Two recent moments with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver brought to mind a favorite comedy moment, when Rick James tried to say two things at once.
More, after the jump...
So Wednesday, I wrote this article about Joe Oliver's excellent energy adventure in Kuwait.
The International Energy Forum is a supplier-buyer gabfest. A chance for energy ministers the world over to get together, talk business, peer into crystal balls and iron out differences.
Canada's Minister of Rocks, Trees and Oilsands was doing all three, but the main focus of my story was on the last one. Uncle Joe spent a lot of his time twisting European ears and threatening them with stern letters over the unfairness of their proposed new Fuel Quality Directive (FQD).
So what the hell is this thing that has our government so flustered they send Uncle Joe all the way to Kuwait to bug a bunch of Eurocrats?
Read on...
The International Energy Forum is a supplier-buyer gabfest. A chance for energy ministers the world over to get together, talk business, peer into crystal balls and iron out differences.
Canada's Minister of Rocks, Trees and Oilsands was doing all three, but the main focus of my story was on the last one. Uncle Joe spent a lot of his time twisting European ears and threatening them with stern letters over the unfairness of their proposed new Fuel Quality Directive (FQD).
So what the hell is this thing that has our government so flustered they send Uncle Joe all the way to Kuwait to bug a bunch of Eurocrats?
Read on...
It's one of Joe Oliver's most common refrains when talking about oil sands resource projects:
"We have a moral and constitutional obligation to consult with Canada's First Nations," intones the Minister of Natural Resources. Constitutionally speaking, he could not be more right. If you're going to run a pipeline through native land, you've got to sit down and talk about it with the natives. The 1982 Constitution and any number of Supreme Court of Canada rulings have spelled that out pretty clearly.
But what makes for a constitutionally acceptable consultation when it comes to Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline?
"We have a moral and constitutional obligation to consult with Canada's First Nations," intones the Minister of Natural Resources. Constitutionally speaking, he could not be more right. If you're going to run a pipeline through native land, you've got to sit down and talk about it with the natives. The 1982 Constitution and any number of Supreme Court of Canada rulings have spelled that out pretty clearly.
But what makes for a constitutionally acceptable consultation when it comes to Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline?
So yesterday's decision by the Americans to can the current version of the Keystone XL pipeline has added new urgency to the Northern Gateway Pipeline process.
If you're an oil sands producer or a member of the Harper government, you may be thinking, "Damn it! We've gotta make sure this pipe gets built! So get outta the way, Greenies!"
If you're a "radical" environmentalist (especially a foreign-backed one, just ask Joe Oliver), you may be thinking it's time to mount the sylvan ramparts and prepare to defend the spirit bear and her pristine slice of Gaia.
But the crux of the problem for the Northern Gateway Pipeline lies nowhere near that sideshow of a fight. It doesn't matter how much money Green Puppet Masters from abroad pour into the measly coffers of Canadian environmental groups.
Nor does it matter how many names or accusations of economic treason the government throws at local tree-huggers.
The real players in this fight are the First Nations along the route from Bruderheim, Alta. to Kitimat, B.C.
And on that front, Tom Flanagan, University of Calgary professor and former chief of staff to the prime minister, has some free -- if controversial -- advice for the federal government.
Hit the jump to read more...
If you're an oil sands producer or a member of the Harper government, you may be thinking, "Damn it! We've gotta make sure this pipe gets built! So get outta the way, Greenies!"
If you're a "radical" environmentalist (especially a foreign-backed one, just ask Joe Oliver), you may be thinking it's time to mount the sylvan ramparts and prepare to defend the spirit bear and her pristine slice of Gaia.
But the crux of the problem for the Northern Gateway Pipeline lies nowhere near that sideshow of a fight. It doesn't matter how much money Green Puppet Masters from abroad pour into the measly coffers of Canadian environmental groups.
Nor does it matter how many names or accusations of economic treason the government throws at local tree-huggers.
The real players in this fight are the First Nations along the route from Bruderheim, Alta. to Kitimat, B.C.
And on that front, Tom Flanagan, University of Calgary professor and former chief of staff to the prime minister, has some free -- if controversial -- advice for the federal government.
Hit the jump to read more...
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has quite the sales job ahead of
him. As minister in charge of selling the oil sands, there's a lot of
bad press to spin out of and ugly pictures to gloss over. Lucky for him,
the potential for tens-of-thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars
in new revenues make the job that much easier.
Still, when he sat down for an on-camera interview with the CBC's Margo McDiarmid last week, it was hard to ignore when he made his job a whole lot harder.
Still, when he sat down for an on-camera interview with the CBC's Margo McDiarmid last week, it was hard to ignore when he made his job a whole lot harder.
Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, has been listening to frantic queries about recent events in the Arab world and has this very Californian advice:
"Take it easy."
Hit the jump to hear a few of his thoughts on the Arab Spring, or as he refers to it, the "Arab Revolt."
"Take it easy."
Hit the jump to hear a few of his thoughts on the Arab Spring, or as he refers to it, the "Arab Revolt."
The results are in. We know who is finishing this campaign on top. CBC is ready to report the final tally of the leaders'... wait for it... carbon emissions.
Honestly! Did you think we would test the wrath of Elections Canada?
The leaders' tours - collectively - have circumnavigated the earth six times! Add up all their tonnage and - in five weeks - the campaigns have generated nearly 158 times more than what an average Canadian household generates in a year. (According to StatsCan, the average Canadian household produces nine metric tonnes of greenhouse gas a year.)
Yikes! Or maybe not so much... all the tours are buying carbon offsets except the Tories.
Here are the numbers:
Honestly! Did you think we would test the wrath of Elections Canada?
The leaders' tours - collectively - have circumnavigated the earth six times! Add up all their tonnage and - in five weeks - the campaigns have generated nearly 158 times more than what an average Canadian household generates in a year. (According to StatsCan, the average Canadian household produces nine metric tonnes of greenhouse gas a year.)
Yikes! Or maybe not so much... all the tours are buying carbon offsets except the Tories.
Here are the numbers:
- Kilometres travelled by plane, ferry and train (mostly by plane): 131,157
- Kilometres travelled by bus, mini-van and hybrid car (mostly bus): 21,456
- Total metric tonnes of GHGs spewed: 1419.
The clouds of greenhouse gases continue to fill the horizon as Canada's federal leaders criss, cross and cavort around the country. Last time around, the big story was Elizabeth May's 5000 percent increase in emissions (nothing like a couple of plane trips to up your numbers) and Jack Layton's jump to the lead with the biggest carbon footprint.
Well, the Tories have pretty much settled back to where they were when I wrote my original story on April 4. But in a stunning reversal, the Liberals are now spewing more CO2 than the NDP. The funny thing is... Iggy hasn't travelled as far as Jack. It's just that his plane (a Boeing 737-400) belches louder and longer than Jack's (an Airbus A-319).
Check it out for yourselves, folks! It's on Conklin & DeDekker's aviation carbon calculator (One quick note about this carbon calculator. There is no setting for an A319. It is a shortened version of the A320 but in the same family. So I used that setting).
Here are the new numbers:
Well, the Tories have pretty much settled back to where they were when I wrote my original story on April 4. But in a stunning reversal, the Liberals are now spewing more CO2 than the NDP. The funny thing is... Iggy hasn't travelled as far as Jack. It's just that his plane (a Boeing 737-400) belches louder and longer than Jack's (an Airbus A-319).
Check it out for yourselves, folks! It's on Conklin & DeDekker's aviation carbon calculator (One quick note about this carbon calculator. There is no setting for an A319. It is a shortened version of the A320 but in the same family. So I used that setting).
Here are the new numbers:
We've updated the leaders' carbon footprints from the last time we did the calculation on April 4.
The big news: Elizabeth May has seen an early 5,000-per-cent increase in the size of her emissions!
She went from 0.1 Tonnes of GHGs emitted to 5. But easy there - before you start assuming the Green Party leader is driving a coal-and-raw-bitumen-fuelled tractor to her campaign events, rest assured -- it's nothing quite that insidious.
May took a couple of plane flights: from Vancouver to Toronto, Montreal to Halifax, then back to Toronto and from there to Vancouver again. Up until April 4, May had just been toodling around her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands in her 2007 Prius (oh, and one ferry ride to the mainland).
It just goes to show the polluting power of jet aircraft.
The other federalist leaders are continuing on their merry ways. The only news besides the May-print is that the NDP has overtaken the Conservative Party as the highest carbon emitter.
The Tories now float atop a 185-tonne cloud of GHGs but they are easily engulfed by Jack Layton's 216-tonne carbon dioxide nebula.
Here is our updated greenhouse gas emissions chart:
The big news: Elizabeth May has seen an early 5,000-per-cent increase in the size of her emissions!
She went from 0.1 Tonnes of GHGs emitted to 5. But easy there - before you start assuming the Green Party leader is driving a coal-and-raw-bitumen-fuelled tractor to her campaign events, rest assured -- it's nothing quite that insidious.
May took a couple of plane flights: from Vancouver to Toronto, Montreal to Halifax, then back to Toronto and from there to Vancouver again. Up until April 4, May had just been toodling around her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands in her 2007 Prius (oh, and one ferry ride to the mainland).
It just goes to show the polluting power of jet aircraft.
The other federalist leaders are continuing on their merry ways. The only news besides the May-print is that the NDP has overtaken the Conservative Party as the highest carbon emitter.
The Tories now float atop a 185-tonne cloud of GHGs but they are easily engulfed by Jack Layton's 216-tonne carbon dioxide nebula.
Here is our updated greenhouse gas emissions chart:
Dear readers, listeners and viewers: forgive me. I am an imperfect
creature, especially when it comes to statistics. But in this task, I've
devoted as many of my limited skills as I can.
Calculating the carbon footprint of each leader's campaign is a
complicated combination of geography, cartography, algebra and vigilance
of signs that read, "this way lies madness." Fortunately, I had some
professional help along the way.
In this post, I will do my best to explain my imperfect methodology for calculating the gaseous mess each leader leaves in his campaigning wake.
First of all, let me tell you exactly what I am measuring -- A carbon footprint can take in all kinds of things, like: heating an office, turning on a light, making a cup of coffee, turning on your computer, firing up a microphone, running a smoke machine at a stump speech.
In this post, I will do my best to explain my imperfect methodology for calculating the gaseous mess each leader leaves in his campaigning wake.
First of all, let me tell you exactly what I am measuring -- A carbon footprint can take in all kinds of things, like: heating an office, turning on a light, making a cup of coffee, turning on your computer, firing up a microphone, running a smoke machine at a stump speech.
In the annals of Lake Ontario bathymetry, there is no place more profound
than a patch of lake-bed directly between the Scotch-Bonnet Gap and the
Duck-Galloo Ridge known as the Rochester Basin. At its deepest, the basin is 802
feet.
That watery pit should give Christian Paradis the heebie-jeebies...
That watery pit should give Christian Paradis the heebie-jeebies...
Knock, knock, knock... hello! Mr. Scott Vaughan, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development?
Hi! I'm with the David Suzuki Foundation and we're really worried about Endocrine Disrupting Substances. What are those, you ask?
Well, read on .....
The guns are still blazing at Camp NDP, and it's starting to sound like the MPs with registered guns are going to win. And that is killing folks back in the ridings.
Kathleen talks with Maurice Grinstead, the president of the NDP's Thunder Bay-Superior North electoral district association.
And then there's Charlie Angus. The NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay switched his vote a couple of weeks ago and he ties himself into a few knots trying to explain his turn.
Parliamentary Reporter Louise Elliott drops by with a look at the unfinished business left over from the last sitting. There's plenty of it. And there's a bit of new stuff to come... but not much.
One thing that's there for sure is a motion from Conservative MP Michael Chong to tidy up question period. We'll hear about that from him.
There's lots more... so tune in. Hope you like it!
MAX
Kathleen talks with Maurice Grinstead, the president of the NDP's Thunder Bay-Superior North electoral district association.
And then there's Charlie Angus. The NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay switched his vote a couple of weeks ago and he ties himself into a few knots trying to explain his turn.
Parliamentary Reporter Louise Elliott drops by with a look at the unfinished business left over from the last sitting. There's plenty of it. And there's a bit of new stuff to come... but not much.
One thing that's there for sure is a motion from Conservative MP Michael Chong to tidy up question period. We'll hear about that from him.
There's lots more... so tune in. Hope you like it!
MAX
Apparently, Nancy Pelosi was in town. Maybe you've heard of her: Speaker of the
US House of Representatives, third-in-line to throne, er, Presidency. Well, if
you were a Canadian journalist you barely would have noticed. She never bothered
to talk to us. Fortunately, she did meet with some environmentalists and
Premiers about the oil sands. We're talking with the Alberta invite, Ed
Stelmach. And yes... he confirms that Ms. Pelosi was actually. He's also got a
few choice words about federal government funding of hockey arenas.
You know politics is all about communicating. And Parliamentary reporter James Fitz-Morris has a quite a story for us about a new type of political communications. The Aussies call it dog-whistle politics. And the coded sounds have made it up here to Canada.
Quebec's politicians appear to be the country's most fearless. How else do you explain their desire to hold public hearings on the right to die with dignity? University of Manitoba ethicist Arthur Schafer joins Kathleen to discuss what it would take for our MPs to undertake a similar public conversation.
And finally, some of our Ontario listeners may remember Janet Ecker as the provincial minister of Education in Mike Harris' Progressive Conservative Government. These days, though, she's running the Toronto Financial Services Alliance. She's dropping by our Front Street studios to tell us about something called the Global Risk Institute... Canada's answer to the question: How do we avoid another global financial meltdown?
You know politics is all about communicating. And Parliamentary reporter James Fitz-Morris has a quite a story for us about a new type of political communications. The Aussies call it dog-whistle politics. And the coded sounds have made it up here to Canada.
Quebec's politicians appear to be the country's most fearless. How else do you explain their desire to hold public hearings on the right to die with dignity? University of Manitoba ethicist Arthur Schafer joins Kathleen to discuss what it would take for our MPs to undertake a similar public conversation.
And finally, some of our Ontario listeners may remember Janet Ecker as the provincial minister of Education in Mike Harris' Progressive Conservative Government. These days, though, she's running the Toronto Financial Services Alliance. She's dropping by our Front Street studios to tell us about something called the Global Risk Institute... Canada's answer to the question: How do we avoid another global financial meltdown?
That's the show... hope you like it!
MAX
Now, don't the NDP find themselves with their backs to the wall... facing off against members of their own caucus. It's not a pretty fight this gun registry donnybrook. The Liberals love it. The Conservatives are having all kinds of fun. And Jack Layton... well... he probably wishes he was back on holiday. Still they are putting up a brave front. Nova Scotia NDP MP Peter Stoffer has always been against the gun registry and he isn't changing his mind now. But that doesn't mean he will shoot his leader down in cold blood. Peter and Jack join guest-host Alison Crawford to discuss their differences.
The North: vast... frozen... forbidding... and this time of year, strangely
full of hot air. Yup! The Prime Minister has been up there for most of the week
and the announcements and rhetoric just won't stop coming. For a little change
though, we thought we'd go looking for a different perspective on the Arctic --
the one from the other side of Baffin Bay.
Denmark's Ambassador to Canada drops by for a little chat about all things northerly with our guest-host Chris Hall. And while our gaze is focused in that direction, we might as well talk about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's ice follies. Reporter James Cudmore gives us the sideline view of Big Steve's Arctic escapades.
Meanwhile, back down here within 200 kilometres of the American border, the cops are uncovering alleged plots. Three Muslim-Canadian men are arrested and charged with various terrorism-related offences and CSIS and the RCMP are sitting at the same table, playing nice.
What's going on? National security expert and Queen's University lecturer, Anthony Seaboyer, sees a new era of cooperation between the country's various investigative services.
And hey! The Liberals are getting together in Cape Breton for their annual summer shindig. Rodger Cuzner, the party whip and Larry Bagnell, the Liberal member for Yukon, sit down to chat about the Arctic, long guns and the rural-urban divide.
Staying out on the east coast, New Brunswickers are going to the polls at the end of September. Our local provincial affairs reporter, Jacques Poitras, takes a look at the issues the parties want to talk about and those they don't.
Denmark's Ambassador to Canada drops by for a little chat about all things northerly with our guest-host Chris Hall. And while our gaze is focused in that direction, we might as well talk about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's ice follies. Reporter James Cudmore gives us the sideline view of Big Steve's Arctic escapades.
Meanwhile, back down here within 200 kilometres of the American border, the cops are uncovering alleged plots. Three Muslim-Canadian men are arrested and charged with various terrorism-related offences and CSIS and the RCMP are sitting at the same table, playing nice.
What's going on? National security expert and Queen's University lecturer, Anthony Seaboyer, sees a new era of cooperation between the country's various investigative services.
And hey! The Liberals are getting together in Cape Breton for their annual summer shindig. Rodger Cuzner, the party whip and Larry Bagnell, the Liberal member for Yukon, sit down to chat about the Arctic, long guns and the rural-urban divide.
Staying out on the east coast, New Brunswickers are going to the polls at the end of September. Our local provincial affairs reporter, Jacques Poitras, takes a look at the issues the parties want to talk about and those they don't.
Hope you like it!
MAX
Folks, we're in the doldrums of summer, but there is refugee storm brewing on the Pacific coast.
Last week, the MV Sun Sea made land on Vancouver Island to cries of outrage from the Canadian public. This week, we hear from a more sympathetic voice. Senator Mobina Jaffer came to Canada as a refugee and her heart goes out the nearly 500 Tamil men, women and children newly arrived in British Columbia.
Just a quick note to Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canadian fans of The House. You may have noticed Saturday morning's show was a repeat of last week's special Quebec program. Due to a computer error the wrong program was aired.
For anyone interested in hearing the July 17 episode of The House, please go to The House's website. You can listen to a streaming version of the show or download the podcast.
Or, you can listen to it now, here:
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Thanks,
MAX
I never thought I'd live to see the day! Canadian statisticians are
frothing mad. And not in their normal number-crunching way. They're
going genuinely postal (I couldn't resist mixing bureaucratic
metaphors). Not only are the chart junkies steaming but they've got the
unlikeliest of gangs backing them up...former clerks of the privy
council, bank economists, business associations, medical doctors.
So what stirred up this nerdy hornets nest? The government decided to
make the long form census voluntary. Industry Minister Tony Clement
is the lucky guy who got to make this announcement. He'll explain the
rationale for the change to guest-host Susan Lunn.
YAY!!! It's Canada Day and the Old Frozen Sod has 143 candles to blow
out. Good thing Liz Windsor is in town to help. The House was more than
happy to celebrate... but not before we got through some weightier
subjects.
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March (47)
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February (50)
- Orders of the Day - If those caucus room walls could talk ...
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- Orders of the Day - Pay no attention to the Vikileaking former Liberal staffer behind the curtain
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- UPDATED - Fate of NDP motion to investigate creeping in camera-itis at committee unknown
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