Month: October 2009

My contribution to this morning's papers:

Ottawa's push to use high-level ethanol fuel in cars is doing little or nothing to cut Canada's greenhouse gas emissions nor will it, says a government briefing note prepared for Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt and obtained by Canwest News Service.

Moreover, government officials have warned Raitt that giving automakers credits toward new fuel efficiency standards by making cars that can use environmentally friendly E85 fuel will not actually reduce emissions because those cars will never actually use the 'green' fuel and will continue to use regular gasoline.

“The point the document is making is fairly straightforward — promoting E85 has no environmental benefits,” said Matthew Bramley, climate change director for the advocacy group Pembina Institute.

Fuel that contains 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent gasoline is generally referred to as E85 fuel. While almost any car engine can run on E10 fuel — gasoline with 10 per cent ethanol — only specially modified vehicles can use E85 fuel.

Ethanol is a renewable source of energy derived from corn or other plant products.

The Conservative government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing the production of ethanol or offering rebates to consumers to buy E85 vehicles — but the briefing note says none of that money has or will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The chance for reducing emissions through changing fuels is very limited at best,” said Bramley.

Cars and light trucks that can use either E85 fuel or regular gas are known generically as flex fuel vehicles or FFVs.

The briefing note was written in March and obtained under federal access to information laws. Parts of the note have been blacked out.

In the note, Raitt is cautioned about the “implications” of promoting the use of E85 fuel … [Read the rest]

Gordon Landon was the Conservative candidate in the riding of Markham-Unionville and was ready to do battle to wrest the riding from Liberal John McCallum. But then Landon, who is a city councillor in Markham, told City-TV's Richard Madan that his city wasn't getting federal funding for city projects because the riding was a Liberal one.

Shortly after, Landon “decided” to step down as the Conservative candidate.

Now, comes the Markham Economist and Sun with an interview with Landon in which Landon says he resigned because he just couldn't operate under the “PMO's … policies”. For the record, the PMO says that no one from their office met with Landon must mean that he met with Conservative Party of Canada officials. Here's what Landon said:

Q – You’ve been asked to step down, according to other media reports?

A – No, I resigned.

Q – Has there been any communications from the Conservative party about that?

A – I met with the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) at the Hilton and I just decided that I couldn’t work under their policies because I just decided I couldn’t work with the media the way they wanted to work with the media. I’m the type of person (who) likes to respond to issues honestly … They want you to vet everything through Ottawa and that kind of stuff. I just can’t work under that.

Q – Do you stand by the comments you made on the Rogers show?

A- It was a bit of a mistake the way I phrased it. I was not talking about the stimulus program … At the end of the interview they asked me, if you had a choice, what would you do for the riding and I said the medical instrument testing centre… I was sort of the head man to get Conservatives to participate and when I went to a number of functions and met with ministers and I talked to a lot of, many of the bureaucrats in Ottawa and the main feedback I got was it would never happen as long as John McCallum was in the riding. And I answered the question, I made the mistake of saying Liberal instead of saying John McCallum.

Q – Isn’t that one and the same, though?

A – That was one of the problems. And another problem was I never informed them (the Conservative party) of the interview and also, the questions.

Q – So you’re supposed to get the questions first?

A – Yes, so they talked about it and I said look, this is isn’t the way I operate, I can’t operate that way.

Q – Are you upset about it? You obviously had a desire to represent Markham-Unionville at the federal level.

A – I wanted to be the MP, but I felt badly about it because I let down my workers and I had done a lot of work in the riding. And with Jason Kenney, I helped the Tamils, and Alice Wong (British Columbia MP and parliamentary secretary for multiculturalism) was here for a day … I had a lot of help and I feel bad that those people have come in and helped.

Q – You’ve been a longtime Conservative party supporter. Does this change your viewpoints at all?

A – I’m still a Conservative, but I just can’t work under that.

Q – Do you blame the Liberals and John McCallum for this?

A – No, I don’t blame John, but the moderator up there was very biased. She was Liberal.

Q – If you had to restate that comment now, what would you say?

A – John McCallum couldn’t get the funding from the federal government.

Q – Why’s that?

A – I don’t know.

Q – Do you have any understanding about how another candidate will be chosen and will you be involved in that?

A – I’ll be involved in that and I think it will be very difficult to find a candidate who runs by the rules and has a high profile, unless it’s a parachute candidate.

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