Erik BJORGAN for Parliament

The numbers say it all: Canada is a climate-change miscreant

by Jeffrey Simpson,

When the Harper government has something it wants everybody to know, it sends the Prime Minister to make an “announcement,” gathers a gaggle of ministers to nod their heads at the words of their sage boss, issues press releases and, if necessary, buys newspaper and television advertising to trumpet itself.

When, however, the news is bad, well, standard procedure is either not to release the information at all, or to post it on a website without
telling anyone, hoping the news will pass unnoticed.

Such was the case this week when quietly, of course, Environment Canada posted on its website the embarrassing news about the government’s expensive and largely futile measures to combat greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-numbers-say-it-all-canada-is-a-climate-change-miscreant/article1591592/

Tories rewriting safety regs with no input from their own expert panel, says member.

By Mitchell Anderson

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/05/31/OilSpillPrevention/index.html

If anyone needed more proof that both Harper and Campbell have similar agenda, they got it this week with the provincial budget and the speech from the throne. What we see in both are accelerated attacks on the environment couched in terms such as “modernizing the regulatory system”.

Both governments fail to address the triple deficit we have: fiscal, ecological and democratic. One wonders what kind of world such men think they are creating for the children. What do they know that we don’t know? Could it be they don’t understand that technology will NOT save us? that humans cannot live on this earth once we will have destroyed all we evolved from?

We’re already seeing many places in the world where you can’t breathe the air and can’t drink the water, yet it seems both these “leaders” are intent on copying the practices that lead to that destruction. Here are budgetary concerns expressed by the Green Party:

• By 2015, CIDA funding will see significant cuts in expected funding of nearly $2 billion.
• No revival of the ecoEnergy Technology Initiative.  Renewables will receive Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance benefits. The 2010 budget augments this only very slightly.
• AECL still gets $300 million in new funding despite its failure to operate Chalk River for secure supply of radio-isotopes.
• No news on pension reform.
• No commitment to Own the Podium.  $22 million/year confirmed for high performance athletics, but it will be left to a later day to announce the program.
• The optimistic assumptions of revenue growth from corporate taxes of nearly 40% over 5 years, with corporate tax rates going down, underpin the climb out of deficit.  These assumptions are questionable.

for more details on the speech from the throne see : http://greenparty.ca/media-release/2010-03-04/harper-budget-delivers-job-killing-tax-fails-confront-canada-s-triple-defic

Ottawa – The Harper government is escalating its attack on democracy with the deals announced today on Buy American and Canada signing up the provinces to the WTO procurement agreement. More than 25 organizations are meeting today in Ottawa to launch efforts to counter this and other trade deals whose aim is to destroy local democratic control over public spending. Read the rest of this entry »

Contribution by Anne Morris.

On November 30, KAIROS – a mainstream national church coalition — received notice from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) that funding for its project proposal for 2009-2013 had been refused. No explanation was given for this decision, other than that the KAIROS program did not “fit CIDA priorities”. But later, a completely unfounded accusation by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney that KAIROS is an “anti-semitic” group indicates that the decision is politically motivated. Read the rest of this entry »

Canwest News Service
mdesouza@canwest.com

A federal panel that advises the government on the environmental impact of new economic development has been left on the sidelines for nearly two years, Canwest News Service has learned. Throughout this time, sweeping changes to regulations have been passed, effectively exempting thousands of projects from mandatory evaluations.

“We haven’t had any notice that the minister has dissolved the committee, but it’s kind of awkward to have a committee that doesn’t meet,” said Gary Schneider, who sits on the panel. Schneider, the co-chairman of the Environmental Coalition of Prince Edward
Island, said the last meeting of the Regulatory Advisory Committee was in the spring of 2008. But, he said, no consultations were held with the panel in 2009, as the government introduced a series of exemptions for new infrastructure projects.

http://www.kelowna.com/2010/01/03/tories-have-ignored-environmental-assessment-panel-member-says/