Inside Politics

Which one is it, Minister Oliver?

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:50:32 -0500

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...

Sorting out the spat over Europe's fuel quality directive

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:00:51 -0500

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...

Talking key to First Nations consultations over pipeline

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 08:07:12 -0500

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?

Hard advice on the Northern Gateway pipeline

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:06:55 -0500

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...

The uninhabitability of the oil sands forests

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:06:31 -0500

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.

An optimistic view on the Arab Spring

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:01:51 -0500

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."

The leaders' carbon footprints - the final tally

Mon, 02 May 2011 15:01:07 -0500

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:

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.

Now that's a lottta gas! Right underneath this you should see a pretty little graph with the numbers broken down by individual party. And for those of you interested in the method behind my calculating madness, check out this blog post from the beginning of the campaign.

The leaders' carbon footprints UPDATED AGAIN!

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:31:23 -0500

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:

The leaders' carbon footprints UPDATED!

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:15:50 -0500

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:

Going the distance: Crunching the numbers on campaign carbon footprints

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:11:44 -0500

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.

Government nuclear spin

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:53:45 -0500

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...

Suzuki's people have questions for you, Scott Vaughan

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:49:54 -0500

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 .....

This week on 'The House'

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:08:55 -0500

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

This weekend on the House

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:45:50 -0500

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?

That's the show... hope you like it!

MAX

This Weekend on the House

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:36:06 -0500

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.