Tag: environment

Hurrying toward dictatorship

Our so-called leaders speak
With words they try to jail ya —
They subjugate the meek
But it’s the rhetoric of failure

–The Police, Spirits in the Material World

This week I heard the KW Symphony and Jeans’n’Classics play the music of Sting and The Police. That was fantastic.

I also read a lot of political columns about the federal Conservative government is up to. That was the opposite of fantastic.

Earlier in their majority mandate, pundits wondered, why the rush? Why push so many bills through, and why impose time allocation on all of them?

Now that their agenda is becoming clearer, I think we know:

The Harper revolution has never been about abortion or gay rights. This prime minister has little interest in social conservatism.

Rather, the revolution is economic. It is aimed at eliminating regulations—particularly environmental regulations—that interfere in profit-making. It is aimed at reducing wages (which is why the Conservatives take swipes at unions whenever possible). It is aimed at scaling back any social programs—from Old Age Security to Employment Insurance — that help keep wages up.

–Thomas Walkom, Stephen Harper’s stealthy war against wages and the environment

Not quite what they campaigned on, eh? And even though true believers may applaud the efforts to plunder the natural world—they seem to feel that, with fervent enough belief in the capitalist system, one can overcome those pesky biological needs for clean water, air, and food—I’m not sure they’d be as happy about efforts to impoverish them.

So, the Conservatives really have to get all this done as quickly as possible, stifling debate wherever they can, before opposition can really mobilize. Before most people even notice.

Let’s see how many different outrages we heard about—just this week!

1 Denying medical coverage to refugees

2 Working to increase crime rates by cutting rehabilation programs and encouraging prison overcrowding

When the emphasis moves away from corrections toward more and harsher punishment of both the physical and psychological variety, recidivism rates will increase and real correction will become more difficult. That will likely mean more crime over the long haul in a country that, apart from the United States (which is in a league by itself), has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.

— Jeffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail

3 Rejecting all amendments to the new Copyright Act

This is—believe it or not—a largely good piece of legislation, except for a problematic clause on digital locks. Why not consider amending that?  Far as we can tell, only because the opposition parties brought them forward. I mean, God forbid opposition members actually get to do anything for us in return for our tax dollars.

None of [the defeated] amendments were radical or undermined the goals of the legislation. There is much to like in Bill C-11 but the defeat of provisions designed to improve access for the blind, preserve fair dealing, enhance education, and open the door to innovative services hardly seems like something to celebrate.

— Michael Geist

4 Admitted to dismantling an Environmental advisory group because it recommended a carbon tax

The fact is, a carbon tax is the best way to deal with climate change, so any group serious about it has to advocate for one. The Conservatives have, of course, demonized carbon taxes, so they can’t impose them now. So instead they are trying a “regulatory” approach, Communist style, which as we see, doesn’t work. Canada’s carbon emissions just keep going up. Do they care? Apparently, no.

So that’s four pretty big things in one week—but none are the biggest thing. Not by a long shot. No, the biggest thing, quite literally, is the 420-page Omnibus Bill supposedly to “implement the budget”, but in fact, doing a whole lot of other things as well.

(Which, of course, they immediately imposed time allocation on. Why would anyone need any extra time at all to review 420 pages of confusingly worded new laws?)

This bill, among so other things:

  • Repeals the Fair Wage act.  [You didn’t want a fair wage, did ya?]
  • Repeals the Environmental Assessment act.
  • Makes some kind of changes to EI. We’re not sure what, really. We’ll tell you eventually, after this bill is passed. Trust us. It will be great.
    (Rick Mercer: “How can the gov say we will find out what is in the budget after the budget is voted on? Does that work on other planets?”)
  • Re-writes the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, and the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

There’s a ton of environmental law changes in here. The thrust of most, from what I can tell, is to get rid of informed government bodies who currently regulate these matters, and move them to uninformed Harper Cabinet to decide . I’m serious.

Writer Richard Poplak wonders why Canadians aren’t angrier about this. Why we aren’t mobilizing.

There’s a bill, called C-38. It’s driven to Parliament on forklifts retrofitted for maximum stealth. This bill, similar at 420 pages in weight and heft to a small pony, is delivered to dead-eyed MPs, behind whom stands the chief whip, taser in hand. The drool-drenched backbenchers nod in unison, and put the bill back on the forklifts for rubber-stamping further down the line.

By not making this the issue of our generation, by not linking this with other efforts calling for responsible governance and respect for democratic institutions–and by not understanding that this trend is not just local, but global–Canadians are rolling over and playing dead.

And why is that?

Well, maybe we’re just a little exhausted from the constant barrage of appalling behavior from our federal government.
Maybe we’re overwhelmed. We just don’t know which of the many outrages to go after first.
Maybe we don’t know how to protest. What would actually work?
Maybe we’re just sick of whole thing. We’ve tuned out. It’s nice out. We have gardening to do.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what Stephen Harper wants.

Speak out against Harper’s budget (NDP)
Harper is ending environmental protection (Liberal)
Environmental Devastation Act (Green Party)
Black Out Speak Out (Environmental groups)
Apologize to the rest of the world

Only tough on other people’s crimes

You know, I’m more than a little tired of our “law and order” federal government gleefully breaking the law.

Just sayin’.

Ontario votes

My bold predication for the Ontario election: Elizabeth Witmer, MPP for Kitchener-Waterloo, will retain her seat.

When voters turned against the Mike Harris, when they ran from John Tory’s school funding proposal, Ms Witmer, Progressive Conservative, still handily won her seat. She’s been in there for something like 21 years. She certainly not going to lose now, when the PCs are riding a “we’re tired of the Liberals!” wave.

This means, under our most undemocratic of electoral systems, me voting is just a waste of time. I am not voting PC, but whether I vote Green, Liberal, NDP, or Marxist-Leninist, whether I spoil my ballot or just sit at home watching TV, the result will the same. Ms. Witmer’s most votes will give the whole seat, and the choice I made will make no difference at all in who runs Ontario.

I will say I don’t have any particular issues with Ms. Witmer. Generally, I think she has been a good representative. And if Ontarians had been smart enough to change their electoral system four years ago, when they had a chance, I might have even have considered voting for her as my MPP, while selecting another party with my second vote.

But, Ontarians didn’t want more democracy, so we have the system we have, and a vote for Ms. Witmer is a vote for Tim Hudak. And I can’t do that.

I’ll grant that my distaste for Mr. Hudak was perhaps not on the most solid basis, initially: The man is just horribly boring to listen to. All he does is repeat sound bites, that nearly always contain the word “tax”. Tax grab. Sneaky eco-tax. Taxman. Tax on home heating.

It’s the most excruciating thing to listen to. (I’ve heard that Queen’s Parks reporters routinely leave his press conferences early, since all he does is repeat his boring lines over and over.) Four years of that? Not sure I can handle it.

Since then, though, he’s given some reasons of more substance to not vote for his party.

The numbers don’t work

As pointed out by that paragon of lefty, socialist thinking, The Toronto Sun, the PC’s economic plan doesn’t add up. Tax reductions and no cuts to education and health sounds great, but how do you pay for it? Truth is that after education and health, there isn’t a whole lot left to cut. So what’s the plan, here? Letting the deficit rise exponentially? Praying for miraculous growth in Ontario’s economy?

(Yes, all the parties are being somewhat unrealistic in their fiscal promises. The PCs are just the most so.)

Update: A rather damning and very detailed examination of just how much the numbers don’t work, courtesy of the Centre for Policy Alternatives. Graphs in Conservative Changebook misleading: At least three of the graphs present data that is clearly false. All of the others contain major errors.

Taxes probably will go up under Hudak

I’m not saying he’ll raise provincial taxes or the HST. But as several have pointed, he will not say whether he will continue to take over the cost of certain municipal programs, as the Liberals plan to do. If he does not (and remember he does have to cut somewhere), it is likely our municipal taxes will increase. OK, they always increase. But they will increase more. And unlike with provincial and federal taxes, which give credits for things like RRSP and charitable donations, there’s nothing you can do to protect your income against those ones.

Addition: The anti-green energy stance

Mr. Hudak wants a better world for his daughter (which I believe), but he’d cancel every green energy project he could? While there do seem to be some flaws in the Liberals handling of the alternative energy file, from what I’ve read, I still applaud the general direction. I believe it’s one of the most progressive in North America. It’s even earned a rare, specific endorsement from David Suzuki!

Xenophobia

Why are politicians allowed to bald-faced lie during elections campaigns, again? In election ads, which can’t be dismissed as an unfortunate slip of the tongue?

Because nothing, nothing has been more appalling to me than this party’s response to the Liberals plans to give tax credits for immigrants who are having trouble finding jobs in their field.

Hudak calls them “foreign workers”. He says the funding will go “outside Ontario”. “Ontarians need not apply.”

But only Canadian citizens would qualify for this tax credit—being a landed immigrant would not be enough. And it’s only for jobs in Ontario.

Hudak is just lying, and in the most xenophobic, divisive, hateful way possible.

Now, I don’t know that the Liberal plan is that wonderful. That professionals who immigrate have trouble finding work in their field is a real problem; I’m not sure how much this would solve it. And I don’t think comparing the PCs to the Tea Party is all that helpful a response, either.

But I do know that all Canadians are equal, no matter how long they’ve been Canadian. And if one group is being particularly discriminated against, it is reasonable for the government to see if something can be done to rectify that.

I won’t vote a party that promotes near-racism.

Unfortunately, what I do won’t make a difference.

Rest of Ontario: Good luck to you. Sorry I can’t be more help.

Good news

Follow-up to Almost too stupid to believe, from this weekend’s Globe and Mail:

Nobody expected the little people to win. Yet this week in the hinterland north of Toronto, a ragtag alliance of farmers, natives and knitting grannies saved an aquifer with the purest water on earth. Joe Friesen explains how the subjects of Tiny Township defeated the King of Simcoe politics and all but killed the dump.

From 2025, here’s a current link with more information: A Story to be Told: The Story of Site 41.

Almost too stupid to believe

Tiny Township is a, well, very small township northeast of Collingwood. And it just happens to be the location of the world’s cleanest water.

The water bubbling to the surface is so clean the only match for its purity is ice pulled from the bottom of Arctic ice cores from snows deposited thousands of years ago, well before any high-polluting industries existed.

So naturally, they’re planning to put a bunch of garbage on top of it, turning the whole area into a big landfill site.

This, despite the fact that there are plenty of alternative dump sites (this isn’t Toronto; there are plenty of open spaces around), and that:

Paradoxically, given how much people are willing to pay for clean water, the pristine water is a nuisance at the dump site.

In order to dig out a pit for the dump, the county will have to pump millions of litres out of the ground to prevent the landfill from becoming a pond. The pure water Dr. Shotyk uses for his laboratory experiments will be dumped into a nearby creek.

The amounts wasted in this way will be large, enough to slake the needs of up to 250,000 people a day for months.

The landfill is designed so that clean groundwater is supposed to seep into the dump and become contaminated with garbage residue.

So to repeat—Canada—Ontario—has the source of the cleanest, purest water on Earth.

And our big plan is to contaminate it.

Now, when water shortages are one of the many looming disasters the world (if not Canada itself, as much) is currently facing.

When I first read about this—it was a couple years ago—I tried to ignore it and hope it would go away. But this thing could start in a couple months if a group of local citizens don’t succeed in getting a one-year moratorium imposed on it.

So when the Council of Canadians called me (no, I don’t have call display) for donations, I was working up to let them down gently, until they mentioned that this issue is what they were working on. Then I had to donate to their efforts to stop it. Because I didn’t what else to do, other than feel embarrassed, and enraged.

Update: See Good news.

Yes nukes, fast trains, and no oil

A few years ago, while on vacation in Costa Rica, I read George Monbiot’s Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. While I don’t recommend it as vacation reading, it was interesting. The premise was how Britain (as example country) could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 90%, yet still maintain a decent standard of living.

I thought he had a number of good ideas, but one I didn’t agree with was his dismissal of nuclear power as one option. He struggled with it, and the fact that it produces no greenhouse gas emissions, but finally concluded he couldn’t live with the waste disposal issue. But I thought the issue was global warming?

So I was kind of pleased to see the very lefty This Magazine coming around to that same point of view. While they sadly haven’t made the whole article available online, you can get the gist from the cover: “Wind and solar can’t save us from climate change. Like it or not, nuclear power can.”

The Walrus’ “Off the Rails” focused on the sad state of train travel in Canada. Though I thought I basically knew the score here, I was surprised to learn that Canada did have high-speed trains; it just never had the infrastructure to actually run them at their maximum speeds. And also, that the US actually has some high-speed trains (Boston to Washington). And that they’re thinking of adding more—that might even connect to Canada! Toronto to New York by train, anyone? That would be awesome!

Pretty struck, too, by the graph of greenhouse gas emissions, per passenger, for train, plane, and automobile. First two—not as different as I thought. Last one—much better than I thought. (Too bad the graph is not in the online version of the article. Guess they need to give you some reason to buy the paper version.)

But most striking, for sure, was The Walrus article called “An Inconvenient Talk”. Which basically argues that, way before global warming becomes a crisis, we’re going to run out of oil. And that will be a crisis.

OK, sure, not the first time we’ve heard about this “running out of easy oil” point. But Chris Turner is a very good writer:

Here’s the upshot: if you plan to drive a car or heat a house or light a room in 2030, The Talk is telling you your options will be limited, to say the least. Even if you’re convinced climate change is UN-sponsored hysteria or every last puff of greenhouse gas will soon be buried forever a mile underground or ducks look their best choking on tar sands tailings, Dave Hughes is saying your way of life is over. Not because of the clouds of smoke, you understand, but because we’re running out of what makes them.

And he focuses on a pretty convincing subject in the form of Dave Hughes, whose life mission is now to inform people about this problem looming all too soon. (10-20 years, he says.)

And, Turner boosts this with views from others. Like the IEA:

As recently as 2005, well into Dave’s second career as a peak-hydrocarbon prophet, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) — probably the most trusted name in fossil fuel reserve prediction — was dismissing peak oil’s proponents as “doomsayers.” Mainstream media coverage, meanwhile, tended to focus on the hard-core survivalist subculture the science had inspired.

Two weeks after you ride along with Dave Hughes for Talk No. 155, though, the IEA releases the latest edition of its annual World Energy Outlook, which predicts a global oil production peak or plateau by 2030. In a video that appears online soon after, the Guardian’s George Monbiot [him again] requests a more precise figure from the IEA’s chief economist, Fatih Birol. The official estimate, he confesses, is 2020. Monbiot also inquires as to the motivation for the IEA’s sudden about-face, and Birol explains dryly that previous studies were “mainly an assumption.” That is, the 2008 version was the first in which the IEA actually examined hard data, wellhead by wellhead, from the world’s 800 largest oil fields. Monbiot asks, with understandable incredulity, how it was that such a survey hadn’t been conducted previously. Birol’s response: “In fact, nobody has done that research. And the research we have done this year is the first in the world…”

And from Alberta oil patch executives:

He calls the $150-a-barrel price shock of last summer “just a prelude.” “People take it for granted,” he told you, “that they can go to the gas station and fill it up. I don’t think in two or three years that’s something you’ll be able to take for granted. I really don’t.”

And as you read all this, you keep thinking to yourself what Chris Turner keeps saying you are thinking to yourself: “This can’t be right…”

Addition from the perspective of 2024: I don’t, in fact, think the projections that we’d be more less running out of oil by now have proven to be correct… (Unfortunately, I guess.)

An environmental take on strategic voting

Generally, I have to say, I hate voting strategically. However stupid it is in our “first past the post” system (and I still haven’t quite forgiven Ontarians for voting against changing it), I prefer to vote for something than against something else.

That said, I’m must admit to being relieved, this election, that the party I really do want to vote for also happens to be the party with by far the best odds of defeating the Conservatives in this riding.

But I come to this topic from an email I received from the environmental group, Just Earth.

What’s an environmentalist to do in the federal election? Even for card-carrying Greens, it is complicated. The party worst on the environment in general, and climate change in particular, is the Conservative party. All four others are better, although they differ on particulars. The Liberals have the excellent Green Shift plan, which the New Democrats reject, but the NDP is better on clean energy.

Strategic voting will be the option for many. A website has been launched that will help voters make a rational choice (www.voteforenvironment.ca). A riding by riding breakdown identifies races where the Conservatives won by a small margin, and are therefore vulnerable, and ridings where they are a close second and a threat. Some 60 ridings will make the difference, argues this (somewhat incognito) website.

With split votes, this would be the result: Conservative 147 seats, Liberal 76, NDP 34, Green 0, Bloc 49, independent 2.

If we “vote smart,” this would be the result: Conservative 97, Liberal 109, NDP 46, Green 1, Bloc 53, independent 2.

Not easy, though. Imagine being a federalist in Quebec faced with the “strategic” choice of with voting Bloc or getting another Conservative elected!

Also interesting was a report from the Sierra Club, which compares and grades the party’s environmental platforms as follows:

  • Green Party: A-
  • Liberals: B+
  • NDP: B
  • Bloc Québecois: B
  • Conservatives: F+

I must say, their assessment of the differences between Green, Liberal, and NDP on this front were smaller than I thought.

(Remember when votes used to get split on the right side of the political spectrum, too? I really miss those days.)

RDtNVC: Increasing energy prices without compensating with tax cuts

There were two letters in the Record yesterday related to the carbon tax plan. One asked how charging for pollution could possibly reduce it — wouldn’t companies just pass the increased cost onto customers as higher prices? The other asked, wouldn’t it be better to just force big polluters to pollute less, via regulation?

Both good questions. Comes down intuitively favoring a regulatory or “cap and trade” approach over a carbon tax, as so well articulated by Jeffery Simpson in the Globe and Mail:

They [the Green Party] bring urgency to the debate that the Conservatives lack, and they’ve got one thing right: that carbon emissions have to be assigned a price, that a tax is a defensible way to do it, and that the revenues from the tax are best recycled into lower personal and corporate income taxes.

There is another way of finding a price, through a cap-and-trade system, as proposed by the Conservatives and NDP. This targets mostly large polluters. Some of the costs are then passed to consumers. Using the tax, a method favoured by many economists, gives carbon a price certainty but doesn’t guarantee a particular emissions result; using the cap-and-trade produces a particular result but at an unknown price.

Politically, the cap-and-trade is a much easier sell, since the eventual effect on the ordinary person is indirect, whereas changes to the tax system are in the faces of consumers. The easier politics of the cap-and-trade explains in large part why Conservatives, New Democrats and U.S. politicians like it.

It’s too bad we can’t have a reasoned debate between these two approaches, instead of the slanging match and attack ads about the “carbon tax” that the Prime Minister calls “insane” and says will “screw” Canadians and “wreck the economy,” something that’s not happened in any of the countries that have thus far introduced one.

Now, I’m think of writing my own letter to the editor on this subject, and I can’t just plagiarize Jeffrey Simpson if I do that. So here’s my draft, which I’ll refine later! [I’m such a technical writer, sometimes. Just can’t resist the bulleted list!]

Something that seems to be missed in all the wild claims about the effects of a carbon tax on the economy and prices is that the regulatory or cap-and-trade system offered as an alternative will also raise energy prices — and without balancing them with an income and corporate tax cuts.

A cap-and-trade system involves only the largest polluters. Total target emission levels are set and are assigned a price. Companies who pollute the most pay the companies who emit the least. But exactly as with a carbon tax, some of those extra costs are likely to be passed on as higher prices for consumers.

The reasons the most economics and environmentalists — groups that don’t typically agree on much — favor a carbon tax over a cap-and-trade system include the following:

  • By involving everyone, not just the largest polluters, the potential reduction in pollution is therefore much greater.
  • With a cap-and-trade system, there’s no benefit to companies that will never reduce their emissions below the overall target, so they won’t. With a tax, the more they reduce, the more they save–and the greater the environment benefits.
  • It rewards companies and individuals who are already doing well, environmentally. They get more back in income and corporate tax cuts than they pay in increased carbon taxes.
  • Corporate and income tax cuts are generally stimulative to the economy, freeing up more money for investment, savings, and spending.

The truth is, the environmental policies of all the political parties–including the Conservatives–are going to increase energy prices. The question is, do you want an income tax cut to help you pay for those inevitable price increases, or not? If you do, then you should vote for one of the two parties planning to implement a carbon tax: the Green Party or the Liberals.

(2023 Postscript: These are the roots of the Conservative war on carbon taxes, but interesting that they supported cap and trade at the time. Also interesting that the Liberal plan was to reduce income taxes as compensation rather than the current “revenue neutral” approach. Finally, so sad that so many years later Canada has accomplished so little on this front.)

Reason of the day to not vote Conservative: Lying about gas taxes

This is from 2008. Re-reading in 2023, I had forgotten that the initial Liberal carbon pricing proposal would have exempted gasoline prices.

Well, I’m very pleased at this breaking news that Elizabeth May of the Green Party will be part of the televised Leaders Debate after all. And in honour of that, let’s look at an environmental issue today.

Monday, I received yet another one of those delightful (🤢), taxpayer-subsidized little Conservative polls in the mail.

This one had a headline from the Vancouver Sun on the front, with a graphic of a car fuel tank: “New 2.3 cent carbon tax sends gas price up a dime in places.” Inside, it says “Just imagine how much Stéphane Dion’s carbon tax will raise the price of gas…”

The Conservatives are lying. Knowing what a hot potato it is, the Liberal Green Shift plan is clear on this point: “This won’t include any extra tax on gasoline at the pump.” The justification for this exemption is that there is already a federal excise tax on car gasoline, set at a rate higher than that proposed for the carbon tax.

There is a debate to have here.

Is it good that diesel and natural gas prices will increase, while car gasoline prices do not? Some environmentalists would said no.

Or, what about getting rid of the excise tax and replacing it with a carbon tax? Some might think that would be a beneficial move for consumers, as gas prices might actually go down initially.

Could be an interesting discussion. Too bad we won’t hear it–because the Liberals will be too busy fighting the Conservative lie that the carbon tax includes gas at the pumps.

Why debate the facts when you can just fudge them, eh? The truth is for wimps.

My response to the Conservatives little Tax poll

Conservative MP’s keep mailing me. They give me these flyers that either say that they are great, or that some other party (usually the Liberals) are terrible, then ask me to check off a box on whether I agree with them and mail it back to them.

So far, I’ve only responded once, telling them I thought their GST tax cut was a stupid idea and they should really have just cut my income taxes. This is my response to their “Who do you think is on the right track on taxes?” question. After checking the Stephane Dion / Liberal box, I added this note:

You seem a bit confused by what the Liberals are proposing here. It’s not actually a tax on everything. It’s a tax on carbon emissions. Now, if that ends up affecting many products, that’s because our society has grown far too dependent on fossil fuels. Is this tax the best way to end that dependency? I don’t know. But it’s certainly better than doing nothing.

You also state that Liberals are desperate for money. Well, that’s a bit rich, isn’t it, from a government that has more or less squandered the big Liberal surplus on various spending programs and a very ill-conceived GST tax cut. Not too mention mailing me I don’t know how many of these silly little polls of yours.

But what’s more infuriating here is that the Conservatives are just hurling insults at the Liberals instead of engaging in an intelligent debate on this very important issue. The Liberal plan is crazy. It’s a tax on everything. It’s a trick that Dion devised downtown urban elites (and what does that one even mean? If you live downtown, it’s hard not to be urban, right? Which, of course, 80% of Canadians are. And “elites” just means smart, successful people—can’t imagine why Dion would think they have anything of value to impart!)

The Green Shift is not a tax trick; it’s a plan. You do tax carbon; you reduce income taxes. While designed to be revenue neutral overall, it’s not going to be revenue neutral to everyone, it’s true; those who pollute more will pay more.

Why don’t you talk about that? Why don’t you get into the specifics of it, and attack those where warranted, instead of hurling vague insults? Afraid that ordinary Canadians won’t get it, won’t understand? After all, they’re not very smart, not like those “downtown urban elites”… You said so yourself.

See, isn’t this fun? You should try it yourself.