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Posted by Scott Tribe on September 15, 2008, at 7:09 pm |
This was first brought to my attention on Friday by a Green Blogger pointing out that the Green Party had used the Access to Information Act to reveal a secret Conservative government study that shows the economic costs of a carbon tax in Canada starting at 50$/ton are not only negligible to the economy in the first few years, but show a net positive for a carbon tax in raising Canada’s gross domestic product:
The report supports a carbon tax as an effective way to make significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and concludes that a $50/tonne tax on carbon would have an insignificant impact on the Canadian economy [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on September 9, 2008, at 2:08 pm |
Ok, that’s my title, but it might as well be the Conservatives name for it, and it’s voter-pandering at its worst. Here is Stephen Harper’s announcement of dropping the excise tax on diesel fuel by half, as described by economist Stephen Gordon:
In one stroke, it takes two serious and pressing problems – the deteriorating fiscal situation and greenhouse gas emissions – and makes them both worse..The election is still five weeks away, and I’m already running out of synonyms for ‘stupid’
Harper can try to to claim how “practical” this is.. but in reality, this is another example of how dirty and gray and brown – NOT Green [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on September 7, 2008, at 8:48 am |
In the spirit of this request by Buckdog asking all Progressive Bloggers to list all the promises that Stephen Harper told the Canadian people and not kept, I start you on this day appropriately with the one made by Harper and the Cons about Fixed Election Dates:
Fixed Election Dates
“A Conservative government will: Introduce legislation modeled on the BC and Ontario laws requiring fixed election dates every four years, except when a government loses the confidence of the House (in which case an election would be held immediately, and the subsequent election would follow four years later).” (“Stand Up For Canada”, Conservative Party of Canada Federal Election Platform [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on August 26, 2008, at 3:05 pm |
As Harper carries on with his threats and bluster about how Parliament isn’t working anymore and how a fixed date law won’t stop him from dissolving the House in order to force an election on his terms, shall we go back to Sept 2004 for a minute and look at how things were a tad different then? Back then, before there was a fixed date election law, then opposition leader Stephen Harper was writing a joint letter with Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton to then Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson admonishing her not to let Prime Minister Paul Martin dissolve the Parliament on a whim:
The leaders have also written a [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on August 26, 2008, at 10:47 am |
I don’t think it should be any big mystery why Harper all of a sudden wants immediate meetings with all opposition leaders. His actions suggest he knows he’s not going to do well in any of the 3 byelections taking place on Sept 8, and he wants to dissolve the House before that happens. That’s why I like the “what’s the rush, Steve?” strategy the Liberals are taking to the press:
Agreeing to Dion’s proposal to meet on Sept. 9 would preclude the Conservatives from forcing a general election call before three Sept. 8 by-elections in Ontario and Quebec – a timetable the Tories are believed to favour…the Liberals [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on August 24, 2008, at 12:31 pm |
…from their Republican mentors. The Bush White House has perfected the art of doing this: when bad news strikes, they try to do what is called a Friday news dump to ensure there’s as little press or Democratic spokespersons around to either report it or criticize it, or to ask them potentially embarrassing questions. It appears our Conservative government is copying their American Idols to the letter:
The Conservative government has quietly scuttled the navy’s $2.9-billion project to replace its aging supply ships, saying bids from the shipbuilding industry were “significantly” higher than the money set aside for the program. It has also cancelled a tender call for the [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on August 6, 2008, at 6:51 pm |
This is a picture of children from the Cree community of Appawapiskat. The community and these kids have been advocating to the federal government for years for funds to help build a new school to replace their old one, which has been declared condemned. They had received promises from both federal Liberal and Conservative Indian Affairs Ministers that the school would be built, but nothing has been done. Now, however, the ultra-compassionate (said with sarcasm) Chuck Strahl has point-blank said that the school wouldn’t be built. Not on the priority list, according to Chuck, even though these kids have been without a school for eight years.
In the [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on August 5, 2008, at 10:40 am |
It’s not a secret that the federal Conservative government doesn’t particularly like Ontario right now. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s statement a few months ago that he couldn’t think of any reason for businesses to invest in the province of Ontario is one famous example. You would think however, that in ridings where they hold seats, they might be inclined to help out specific projects in Ontario, if only to give their MP’s a boost, if not the region that might deservedly need it.
Unfortunately, even that doesn’t seem to be the case. A prime example of that would be the small city of Stratford – famously known for the [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on July 21, 2008, at 2:09 pm |
I find it interesting how much gyrations this Conservative government is going through in trying to justify why it should remain the only Western nation to not repatriate it’s citizens from Guantanamo Bay – or in this case, citizen, as only 1 by the name of Omar Khadr is there.
First, it was that they had to let the “process” take place at Guantanamo because he was facing very serious charges.
Then, the reason became that Khadr was a litmus test in showing the world how serious Canada was on terror. That was a false argument if there ever was one. Everyone knew that “the world” was [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on July 2, 2008, at 6:33 pm |
Here we go again: Harper’s off to the G-8 to try to convince everyone with the Conservatives argument that they tried using in Bali that until everyone in the world agrees to a climate change agreement, none of the world should bother doing anything about climate change. This attitude wasn’t appreciated at Bali by the world, and it won’t likely be appreciated at the G-8, except of course, by Harper’s fellow climate-change feet dragger, the US.
This “all or nothing” approach was nearly what scuttled the Kyoto talks in Montreal back in 2005. It took the leadership of the conference’s chairperson, then-Environment Minister Stephane Dion, to rescue the talks [...]
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