Month: January 2008

DeSmogBlog backs down on Obama criticism

Earlier, I noted that DeSmogBlog, a blog which aims to de-bunk the spin from climate change deniers, had sharply criticized Democratic candidate Barack Obama for a lousy green plan. Now, after howls from others in the green movement, DeSmogBlog has apologized to Obama and withdrawn a “Smogmaker of the Year” award it had tagged him with:

While we would always hope for better, we must acknowledge that Obama’s position is a stunning improvement over the current standard and a clear notch up from the other serious contenders. We would like to apologize – to withdraw the award – and to wish him the best in continuing to refine and improve his position.

Publisher packs it in, cites high loonie

Late last year, as our the loonie became more valuable than the American dollar, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wanted to put pressure on Canadian retailers to end the price differential on identical products sold in Canada and the U.S. He had convened a meeting of retailers at his Ottawa offices shortly after returning from some international finance meetings in Washington, D.C.

To make his point about price differentials, Flaherty (left) went out and bought the most recent Harry Potter in Washington and then bought it again in Ottawa. He says he paid more for the book in Canada (though several retailers subsequently said that, had the Minister shopped around, he would have found the book in Canada for the same price or less than he paid for it in the U.S.).

Now, as it turns out, the Canadian publisher of the Harry Potter series, Raincoast Books of Vancouver, says it is suspending its publishing program because of the loonie's rise:

Even with Harry Potter, and other titles that have won or been short-listed for every major literary prize in Canada, [Jamie Broadhurst, vice-president of marketing at Raincoast] said the company's 13-year-old publishing division has remained unprofitable.

“This is all about the dollar,” Broadhurst said. “There has been endless discussion in the Canadian media about what has been coined 'book rage' since the dollar went to par in September and Canadian consumers, rightly so, were demanding lower book prices.”

Conservative anti-drug strategy makes no sense, says Campbell

Senator Larry Campbell (Liberal-British Columbia) is the former mayor of Vancouver, a former RCMP drug squad officer, and, as BC's chief coroner, was thought to be the model for the TV series Da Vinci's Inquest. In an op-ed piece in today's Vancouver Sun, Campbell aims at the Harper government's initiatives to increase punishments for offenders of Canada's drug crime laws. (Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, incidentally, is in Halifax for an as-yet-unknown anti-crime announcement). Campbell says the government's moves on the justice file defy logic:

Is there really anyone anywhere in Canada who believes that U.S. drug policies are working? Or that they are deserving of being copied here?

This is the direction Prime Minister Stephen Harper would have us go.

More prisons and more people in prisons has not worked for our southern neighbours, and there is no logic behind the move to increase criminal penalties for drugs…

…Minimum sentences for non-violent offenders may play well with a hang 'em high crowd, but it will do nothing to solve drug problems in this country.

The Conservatives have spread their “big lie” for so long that they have begun to believe it, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We should be putting our efforts into increased treatment for addiction, education and increased medical treatment for those with mental disabilities. We should also legalize marijuana in this country to keep the profits from being funnelled into criminal hands. …

[Read the rest of Campbell's op-ed piece]

Australia considers censoring Web

This is not, apparently, a joke: The new Australian government is ready to demand that ISPs block access by home and school Internet users of Web content which contains pornography and violence. A home user would have contact his or her ISP and ask that Web content be 'unblocked'. As Lauren Weinstein remarked: “I suspect would rapidly become known as the “pervert list” by the Australian overlords of Internet decency.”

Online civil libertarians yesterday warned the freedom of the internet was at stake, while internet providers are concerned the new measures could slow the internet in Australia down to a crawl.

But Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said everything possible had to be done to shield children from violent and pornographic online material.

“We have always argued more needs to be done to protect children,” he said.

Senator Conroy said the clean feed, also known as mandatory ISP filtering, would prevent users accessing prohibited content. “We will work with the industry to get the best policy. (But) Labor is committed to introducing mandatory ISP filtering.”

Hydrogen highway support

I recently received a response to an access to information request I’d filed with Transport Canada asking for a briefing note prepared for Minister Lawrence Cannon on Sept. 22, 2006 about British Columbia’s Hydrogen Highway. Here is the “Key Message” from that note:

For more than 20 years the Government of Canada has supported the development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies with a total contribution of approximately $300 million. In 2003, the government announced a further investment of $215 million in Research & Development and commercialization initiatives. The Government of Canada, with the new funding allocations to this area, spends about $60 million per year on hydrogen and fuel cells. While industry acknowledges the support it has received to date, it is quick to point out that additional support is required, particularly in light of growing support international competitors are receiving domestically.

Cranking it up in northern Alberta

The Calgary Herald’s Lisa Schmidt today reports that 2007 was a big year for oilsands producers and that 2008 and beyond will be even busier.

Canadian oil production rose nearly eight per cent to 2.8 million barrels a day in 2007, preliminary estimates from the National Energy Board show.

Much of that growth was in Alberta’s northern oilsands, where production is expected to triple over the next decade with the first of several new projects or expansions firing up in 2008.

…two new oilsands projects will start up in 2008, accounting for about half of the expected production increase in 2008. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s Horizon mine is slated to produce about 110,000 barrels a day, while the first phase of Long Lake, a joint venture Nexen Inc. and OPTI Canada Inc., will produce about 58,000 barrels a day.

Also coming on stream is significant expansion by Suncor Energy Inc., Canada's second largest oilsands producer, including the addition of its Millennium coker as well as initial phases of its Firebag in situ project.

Other oilsands developers such as EnCana Corp., Devon Canada and ConocoPhillips are also slated to start or add production this year.

 

Is Obama blowing smoke on climate change?

My friend Tyler Hamilton, who covers energy and clean technology development for The Toronto Star is impressed with Democratic candidate Barack Obama when it comes to climate change. “Obama is saying the right things at a time when, more than anything, we need U.S. leadership on the climate-change file,” Hamilton writes at his blog.

But the climate change activists who publish the DeSmogBlog just named Obama their Smogmaker of the Year, saying he deserves it for sowing confusion and delay on climate change:

An outspoken supporter of the U.S. coal industry, Obama has presented himself as someone who can overcome the Bush legacy of inaction on climate change. But he is campaigning on a greenhouse gas reduction ‘target’ that the U.S. won’t have to meet for 42 years and he has continued to promote the current administration’s plan to circumvent the Kyoto Protocol, the only international climate agreement currently in place.

But another green activist says DeSmogBlog’s has it all wrong:

How can they make that claim? By misreading — or failing to read — Obama’s terrific climate plan. … his plan explicitly states:

    Obama will start reducing emissions immediately in his administration by establishing strong annual reduction targets, and he’ll also implement a mandate of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

[DeSmogBlog] claim [Obama] is an unrepetent coal supporter…  And yet in his climate plan he bluntly commits:

    Obama will use whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low carbon coal technology. Obama’s stringent cap on carbon will also make it uneconomic to site traditional coal facilities and discourage the use of existing inefficient coal facilities.

 

 

Ministers on the road …

While International Trade Minister David Emerson heads east to forge trade ties in China, Mongolia and  Hong Kong, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda will head south to Peru and Columbia and, we’ve just learned, Foreign Affairs Minister will fly to the Middle East to meet top leaders from Saudi Arabia, India, and Israel.

All of this happens over the next couple of weeks.

Bernier, who will travel with his parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai, will be in Riyadh on January 9 to meet with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. He then flies to New Delhi for meetings on Jan. 11 and 12 with representatives of the government of India, including its foreign minister.

He then turns west again for meetings on January 13 and 14 in Ramallah and Tel Aviv.  He will meet with Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton, United States Security Coordinator, and Palestinian officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Foreign Minister Riad Malki. In Israel, he will see Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

It is Bernier’s first trips to all of those places.

 

Hillier and other top generals restricted on lobbying

If General Rick Hillier was thinking of moving on, the federal government is taking away what would be for him a likely lucrative career. Treasury Board President Vic Toews today published proposed new regulations for the Accountability Act that would make it illegal for top generals and for some of the Prime Minister’s closest advisors to cash in their connections for top lobbyist jobs.

Toews has asked for a 30–day comment period on the proposed regulations but presumably, shortly after that, it will be illegal for the Chief of Defence Staff (that’s Hillier’s job right now)the Vice-Chief or the chiefs of the maritime, air force, and land staff along with other generals to become registered lobbyists for at least five years after they quit the Forces.

Given the money that the Defence Department gets to spend, ex-generals are highly sought after by the lobbying industry.

Let me just pick on one firm as an example: CFN Consultants, one of the bluest of blue-chip lobbyist firms in Ottawa. It’s senior partner is Patrick (Paddy) O’Donnell, a former vice chief of the air staff, and the firm’s members are lobbyists for, among others, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. There are plenty of folks in that firm who once commanded ships, squadrons, and tanks for Canada.  Many more once worked on the civilian side of the department as high-ranking procurement officers (there are two former assistant deputy ministers – materiel working for CFN, for example).

CFN’s roster boasts Gary Garnett who was Vice Chief of Defence Staff from 1998 to 2001 and George Macdonald, another former Vice Chief of Defence Staff (2001–2004). Under the proposed new rules, Macdonald, who represents Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky, CAE, Bombardier and others, would still be barred from lobbying.

Also barred from lobbying for five years are people appointed “Senior Advisor to the Privy Council” and the Comptroller General of Canada.

 

 

Liberals to Kitchener …

The national Liberal caucus is set to meet in Kitchener, Ont. on January 21 and 22, just ahead of the resumption of the goings-on in the House of Commons.

Liberals, no doubt, will be talking about electoral strategy. Should they push for an election this year?  This spring? If so, on what issue? And even if they wanted to go, how do they push the government over? Personally, I think that, no matter what Stephane Dion says, this Parliament will get to its fixed election date in October, 2009. It all has to do with the algebra of the seat breakdown in the House of Commons. All the government needs is the support of any one opposition party. And that means all three opposition parties have to agree to force the Conservatives out. That seems like a tall order right now. During the first two years of this government, there has always been at least one opposition party that did not want an election. For a long time, that was the Liberals. Now, even if the Liberals started clamouring this spring for an election, the general feeling is that the Bloc Quebecois is a little gunshy and would look for a way out of an election this spring.