.wxcowent12/BNStory/National/home

An inconvenient truth about climate change MARGARET WENTE

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

Last week a clear-headed woman got up and said in public what no politician, not even Stephen Harper, is brave enough to say.

Her message: We should stop pretending that we can prevent climate change. No matter what we do, global warming is inevitable. Slowing the process is important — but we should also start figuring out how we’re going to adapt.

This brave soul is Frances Cairncross, the current president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Unlike the sky-is-falling crowd, who insist we must change our entire way of life before it is too late, she’s both scientifically and economically literate. “Even if we threw at climate change all we have at the moment, even if we put it all in place, we would still see a rise in the level of emissions,” she says. To stop the level of greenhouse gases from increasing, global emissions would have to be slashed by 60 per cent. “That’s simply not going to happen.”

In global-warming circles, “adaptation” is a dirty word. It sounds defeatist. It sounds like an excuse for doing nothing. And so Ms. Cairncross was resoundingly denounced by the usual suspects, who claim we really can stop the world from warming up if we really, really want to.

Related to this article Latest Comments Brava, Margaret, Brava. Margaret will look for any support to keep her Hummer and let… Kyoto has become a common cause for the extremist environmentals… My goodness! Can I have read this correctly? Is Margaret Wente… 11 reader comments | Join the conversation But can we? All the evidence says no. In fact, the notion that we can meaningfully alter the course of climate change any time soon is a piece of stupefying hubris. You might as well expect King Canute to turn back the tides.

A few more doses of realism from Ms. Cairncross: Coal accounts for 40 per cent of all the electricity generated. Wind, solar power and all the other renewables put together account for 2 per cent. As for concerted action, a global deal to cut down on fossil fuels isn’t going to happen. Our living standards are inextricably related to our use of energy, and especially fossil fuel. Why should India and China, where hundreds of millions still live in poverty, sacrifice their economic futures? And global warming may actually benefit some nations. Why should Russia sign on, if a sunnier Siberia unlocks a wealth of new oil resources?

Kyoto was, inevitably, a dismal flop. But even if it had succeeded, its impact on climate change would have been nearly imperceptible. Don’t expect to hear that inconvenient truth from aspiring politicians like Stéphane Dion, who depicts the failure of Kyoto as a sort of moral lapse. Even though not one in 99 Canadians understands the deal, “Kyoto” is shorthand for concern about the environment. That’s why no politician even now dares to oppose it — especially when Al Gore’s compelling call to arms is rousing the conscience of millions of citizens, including all my friends and all their children.

Lots of us would probably be happy to give up our SUVs in order to save the drowning polar bears. But global warming’s not that simple. It’s what you might call the perfect problem. It is hard, if not impossible, to solve. Nobody can predict with any certainty how fast temperatures might rise or what the local effects might be. As New York Times science writer Andrew Revkin writes, “Its impact remains clouded with scientific uncertainty, its effects will be felt over generations, and it is being amplified by everything from microwaving a frozen dinner to bringing electricity to an Indian village.”

Yet politicians know that the environment is a core concern for almost everybody under 50. So does Mr. Harper, who’s being slaughtered on the issue. Nothing he will propose in his new Clean Air Act will (or could) have the least impact on global warming. But he hopes it will get him halfway off the hook by showing he cares too.

What might adaptation look like? Better flood defences and tougher rules about building on flood plains, for example. (Watch out, New Orleans.) Developing more drought-resistant crops and trees that will thrive in hotter weather, especially for the poorer nations of the world. If the polar bears (which aren’t really drowning) are ingenious enough to adapt to climate change — as they have done several times in the past few hundred thousand years — maybe we are too.

Ms. Cairncross has one other case to make. She argues that we desperately need to improve scientific literacy among the public, so that citizens will have a better understanding of environmental issues. I’ll second that. Maybe we can include the politicians too.

But global warming’s not that simple. It’s what you might call the perfect problem. It is hard, if not impossible, to solve.

It’s the perfect problem because it gives government an excuse to take more power and money away from ordinary people, without ever having to prove that it is doing anything useful. There’s always a drought somewhere. It’s colder than usual? That’s because global warming actually causes localized cooling! This ice cap is growing? That’s because of greater snowfall, due to global warming in the equatorial regions! That ice cap is shrinking? Of course it is! That’s because it’s getting warmer down there. Better raise taxes and create a couple more government agencies, just in case.

What might adaptation look like? Better flood defences and tougher rules about building on flood plains, for example.

Oh yeah! We need more corrupt and incompetent government organizations like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers (and their Bananadian equivalents) to help more and more people to build on flood plains with less and less personal responsibility for the consequences. More government inspectors, more levees, more helicopters, more police and more MREs. Just in case. Because just plain folks and their private insurance companies and local municipalities couldn’t possibly figure out how to avoid drowning in a flood. They’re like those turkeys that drown in the rain, looking up in the sky.

Developing more drought-resistant crops and trees that will thrive in hotter weather, especially for the poorer nations of the world.

I guess that we have to be taxed in order for Canuckian government scientists to come up with these crops, because the farmers living in those countries are far too stupid to gather seeds from the plants which best resisted the last drought, and plant those seeds in preference to the varieties that died. And their heads would probably explode if anyone suggested to them that they dedicate a corner of their field to experimental crops and cross-fertilization experiments. That’s why we need government planners - because everyone else who’s not in government is just too stupid!

we desperately need to improve scientific literacy among the public, so that citizens will have a better understanding of environmental issues

Or, how ‘bout if we stop treating people like ignorant children and stop regulating and taxing them until they are de facto slaves of the state?

Nah! The Tories could never run on a platform of treating Canadians as if they are worthy of pride and respect. People would say that we’re too negative. Instead let’s design a campaign strategy based on the positive, caring presumption that the electorate are a bunch of helpless moral and mental cripples. Because when you have to pay back all your campaign workers and donors it’s a very … how shall I say … convenient untruth.