OVER THE EDGE February 28, 2007

JEREMY JOHNSON
CoLuMMIsT/STAFF WRITER
These past two weeks have
proven to be busier times then
others this year so far. A lot of
that has to do with the copyright
debate despite other news organ-
izations being too scared to report
on the latest. Perhaps one of the
bigger stories that occurred re-
cently is Bev Oda’s infamous lim-
ousine adventure.

Before I continue, I am aware
that this city has been known to be
Conservative federally speaking.
So I’m sure some of my readers
may take offence to my findings,
but to be clear, I never gave the
Liberal party any breaks when it
came to their infamous “pro-user
zealots’ comment among other

Copy WiLLErT
_ COLUMNIST
Wow this climate change
business is getting blustery. With
so many voices saying so many
things, oftentimes contradictory
to others as well as themselvés, it
is a wonder Canadians and Amer-
icans haven’t thrown up their arms
in dismay and cried havoc on the
global environment front. It is an
affront to Canadian dignity and
security to maintain that global
warming and our part in bringing
it on is debatable, unmanageable,
or manageable only by piecemeal
and warmed-over initiatives.

For Americans this kind of
willful blindness is nothing new. I
mean if your very own President-
elect (poor, trammeled Al Gore)
starts scooping up Oscars for “ex-
posing” global warming while
the rest of the population lamely
applauds the Usurper (rich, delu-
sional George W) for coming up
with corn ethanol subsidies, you
might think your fellow country-
men have guzzled enough frat-
boy kegs to make their current
dosage of Jonestown Kool-Aid
have the effect of taking a drag off
their cigarette (or urban atmos-
phere for that matter), But back
to Canadians. We’re supposed to
be the smart, enlightened liberal
democracy that the world’s hope-
ful look to for moral leadership
on matters with this measure of
gravity. At least we used to be.
Now we have a Prime Minister (I
shutter when referring to Steve as
such) who privately disbelieves

S, i RB ‘ t
pi fits i stititeg IN ERLS BEAD a dieiferhar eg

idling on the Taxpayer’s Dime

things, and I don’t intend to lend
the Conservative party any spe-
cial treatment either when they
completely screw up either. So if
you don’t like hearing about Con-
servative government corruption,
please skip this article.

So what happened was Bev
Oda, the Minister of Heritage,
was found out to have racked up a
5,475 dollar bill for use of limou-
sines in three days. This was dur-
ing the Juno awards. Sounds like
a slightly more expensive, but tol-
erable expense, right? Well, one
MP in the House of Commons of-
fered a closer look at the expense.
Day one, a Sedan and a limo was
requested to go somewhere. Later
on, an additional limo was re-
quested for three hours. Then a
stretch limo was required for an

the phenomenon of global warm-
ing and our human involvement in

“itscoming. Wait, now that I think

of it, surely recent freak storms
and polar melting must be the do-
ing of those pesky Kyoto-loving
socialists who tend plot all sorts
of ways to subvert capitalism.
So the Canadian government has
decided to placate the frightened
electorate with several announce-
ments. First, they’re bringing back
Energuide. Well, looking at my 7
year old dryer with the Energuide
sticker on“it, I see we’ve made a
hell of a lot of progress on that
front. Then there’s that program
to fund research on égreeni en-
ergy production technology. Add
that program to the tax credits for
retrofitting your house and you’ll
get the first three Conservative
government programs aimed at
showing the public they are com-
mitted to fighting global warm-
ing.

Yes, these sweet initiatives
were first introduced by the Lib-
erals and cancelled by Canada’s
New Government, only to be
revived as the polling numbers
warranted. However, Canadians
were not fooled, nor were they
placated.

Well, on to Plan B for the
Tories it seems. More announce-
ments! Okay, the latest two be-
ing the 1.5 billion dollar ecoTrust
(which is slush money timed to
help buy Quebec’s amiable Pre-
mier an election victory) and the
new emissions and efficiency tar-
gets for cars and trucks starting

additional 7 hours — on standby the
whole time. On day two, a stretch
limo was requested for 6 hours
and 45 minutes — most of which
was apparently also on standby.
That afternoon a stretch limo was
requested for 5 hours along with
an additional limo for another 2
hours. Apparently, the distance
that was required for that time, for
that limo, was about one-tenth of
a kilometre; essentially walking
distance. On the third and final
day, a stretch limo was on standby
for 5 and a half hours. Finally,
a stretch limo was required that
evening for an additional 2 hours.
After the 5,475 bill was ran up,
she eventually paid 2,000 dollars
of it, leaving Canadians to foot the
remaining 3,475 dollars — 1,000 a
day. I’m just-wondering, where’s

in 2011. So this ecoTrust, what

is it? Well, if the provinces have -

pet projects up their sleeves to
combat greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions, they will be able to tap
into this federal fund. Knowing
Steve’s commitment to the issue
I’m convinced this means 1.5 bil-
lion is all that’s on the table for
the provinces for a while. Oh, and
for all those doing some math on
the side here, Quebec has already
been allotted 350 million dollars.
We shall see how much the rest
of the provinces will be eligible
to receive. Surely Ontario won’t
take much, seeing as that second
announcement about vehicle effi-
ciency came with a whole 36 mil-
lion dollars attached for Ontario’s
auto industry.

While Canada’s PM doles out
the dollars to change his Tory-blue
cloak of secrecy to a green one

his Environment Minister, John

Baird, is lipping-off in the House
of Commons about Al Gore’s
ringing endorsement of Canada’s
new environmental policy. Yeah,
unfortunately for Baird that back-
fired when Gore clarified his pos-
ition as one of encouragement for
Canada to reaffirm our commit-
ment to fighting climate change.
Sorry to bother you, Mr. Gore,
but this is because Canada’s Con-
servative government decided to
ignore our commitments, only to
be slapped with an opposition mo-
tion passed by the majority of par-
liamentarians calling for Canada
to reaffirm and meet those Kyoto
targets. We’ll try to keep our min-

my stretch limo? The minister
asking for it doesn’t seem inter-
ested in using it all the time, I'd
like to have one myself to take me
up on cold days to the campus.

No doubt, this has caused
some frustration among’ oppos-
ition leaders. I noticed that this
has, at least all the way up to the
12" of February so far, that it has
become a sort of running theme
for her:

There was that an additional
story I’d like to touch on for this
piece. Apparently, the bosses of
Shaw and Vidéotron announced
that the Canadian Television Fund
was dead. One of the deals they
had for operating in Canada was
to put .a portion of their profits
into a TV fund back in 1996. The
fund was designed to-help Canad-

isterial pit bulls on a tighter leash.
It seems nothing with the Environ-
ment portfolio is going right for
Harper, since this issue, which he
has badly mismanaged from the
start, has derailed his “law and‘or-
der” agenda and undermined Can-
ada’s enthusiasm for Senate re-
form. “Darn,” says Harper, “even
the neo-cons in BC’s government
are ahead of the curve on global
warming.” Just recently Premier
Gordon Campbell rolled out his
Throne Speech where he proposes
a plan to cut emissions by 33% of
current levels by 2020. If this tar-
get is met, GHG emissions will be
10% lower then 1990 levels, says
BC’s governing Liberals.

However, I for one fail to see
how cutting 33% of today’s emis-
sions will get BC to below 1990
levels, since our emissions have
risen 35% since 1990. Now, I’m
no math major, but that leaves
another 12% to go to get to 10%
below 1990. Again, one has to ask
themselves if Canada’s “leaders”
really do, in fact, think Canadians
are stupid.

I don’t want to sound like I
think all of these new égreeni an-
nouncements are wrong and hol-
low. The reality is that any pro-
gram is better than no program,
unless, of course, we are talking
about Harper’s “Clean Air Act”.
Really, because many of these an-
nouncements are re-hashed pro-
grams and incremental approach-
es to a problem that reaches far
beyond the scope of. any other
issue we face today, I think Can-

as Es: : i i
IIE ate ie ts i aaa 3

ian,,content grow in Canada. It
was found out by a Broadcasting
watchdog ‘FRIENDS of Canad-
ian Broadcasting’ that they had
recently been pocketing that cash
—cash that amounts to about $100
million. So the watchdog started
a campaign to get Canadians to
write to the government over this
issue, but the Minister of Herit-
age apparently threw her hands
up in the air in the House of Com-
mons when asked about this say-
ing that it’s the CRTC’s problem
even though opposition MP’s said
she had the power to intervene. I
have to admit, these are extremely
frustrating developments consid-
ering broadcasters like the CBC
depends on that fund to continue
operations.

adians want vision above all else.
Let us elect MP’s who are vision-
ary in their approach to solving ©
this problem.

You cannot develop the oil,
gas or mining industries in BC
without substantial environmental
degradation and GHG emissions.
Thank you Alberta, for being a
prime example of this. So Premier
Campbell, I applaud your steps
towards implementing programs
to save the earth, but please for
the love of dignity do not claim to
champion the environment if you
really are going to ‘Open BC up
for Business’ by mining, drilling
and emitting our asses into the ris-
ing tides of the ocean or the res-
piratory illness wing of our over-
crowded hospitals. Instead, let us
begin to fix our environment by
advocating ‘a radically different
approach to living and making
money. Let us lead the world by
example once again by develop-
ing sustainable lifestyles.

Less urban sprawl, more pub-
lic transit. Less resource extrac-
tion more high technology indus-
try. Less throwing money at the
problem and more rethinking the
way we interact with our environ-
ment. It seems to me the demise of
today’s status quo will be the only
way society can free itself from the
shackles of this selfish paradigm.

_ Perhaps the sooner webring about

this demise by speaking up and
speaking out, the sooner we can
get on with the task of evolving
our society into something worth
bringing a new generation into.