“Ralph’s* going to get mauled like a puppy in a bear cage.” – John Gormley
In response to Stephane Dion’s explanation that the employment collapse in the oil, gas, potash, uranium and farming sectors that he admits will result from Liberal Party’s planned Green Shaft carbon tax will be balanced out by new research opportunities into “green technology” at the University of Regina.
He actually said that.
And that the Liberal Green Shift was necessary to submit to demands of US Congress and an incoming President Obama for “clean” oil.
He actually said that, too.
If the Harper Conservatives don’t use those quotes to hang a sign around the neck of the Liberals reading ‘Made in Washington’ Energy Policy, their political braintrust should be hauled out to Kandahar and thrown to the jihadis.
(You can pick up today’s show On Demand.)
Update: John Murney has more on Dion’s sputtering, and don’t miss Goodale Watch.
“.” At the end of the day, the taxes will “attract a lot of investment [from around] the world. ”
WOW
kamikaze?
Something isn’t quite right here.
Dions sudden reversal of his carbon tax is one thing.
Pitting regions of the country against each other is classic Liberal ideology, but never as obvious as this plan is.
They (Libs) are frantic and sloppy in getting this msg out NOW.
Add to these points all the criticism others have validly pointed out (thanks ET) makes one wonder how this made it through the Liberal policy blender.
It looks and smells way to desperate.
Unless,
Its not about the Liberal party’s desperation anymore. For the Liberals it has all the earmarks of political suicide.
It’s about using Canada as a tool for uncle Mo’s universal Carbon Trading scam. A tool to prevent Americans waking up to the AGW scam prior to November.
If the US manages to throw out Kyoto via a presidental election, Gore and Strong et al are doomed. Using Canada as an example of “go Green or else” gives Obama an edge in pushing his green agenda without articulating it.
Call me paranoid but Canada is NOT that big of a deal. My gut is telling me something bigger is in play here.
Its not just Alberta and Saskatchewan being offered up for sacrifice;
It’s Canada.
And Dion chose to flight test this baby?
This plan doesn’t have enough gas to get home and he knows it.
“Da plan will ave much for rearal Canadians.”
I think the plan is all about the rear end of canadians. the west can bend over .
Dion fails to mention;
BC
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec
Newfoundland
as provinces with petroleum industries or refineries. Aren’t these polluters too?
The gift that keeps on giving……….
[quote]And is he just a patsy of the US govt? Is that the type of Canadian govt he plans to set up? [/quote]
ET,
YES! You got that right, but he doesn’t understand shit! Follow the Gore.. do what he wants.. screw Canada. Stay on script!
Good Boy.. Good boy!
I watched a Canadian public affairs meeting last night, on one of those Cspan like channels, the focus was understanding the US election and what that means for Canadian policy.
The Panelists: CBC anchor/ UN type diplomat/ Quebec Political scientist (academic)
IMHO the CBC dude was near right, the diplomat was lost in another world, the academic was best! he stuck to reasonable facts and probable consequences
BUT… they all made simple stuff complex with an elitist attitude. We are so smart, so much better, so much more able, why are we marginalized. Poor little munchkins.. can you spare a crumb?
One of the things that bothered me was that a question, from an African in the audience, was not necessary if the MSM was not fear mongering… “What will the American’s do to Canadians because of the NAFTA affair”.
The CBC Anchor smiled.. What a slime ball
Hmm… not one word on how 9/11 events changed US policy (except hate for Bush)! What does that mean? Is the contempt hidden? They deserved it?
Is Bush a buzz word for screw America?
Puddin and Pie:
Dion fails to mention;
BC
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec
Newfoundland
What a coincidence, Grtis have more than one total seat in those provinces. BTW, this talk of “big emitters” seems misleading. If we total up the “emissions” of cars, surely they are make up the largest contribution. Dion couldn’t include cars, then he would have to directly carbon tax gasoline, which would be political suicide (though I think his plan is anyway).
I suspect Dion had a different idea about carbon taxes, more universal. I think the party added on the regional shaft stuff. The funny thing is it seems so transparently politically pandering. Did Grits honestly think nobody would notice. Pretty cynical politics on their part, eh?
Or, perhaps they are just trying to get rid of him? Either way, Dion has been caught playing political and number games. As ET points out, his carbon tax revenue figures seem to assume no reduction in emissions. It makes me wonder how the leader of a proud and powerful political party, with all the advisory and analytical assets available, would make so many schoolboy mistakes.
That leaves a third possibility – Dion isn’t listening to anyone, except his own beautiful mind. His point about taxation promoting further investment is juvenile and laughable, certainly not supportable by experience or theory.
BTW, Stephane, thank you. Now Tories have chance at majority, to reduce Grits (with help from NDP) to Toronto/Atlantic provinces rump. As for the Green party, who cares.
[quote] I also would not count on the U.S. doing much as legisation has to pass congress, senate and Pres. [/quote]
Mike W,
You forgot the rights of “States” & the Courts.. The presidency can be used as a bully pulpit… but the whole snow job is near impossible.. Thats why it is what it is…
Just remember: “China’s Tax” China will thank you Dion.
OHYGOSH, Dion’s sputtering in incomprehensible. Gormley really wound him up. For a while it sounded like he was misting up and getting a little teary-eyed.
You picked a real winner, Liberals! Too bad you’re trying to wreck the country with this loser.
Y’know, I’ve been pondering this new “Green Shi*t” Policy (GSP) of Dion’s for some days now, and it occurs to me that it cannot possibly be the kind of policy initiative that most people think it is. Let me explain.
Dion is not stupid. I know, I know, everyone here is almost agape in slack-jawed amazement at the astonishingly tone-deaf nature of Dion’s message in trying to sell this policy pronouncement. Yet while part of me wants to join the chorus in proclaiming Dion a moron, I know he’s not stupid. He’s survived for many years in academia (where stupidity is one of the few inexcusable crimes), and he survived — and even prospered — in Chretien’s inner circle. Da Boss may have been many things, but tolerant of dummies he was not.
So what explains this vociferous promotion of an almost brain-dead (and, to the West, highly antagonistic) policy?
My take on it is this: months ago, the tall foreheads of the Liberal party met privately with M’sieu Dion and laid the facts out before him. “Stephane, you’re never going to be the Prime Minister. Harper’s approval ratings aren’t stellar, but he’s light-years ahead of you. With the exception of die-hard Liberals in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and the blogosphere, pretty much everyone else in the nation thinks you’re dead meat — and if you’re dead meat, then so is the Party. As long as you’re at the helm, we’ll never win a majority, even if we keep the CPC from winning one. And so, Stephane, we’re asking you to do the honourable thing. We want you to fall on your sword.”
At this point, Stephane hesitates. If he simply resigns, he goes down in Canadian history as another feckless loser, someone who can’t even sell his memoirs, which are doomed to the remainder bins at Chapters/Indigo. What does he do?
So he makes a suggestion: he’ll take one for the LPC, but he wants to go out swinging for the stuff he believes in, even if no one else does. He needs time, time to craft a policy which will maintain his environmental bona fides (gotta think of those fat consulting gigs after he’s turfed, y’know) and allow him to write the memoir that makes him a man of principle, unwilling to compromise even when the Canadian public turned against him. Something that smacks of the noble defeat, instead of the mere rout.
And thus the GSP was born. He knows it’s antagonistic to energy-producing provinces. He knows that it doesn’t actually do anything to curb emissions. He knows that the timing, when the average price of gasoline in Canada has risen almost 40% in the last twelve months, couldn’t possibly be worse. He knows that it’s hypocritical for a liberal (and Liberal) to suggest a policy that places most of the economic burden on one region of the country, when his liberal principles would otherwise decry the social injustice of making a minority pay for the privilege of the majority. He knows all this, and more besides. This is the way he leaves, after howls of outrage from a Canadian public that can’t believe their ears and eyes. With an approval rating of only 10% (the lowest of any leader of the Liberal party in Canadian history), the GSP is doing the job it was designed to do — allow Dion the opportunity to leave as a man defeated, not by crude public-opinion polls, but by the ignorance and intransigence of a Canadian public that was not ready to do the right and honourable thing for future generations.
So he turns his back on us all, proclaiming a curse on both our houses, and walks off into the sunset, maintaining his heroic self-image in the process: a prophet is not without honour, save amongst his own country and people, etc. And the tall foreheads, the éminences grise of the LPC, get what they want: a new leader, someone who polls much, much better against Harper than poor ol’ Dion.
Maybe as soon as the end of August, Dion’s gone, replaced by an “interim” leader (Rae, Iggy, whomever) who will come out swinging against Harper. It wouldn’t surprise me.
garth wood – nice try with the fictional scenario. heh.
With regard to your comment on the academic world, I beg to differ. I’m an academic, and I assure you that stupidity is not only tolerated by in many cases, encouraged, in the academic world.
Remember, a key aspect of the non-scientific fields in academia, is The Word. And words can mean anything and everything. Therefore, the non-scientific fields can make all sorts of utopian rhetorical essentially fictional claims – and there’s no data base required to either prove or disprove that scheme. And that’s exactly what Dion is doing.
He assures us that the plan won’t harm Canadians because ‘most of the emitters are foreign-owed’. He ignores those that are Canadian; he ignores that these companies employ Canadians. He then assures us that these companies will all invest in ‘new technology’; he ignores that the new technology is not ready; that it’s expensive and that it might be more profitable for them, to simply up and transfer their investments to new industries in China and India.
In other words, I think he, as a socialist utopian, is really stupid.
ET:
Nah. It’s an act. (And by the way, I probably qualify as an academic, too — at least, if having three post-secondary degrees can do that… I think you’re failing to make a distinction between “stupid” [which is unforgiveable] and “wilfully blind” [which is often encouraged in academia, as part of a “go along to get along” ethos].)
Dion’s done. But he’s done his way. This entire drama is to protect his ego on the way out. That’s why I’m kinda happy to see it (Dion will soon be gone) and kinda sad at the same time (the LPC may end up with a leader that’ll poll much better than Dion ever did).
Should be an interesting summer.
And by the by, would it be too much to ask for you to capitalize the first letter of my first and last name? Thanksmuch.
Dion is a loon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka4XWFgihRE
Posted this at the Kate killing the polar bears thread by mistake.
“…but rewards the indigent and single moms.”
Now there’s the biggest myth. There’s no reward for anybody in this, other than those in the attached bureaucracy that actually get to play with some of the 15 billion the public will never see. The Liberals don’t deliver on money promises – they never have. The closest they ever get to actually putting out the millions they promise occurs when one of their self-aggrandizing programs actually has some part that of necessity involves folks outside the circle. That only happens to the extent that they can point to it and say “look what we did”. How many times have they committed the very same dollars to the very same programs in each successive budget or monetary pronouncement. How many times do they actually hand out any money?
The indigent and the bulk of single moms do not participate in Canada’s tax system in any meaningful way. They collect a little bit (if they file – not something the indigent and low-incomers do). All this group will see for the most part is increased cost of everything and maybe an occasional small cheque or increase in their GST receipt.
They will simply do what they do now, but more so: expand their underground economic activities. People that don’t have enough money to play Canada’s tax games, don’t participate in the middle class dream. They run in a parallel universe outside of Canada’s tax regime. All the carbon tax will do will increase the membership on the “other side”.
Even Ray Heard has come out saying that the Libs face defeat under the ‘incomprehensible Dion’..more blood and guts flying after eddie demands Martin apologize to cretin..see headliner at Bourque
Does this mean Ralphie gets his own genuine “Red Ryder BB gun” for Christmas this year? He does so well with the bull and blather, no Gormley will ever fear him down.
I’m with ET. I listened to the Gormley tape. Dion really thinks this will work. He really believes expanding a department or two at the U of R will make up for a devastated resource and ag industry. I believe he was sincere when he said he said he cared for every citizen of Canada and mentioned his daughter, and I have a finely tuned BS meter.
He is not a cynical calculator like Turdo or the da liddle guy. He’s a dreamer that is totally unqualified to be PM. His visit to the Stampede will be brutal. He almost evokes pathos.
Moze da westerly pipples dunterstant boat green pinnacles han neats me spent da moneys voar dem.
The green shift is a “BOHICA”,which stands for “BEND OVER HERE IT COMES AGAIN”. I agree that there is a bigger issue than Canada at stake here, Mo Strong is in the background pulling some strings. We in the West must seperate and let those Eastern Bastards Freeze In The Dark.
“U of R is gonna need some more buildings I think, if it is to take up the slack from all the job losses in the patch.”
Good luck with that. Work on the Lab Building Addition at the U of R began 3 years ago. It has gone way, way overbudget, and just enough of the first floor was finished last September so it could be used for a study area. Work is still underway on the first floor, and the upper floors will take years to finish.
This French citizen is clearly out of his league here. Professor he may be, though as a politician the guy is just out of freaking mind.
Seems that he really does not care, as it may be with professors, who for the most part live in never, never land, that they get well paid for by the very people that professors try to screw out of making a decent living with legal and valuable resource that contributes a great deal to the state of human development today and foreseeable future.
The real life is not a laboratory to make experiments with humanoids.
Someone should tell the learned man that human kind is not capable to screw the planet, for as far as anything goes the planet will go on way past those idiots that come up with that ‘sheet’ about them causing anything at all.
Carlin, the comedian’s, monologue would acquaint the guy with the notion that if anything, the planet is going to do away with him, if it chooses to, and the time is not soon enough, perhaps past due.
The French citizen wants to suck $15.4-billion a year from Canadian citizens just to his aggrandizement; this would put Stalin and assorted fascist, socialist and communist in shame, Nazis don’t qualify here, simply because the guy is multinational as it were.
Does anybody know, if there was anything like this in all of human history as stupid as that? Even slaves in classical era had a say in affairs of the city states, although Canadian citizens just may go for it, on the surface it looks really warm and fuzzy, even cuddly you might say.
How can someone come up with this kind of stupidity, for lack of better expression, and be a leader of a political party aspiring to be the government of a free country. Who, other then the standard 10% of idiots that live in the world, would vote for this kind of shaft.
There might be a call for an exception from the 10% in case of Ontario and a greater exception in the case of the place where people go with fingers on their lips, brrrm, brrrm, let you guess where this is, BC in general and Vancouver in particular is in rivalry in this case.
To top it all, the French citizen is going to talk to the people that he will screw the most.
You have one guess as to what the citizens will say. If nothing else you have to give the guy credit for being somewhat of a masochist if masochist is your persuasion.
In the large scheme of things of course the French citizen does not count. In the small scheme of things like Ontario and BC, it counts at the top.
It is upon the citizens of Canada to tell the French citizen to go and faak himself into oblivion. The previous is harsh, however it is required to get the attention of the citizens of this country to get a sense of proportion.
You see those in government will take care of themselves; they will ride in limos that will be supplied by their ability to force Canadians to pay for it. To fly places that is supplied by the Canadians by force of the government. They will increase they pay to what ever they think will be satisfactory, because they can. If you are the one paying, well, tough faacking luck. If your income is low, the political class really can not care lest they get real, for they can’t.
BOHICA: very funny; I’ll have to remember that one!
Follow the money, people; follow the money.
[quote]Does anybody know, if there was anything like this in all of human history as stupid as that? [/quote]
LEV,
Yeah ! The W2K project: About a Mickey mouse clock that time dates trivia, but really runs the world… That was a script by, none other than, Big Al
It was variation of the Money Canon.. Stuff it full of money…and the money disappears.. and everybody is so relived that the world didn’t stop.. They don’t even ask, WTF was the name of that horse…. Beautiful.. Big Al
(Edit Lyrics and add music)
I am worried though. By pandering to the large population centers (Toronto)and perhaps by sucking up to BC in some fashion, it might be possible to pick up enough seats to enslave the rest of the country to serve Ontario. Time and again, the only reason the Libs kept power was because they quite deliberately made policies hurtful to Canada but which sold in Ontario (and also Quebec). They may not have as much Quebec support now but I expect they’ll find some way to pay them off. I read a lot of Ontario commentary and they’re all for the Green shaft.
Just in case you had any doubts, the USA will buy all the oil Canada will sell us, for the rest of my lifetime.