Apolitical Staples

This is my income splitting, Greg.

Dion over played his hand demaning compliance with Kyoto,

compliance which he admitted a year ago was unacheivable,

which his own party took no steps to meet,

and which would cost taxpayers dearly in order to make up for the Liberal shortfall.

Contrast to Harpers feel good budget, and yes, a majority does appear on the horizen.

Jack can’t afford not to have a deal. And Steve can’t afford to have Jack not have a deal, either. I hope that makes sense.

There will be Kyoto targets in the Clean Air Act, just not Kyoto time lines.

This will no doubt make some of the usual suspects, including Lizzy May, unhappy in the environmental community.

However, I suspect the targets will be serious enough that many environmentalists will applaud the concrete action.

It’s tricky for Jack, but I think a meaningful bill was always in the works. It’s just a matter of getting there by avoiding the PR pitfalls.

At least that’s my two cents.

There will be Kyoto targets in the Clean Air Act, just not Kyoto time lines.

Cute but that’s like saying “It’s just like a Mercedes, if you squint.”

In the grand scheme of things does it matter if we miss our 2012 targets but hit them by 2017, 2020, 2022?

Greg Staples: You are not supposed to ask questions like that. It makes the environment into a practical issue, when it is really supposed to be all about symbolism.

Cute but that’s like saying “It’s just like a Mercedes, if you squint.”

No, it’s like saying you’ve got a good car on your hands, no matter what label you slap on it. That it happens to be a Mercedes, just not the more expensive one you had hoped, doesn’t really matter, does it?

In the grand scheme of things does it matter if we miss our 2012 targets but hit them by 2017, 2020, 2022?

It does to the extent that if we do that, we’re supposed to ship billions of dollars in carbon credits overseas, according to the Kyoto agreement.

However, judging by Layton’s words lately, I don’t think he will demand full Kyoto compliance. In fact, although he’s been saying a lot about Kyoto lately, he hasn’t been saying a lot about enforcing the kind of wording included in the Liberal motion the other day.

As much as Iggy and others want to divide Dippers on this, I’ve been reading some of their blogs in the last couple of days. They seem ready to accept some compromise from Layton on this.

He’ll get his references to Kyoto, he’ll move Harper in the direction of Kyoto, but there will be no requirement to fully comply with Kyoto in the Clean Air Act.

In fact, their recent moves have been good for their own PR. Layton looks like he’s thumping Kyoto while Harper looks like he’s thumbing his nose. That they meet somewhere in the middle will look like the kind of compromised needed on these things. I think they’re playing it quite nicely, in fact. We’ll see.

I watched a Canada AM clip of three party strategists talking about the environment and an election. Both the Tory and the Dipper were downplaying the prospects of an election, while the Lib was thumping his chest saying he’s not afraid to have one if necessary.

If I’m reading the tea leaves correctly, and I know it’s not much to work with, this suggests to me that the NDP will prop up the Tories because the budget will have money for the environment, and the Clean Air Act will have amendments that the NDP will find satisfactory.

Just my two cents.

I still don’t know how the Libs would explain voting down a Quebec-friendly budget during the middle of a Quebec provincial election. But if the NDP props up the government, and there is no federal election, I guess they won’t have to explain it to voters for a while. We’ll see.

I know Greg was initially skeptically of the existence of a Tory-NDP deal. You’ve been watching that closely. I wonder what you might think of this: http://secondthots.blogspot.com/2007/02/new-evidence-of-tory-ndp-deal.html

I know it’s anecdotal, but I also know it makes me wonder why the Tories decided to exclude the NDP in their question.

Hmmmm…..