Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Preston Manning goes for the green

In today’s Post is an article written by Preston Manning and Andrew Heinzman shilling for:

Sustainable Prosperity, a national policy and research network dedicated to the development of a green economy in Canada.
Geez! There must be some real green in going green. Anyway the article is loaded with the usual baffle gab on "low carbon" "green economies", "energy", "climate change", "sustainable development", "balance" ...etc, etc, which, of course, as a nation we have to get on top of quick (throw a ton of gubm’nt policy and money at) or else.

The first thought that crossed my mind was: "I sure hope Peter Foster jumps on this soon!" And sure enough, he had a column written before the end of the day. Bravo Peter!

What set off initial alarm bells was that one of its authors was Preston Manning, sometime leader of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, who has for some time been transitioning to the policy dark side.The piece, co-authored by Andrew Heintzman, who runs "the first Canadian investment company to be exclusively focused on investing in environmental sectors," was pretty much a stock "Canada needs to get out in front of the green revolution" piece of the type so beloved by policy wonks.

... they recommend, specifically the grand Pigovian conceit that market prices are all "wrong" and that, with a little judicious intervention, we shall be on the way to "sustainable technologies."

... Sustainable Prosperity is a political organization right down to its Orwellian moniker. It is filled with the tendentious notions about "footprints" and "food miles" and subscribes to the fatal conceit of expansive and competent policy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How sad, It looks like Preston Manning has sold out the real people of Canada. I respected him as one of the few honest politicians left in Canada. I guess I was wrong

Rob C

Anonymous said...

What happened to Preston Manning? This is very sad...

JR said...

Yes, it would appear that he's taken to shilling for whoever's willing to pay. I once thought of him as highly principled - but no longer.