Dion's new Green Shift

From my little local newspaper, Peace Arch News, an excellent editorial by Tom Fletcher:

Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion served as environment minister under ... Paul Martin. Then, as Liberal leader, Dion’s proposed “green shift” carbon tax was pivotal only in ending his leadership. With a majority government this time, he promises the entire federal cabinet will be involved.

Dion gave a revealing interview to The Globe and Mail last week about his experience in government.

“The old system was to give the file of the environment to the minister of the environment and say, ‘deal with it, be the hero of the environment groups, but don’t bother us because we have jobs to create and an economy to grow’,” Dion said. “That will not work.”

It certainly didn’t work, which is not surprising since Dion is admitting the Liberals considered the environment ministry a mere public relations tool. This was the period when Canada signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, then pretended to care about it as the United States rejected it in a unanimous vote of Congress.

... Dion’s ill-fated “green shift” wasn’t just about greenhouse gases. He intended to impose a national carbon tax and use the proceeds to eliminate child poverty.

This concept is back, on a global scale. ...

Craven Liberals proposing a retreat

The Liberal position on Afghanistan, deliberately vague as it is, does not stand up to serious scrutiny.

In his post ‘Those craven Liberals’ Mark Collins attempts to analyze Dion’s ‘logic’ and comes to a most realistic conclusion:

In reality, as we all know, the current Liberal demand is based almost solely on the calculation that it is politically popular and will win votes--especially in Quebec and the Greater Toronto Area. What short-sighted, crass cynicism. Mike Pearson may well indeed be rolling in his grave.

‘Dion Proposing a Retreat’ by Marcus Gee, similarly, tries to follow the Liberal position to it’s logical conclusion under various assumed rules of engagement, arriving at similar conclusions:

Saying you want to deliver aid without engaging in combat sounds fine on Parliament Hill, but you can't deliver aid without security. And to maintain security, you sometimes have to engage in combat with those who are trying to shatter it.

And that ... is what Mr. Dion is proposing: a retreat. Without the ability to engage in combat when needed, Canadian soldiers would be reduced to impotence - gentle shepherds in a countryside overrun with wolves. ... It is like asking cops to prevent muggings without arresting muggers.

Both Collins and Gee have it right. The Liberal proposition is unworkable in any practical sense, so the only remaining ‘rationale’ is cynical political posturing. And the Taliban must be watching this with glee.

And his trip was going so well!

Poor Stéphane. He was getting good press on his visit to Afghanistan. Well, not everyone agreed.

But Mr. Dion has reversed the effect of any good press by musing about the need for NATO to intervene on the Afghan/Pakistan border. It’s hard to see how he’s going to square pulling our troops out of combat with a proposal to involve NATO in a potentially much more intense combat operation.

See also: Mark Collins’ ‘More of M. Dion's ignorance‘ and Joanne’s ‘Regarding Stephane Dion's leadership potential‘.

Dion in deep doo-doo. Is Michael Ignatief drooling?

Following the Liberal disaster in yesterday’s by-elections Stéphane Dion bravely asserted (quoting from memory): "...the Liberal Party is in a strong position to move forward..." [translation: "from here there’s no where to go but up."]

Naturally, there was a lot of analysis of results and what they meant for Dion’s future. Joanne captures the flavour, pointing to the angst of various Liberal bloggers, Paul Wells, Warren Kinsella, etc who in turn point to many others.

Also, naturally, there was much speculation about who would succeed Dion and when. Lawrence Martin even stokes a conspiracy involving Michael Ignatief.

Speaking of Ignatief - one of the above threads led to this Huffington Post item with American liberal David Rees’ hilarious deconstruction of Ignatief’s (in)famous NYT Iraq "mea culpa":

I expected a no-holds barred, personal excoriation. In fact, I assumed the first, last, and only sentence of the essay would be: "Please, for the love of God, don't ever listen to me again."

However....The first nine-tenths of Ignatieff's essay, far from being an honest self-examination, is a collection of vague aphorisms and bong-poster koans.... I refuse to believe this section was actually written by a member of the Canadian government, because that would mean Canada is even more "fuxxor3d" than America.

[Quoting Ignatief’s essay] "An intellectual's responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician's responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm. . . ."

Right off the bat, he's saying: "It was right for me to support the Iraq war when I was an academic, because academics live in outer space on Planet Zinfandel, and play with ideas all day. But now, as a politician in a country that opposed the war, I'll admit I screwed up..."

........[and on and on].

Hilarious, and worth recalling should Ignatief manage to take the Liberal helm one day.

Dion is "unfit to lead"

Last Friday Stephane Dion spent an hour meeting with the editorial board of the Ottawa Citizen. In his column today (registration required) under the headline "Why Stephane Dion is unfit to lead this country" Randall Denley said the experience was "frightening". Some more quotes:

I've just met Liberal leader Stephane Dion for the first time and I have to say, it was a frightening experience. The thought that this fellow could become the prime minister of Canada ought to alarm us.

Dion is a verbose, mild-mannered academic with a shaky grasp of English who seems unfit to chair a university department, much less lead a country.

Unfortunately, he's a one-issue candidate with no coherent position on that one issue.

Dion isn't one of those down to earth guys like Ralph Klein. He's more like the wooly-headed professor next door. Dion simply cannot give a clear, succinct answer to a question. It's a necessary skill for any politician at his level.

Dion would have us believe he's qualified to be prime minister. If he thinks that, he's kidding himself. Let's not let him kid us, too.

You have to listen to the whole interview to get the full flavour. But, believe me, it's a stupour-inducing chore.

Climate change - sanity in a sea of stupidity

"Back in the real world, if what many scientists say is true, climate change will not be a media-generated, one-year or one-election wonder. It will be a centuries-long struggle..." - Lorrie Goldstein

Lorrie Goldstein, in today's Toronto Sun, lends some much needed rationality to the media and environmentalist driven climate hysteria:

This is serious, long-term stuff. It's not about whether Dion names his dog "Kyoto" or Baird wears a green tie.
[...]
...I doubt the Liberals, Tories or anyone else in Ottawa believe a word of their own rhetoric on global warming these days. If they did, they'd be calling for a national unity government to address what could be an unprecedented crisis, not taking cheap shots at each other and insulting our intelligence.

[h/t]

Dion on Kyoto - duplicitous or duped?

John Ivison's column in today's National Post raises important questions concerning Dion's commitment to the Kyoto Accord. He quotes B.C.- based emissions management consultant Aldyen Donnelly:

"The only way industry can do its 'fair share' under the Kyoto cap is to shut down at least 20% of existing manufacturing capacity and jobs over the next 36 months," she said. Even if a new government closed all of Ontario's coal-fired power stations, shut down all oilsands activity in Alberta and slapped a moratorium on new development, it would address less than one-quarter of Canada's current "Kyoto gap."

Mr. Ivison then correctly wonders:

Is Mr. Dion prepared to let the Canadian public in on this reality check, or is he deliberately misleading an electorate that polls suggest is in favour of Kyoto, even though two in three acknowledge they don't know anything about it?

[...]

Either Mr. Dion knows this and is being duplicitous for political gain or, worse, he doesn't and has been duped by the environmental lobby. Neither explanation inspires much confidence in him as a future prime minister.

I'd also bet most Canadians are unaware that even if we did meet our Kyoto targets at the expense of a 20% chop to the economy, the net effect on global climate would be near zero. In fact, since Canada's contribution to global GHGs is small, the effect on climate of shutting the economy down all together would be negligible.

That's not to say, assuming there's a chance anthropogenic GHGs are actually the culprit, we shouldn't be doing our 'precautionary' bit. But it does strongly suggest that there's no great urgency, no reason for Canada to commit economic suicide other than to prove itself a global goody-two-shoes. Doesn't the world already know this?

I hope the National Post editorial board gets a chance soon to quiz Mr. Dion, and Messrs Harper and Layton, on these things. Canadians need to be informed.

Dion's democracy - The Canadian Wheat Board

Among the many lovely features of economic life in Canuckistan are its totalitarian agricultural marketing cartels. These cartels, or 'marketing boards', are legally enforced monopolies which act as single buyers for specific farm products, setting production quotas as well as prices. Farmers must, by law, sell to the marketing boards. Violators risk fines and jail.

This draconian system of marketing is, naturally, controversial. The new Conservative government has been attempting to curb the power of the Canadian Wheat Board over opposition objections. And this week Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl, fired the CWB President because of his intransigence on the issue. Liberal leader, Stephane Dion has been gaming the situation and making strange noises. So I sent him an email:

Dear Mr. Dion,

Re. Your position regarding the Canadian Wheat Board.

You are quoted in this Globe and Mail story as follows:

"We have a democratic process, and the government is jeopardizing this democratic process. It's an additional reason why we must condemn what the government is doing," Mr. Dion said.

First, what is "democratic" about forcing farmers to join a marketing cartel they do not wish to belong to? Truly democratic choice would give individual farmers the right to decide how they sell their product - not be forced by law, under threat of jail, to sell it to one government mandated buyer. If the Charter doesn’t support this most basic of freedoms then it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Second, why should Western farmers be singled out for this abuse? Unless you are proposing to similarly abuse ALL producers including those in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes then I suggest that you, sir, are being spectacularly disingenuous.

You are respectfully encouraged to rethink your position on this matter with a view to supporting true democracy and to desist from purely political gamesmanship.

Sincerely,

cc. Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl

‘Sustainable development’ - Kyoto’s close cousin

Stéphane Dion, Mr. SD

Sustainable development (SD) is another of those 'big ideas' that is apparently beyond question. Like Kyoto it’s been effectively sold and is now widely accepted. SD is ‘the answer’ to all issues of conservation, resource management and ... you name it. Every government and every corporation touts SD as part of its 'corporate social responsibility' agenda.

Although SD is widely accepted, few have any real idea what it is. And on close inspection the concept is so fuzzy as to have little meaning at all. But, as with most platitudes, it sounds virtuous, so it must be good.

Peter Foster, in an excellent column in today’s National Post highlights newly minted Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's attachment to the notion and exposes it for the nonsense that it is:

The problem is that sustainable development is an anti-concept -- designed semantically to be beyond question or even fundamental discussion. After all, who speaks for unsustainable development?

That definition sure has a familiar ring to it. And SD, naturally, suffers the same difficulty as Marx’s dictum. Mr. Foster explains:

Sounds reasonable. But only a moment's reflection demonstrates insurmountable problems. What are "needs?" Are they synonymous with "wants?" If not, who decides which is which? And what are "the needs of the present?" .....it would be impossible to calculate or express the needs of even one person, let alone compare the needs of two. .....One thing is for sure, not all present needs are being met, so why should we consider catering collectively to those of the future, assuming, of course, that we have any idea of what "future needs" might be, which we don't, and can't.

The implicit assumption of the Brundtland formulation is that we live in a manageable, tribal world where needs are clearly defined and "collective-action problems" (as left-wing intellectuals love to call them) can be hashed out around the campfire.

And, finally, referring to Mr. Dion:

....anybody who embraces the glib nostrums of sustainable development is not merely at best a conventional thinker, he is not much of a thinker at all.

....the bland formulation provided by the socialist-packed UN Brundtland commission in 1987, that SD is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

It's Stéphane Dion

In a fourth ballot 55/45 vote Stéphane Dion beat out Michael Ignatief for the Liberal leadership.

Now what is the Conservative braintrust to make of this!? Who knows, but in my opinion Dion was the least weasel-like of the three 3rd ballot front-runners. But he's still a Liberal (ie. an illiberal neo-liberal) so he's still a potential big-government disaster should he come to power. Worse, he's from the Québécois 'nation' which is infested with separatists, soft-nationalists and pacifists at the core of an economic basket-case nanny-province.

Dion ran on three priorities:

The economy - who didn't?
Social justice - the socialist mirage
The environment - Mr. Kyoto (yikes!)

Robin Sears on CBC's 'Politics' said Dion was the best bet for a Conservative victory. Don't know about that but I sure hope he's right.