Monthly Archive: June 2008

Stephane Dion and the Liberals are looking more and more like the classic Liberal Party of years past, playing region against region based on vote potential.

In a remarkable story from the Canadian Press, we learn that Stephane Dion and the Liberals have been inspired by Kevin Rudd's success in winning the November 2007 general election in Australia based in part on a platform that included a carbon tax.

Really, that can't possible be true, can it?  I mean, has anyone noticed how much has changed since last November, and what next November is shaping up to be like?

I don't have a simplistic computer model to use to predict the future.  I leave that sort of "science" to the global warming nutters.

But there are hints of what is coming.  I'm afraid it'll be loud and incessant.

Digg led the way with user-submitted stories and user voting.  But I have never been satisfied with Digg.  It had no focus, with people submitting stories from every possible area of interest.  That has led to issues with political stories.  People would vote stories up and down not based on the intrinsic value of the story, but rather with a goal of eliminating stories of either the left or right.

There is a new player in the user submission field.  It is called Skewz, and it focuses entirely on political stories.  Better yet, you're supposed to vote on whether a story skews to the left or to the right, not on whether you should read it.

One thing that has been puzzling more and more is the way Stephane Dion speaks of his carbon tax changing people's behavior with regards to using energy, while his actual plan seems to be predicated on no change in behavior at all.

Then, after chatting with a newspaper columnist acquaintance of mine, it hit me.  Stephane Dion is boiling the frog.

Why didn't I see it before?

I wrote a post recently in which I tried to understand just how much the carbon tax being proposed by Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion would reduce emissions.  In his plan, he predicts $15 billion in revenue from a tax of $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions paid on fuels.

After struggling with the numbers, and a couple of false starts, I came to the conclusion that the emissions predicted in Year 4 of Stephane Dion's new tax regime are not any different from the emissions today.

I thought that odd, but then maybe it was reasonable.  Perhaps Stephane Dion figures that four years is not enough time to see the effect of a new universal tax on energy.  It takes time for factories to shut down and move to Mexico.

But in an interview with the editorial board of Sun Media, Stephane Dion says there will be large reductions by 2012 (the impilicit assumption being that he can implement a tax in 2009).

That doesn't make sense. 

I swing between amusement and frustration when I read comments from well-meaning environmentalist types who think that if all bought electric cars, we wouldn't need oil.

It belies a fundamental ignorance of how the world works, and makes me nervous about these people ever being in charge.

In particular, I'm looking at a comment on the Liberal Party discussion board, in which the person posting says the world will be so different in 10 years when we stop using petroleum to power transportation having switched to electricity.

I shake my head.  What did they teach these people in science class in high school?

This situation that has developed over the name "Green Shift" is not as amusing as it seemed to be at first.  The name "Green Shift" is a trademark, and the Liberal Party lifted it in an attempt to make Stephane Dion's carbon tax seem more palatable.

But the company that owns the trademark is mad, and is planning to sue.

They should sue.  In fact, they have to.

Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan promises to apply a tariff against the carbon content of imported goods.

As with everything else in the carbon tax plan, there are no details, just promises that Canada would benefit.  Ignore that.  like everything else in the carbon tax plan, it's nonsense.  When you actually think about what the tariff could mean, it's clear that Canadians would suffer.

And like everything else in the carbon tax plan, it will do nothing to limit emissions.

Peter Duffy, writing in The Chronicle Herald, suggests that keeping the runways at Halifax's international airport in good condition is a waste of time.  Fuel prices means fewer flights.

What's the point of having an airport?

If Stephane Dion gets to implement his carbon tax, I wonder just what else we can just throw away as being unnecessary.

Now that Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion has unveiled his carbon tax, it might be interesting to gauge reaction from his own people.

If Guelph Liberal Party candidate Frank Valeriote remains consistent with his previously stated positions, he won't like it.

This is just a quickie post about how Stephane Dion's signature on the Liberal Party carbon tax handbook is a lifted image from another copy of his signature, but altered.

Before anyone says it, this post is about nothing at all significant, or perhaps even that interesting.  Just something I noticed.

Welcome to the newest Blogging Tory, The Grumpy Voter.

OK, I've got a question.  Where the heck did Stephane Dion get his numbers for Canadian fuel consumption?

I'm trying to see where his numbers come from, and they seem way too high.

Update: No wait, I forgot to factor for the increase in weight for carbon dioxide.  That makes the numbers work.

Update: No wait, the numbers have a problem after all.  I successfully showed that the 2007 fuel consumption rates match up with the carbon tax revenues predicted by the Liberals in Year 4 of the plan.  But that's not right either.  The whole point is that fuel usage would drop.  Why aren't they dropping?  What's the point of this tax?  Just to raise money?

[This is a reposted version of the first post, now deleted.]

Remember when Prime Minister Stephen Harper cut the GST by a whopping 28%?

Good times.  Good times.

Of course, it was reported as a 2% tax cut, from 7% to 5% in two separate steps, not as a 28% cut, which is the percentage difference between 7% and 5%.

Now that might seem more honest, but then why is a 1.5% income tax cut proposed by Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion as part of his carbon tax package being reported as a 10% cut?

A trusted source in Ottawa has flipped me some details about the planned launch of Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's carbon tax.

Apparently it will be a "man of the people" video.

In Barrie, Colleen Leduc was put through a nightmare.  Allegations were made that her daughter, Victoria, was being abused by a man aged 23 to 26.  The Children's Aid Society is investigating.

Who was this man?  The psychic who told the teacher to be only the lookout for an abused child whose name started with "V" was not that specific.

What the...?!  A psychic?

The carbon tax announcement is coming.  All questions will be answered.  Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion will make it all clear.

Well, I have a question.  Am I going to be taxed on the tax?

The Globe and Mail is running a story on how Elections Canada tried to manage the story of the "raid" on Conservative Party headquarters.  But as an interesting side note, there is correspondence concerning the nature of legal privilege.

It seems to be far less strict than I thought, at least according to the General Counsel at Elections Canada.

With so much of the planet's technology based on crude oil, it seems pointless to think about getting off oil.  That's just a fact.  The real solution to rising oil prices is more supply, and there is always buzz around artificially creating oil using microorganisms.  Of course, the devil is in the details. 

Not the little details, but the really big ones.

Details are emerging about Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's carbon tax.

As suspected, it is not a tax designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  If it was, then I would expect the tax to go away once emission goals were met.  Instead, it is shaping up to be just another tax designed to raise money for Liberal social spending.

And I thought it was going to be different this time.

The Liberal Party has sent out an email soliciting funds to support an advertising campaign to promote Stephane Dion's carbon tax.  But the odd thing is that the email says that the amount donated is not important.  The Liberal Party just wants your information.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre is in a pickle.  It's of his own making because he doesn't have my training as an engineer.  But then the Liberal research bureau has been helping things along too.

Still, the reaction of the media is interesting.

Update: After posting this, Pierre Poilievre has apologized on the floor of the House of Commons.

Apparently, the great carbon tax plan of Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is, well, just a lot of hot air.  A report today says that basic questions remain unanswered, and the rollout of the plan is being delayed week after week as Liberals try to define a plan to meet the goals stated publicly by Stephane Dion.

Goals that weren't actually backed by a plan.

But if that is true, then why is Liberal MP Garth Turner making statements that he has seen the details?

There are a lot of reasons to be worried about Stephane Dion's carbon tax.  But one of the things that worries me most is the notion that some people won't have to pay it.  The picking and choosing of who is committing the sin of excessive energy consumption troubles me.

Stephane Dion led the Liberals into not stopping an immigration bill that they resolutely oppose.

Why?

The answer is so funny when you think about.

What we've all been waiting for -- the definitive explanation of just how Stephane Dion's carbon tax is going to work.

Garth Turner, the Liberal MP who has suffered oh-so-much for being one of the few truly loyal Liberals supporting Stephane Dion, has blinked.

Yes, he has blinked.

Stephane Dion says no election -- spend the summer explaining to Canadians that they need to pay yet more taxes with his Carbon Tax.

Is Garth Turner behind his leader on this one?  Hold off on the carbon tax, says Garth Turner.  It's not the right time, pleads Garth Turner.  I'm swamped with people who hate the idea, complains Garth Turner.

*Blink*

The Conservatives have launched a new ad campaign with www.willyoubetricked.ca, also known as The Dion Tax Trick.

It aims at the heart of the matter.  Stephane's "green shift" (his latest name for his plan after the more accurate "Really Big Tax on Everything" stunk in focus groups) is neither green nor a shift.

This is not propaganda or speculation.  It's common sense.

The Conservatives have launched a new ad campaign with www.willyoubetricked.ca, also known as The Dion Tax Trick.

It aims at the heart of the matter.  Stephane's "green shift" (his latest name for his plan after the more accurate "Really Big Tax on Everything" stunk in focus groups) is neither green nor a shift.

This is not propaganda or speculation.  It's common sense.

The rumbling out of Ottawa is about secret Liberal Party meetings.  As always, we know who was at the meeting and what was said.

Note to self: Send this link to every Liberal MP.

Apparently, meetings have been held, and more meetings will be held, in which the topic of discussion was one thing: how to get Stephane Dion to force an election.

There is a window of opportunity, Liberals are saying.  Of course, there is.  But no Liberal will find an election win by going through that window.

Stephane Dion knows it, and that's why he's dead set against an election right now.

Liberal Party candidate Linda Schwey is planning to give away tens of thousands of seed packets during the next election.

Seeds cost money.  Doesn't that count as election spending?

I'm surprised by the confusion surrounding the alleged doctoring of the taped interview between Tom Zytaruk and Stephen Harper in 2005, discussing efforts by Conservatives to have Chuck Cadman rejoin the Tories.

The Liberals chant, Explain the tape!

What about the doctoring?  Piffle, say Liberals, it's just the sound of the recorder being turned off and on at inconsequential moments.

Clearly these people have not taken the time to review the evidence submitted by the audio experts.

The latest data from Elections Canada regarding contracts has been disclosed today.  I've been looking forward to seeing it in order to determine if investigators Andre Thouin and Raymond Lamothe are actually working for Elections Canada.

And yet with data covering a period ending a mere nine days before the search warrant was signed off by Raymond Lamothe, I still can't find where he was rehired by Elections Canada after his initial contract ran out in March of 2007.  The same goes for fellow investigator Andre Thouin, who collected the evidence on April 15.

The analysis of the Cadman tape is pretty damning.  So much so that Tom Zytaruk himself is putting some distance between himself and the tape.  He tries to draw a distinction between his original tape in his safe, and the digital copy on the Liberal website.  Zytaruk points out, rather reasonably, that he can't control what people do with digital recordings that they put on the website.

Zytaruk is not directly accusing the Liberals of doctoring the tape, but he certainly sounds like he would prefer that questions be aimed in that direction.

The Chuck Cadman story takes another strange turn.  The question of whether the Conservatives offered some sort of bribe to Chuck Cadman in 2005 to rejoin the Conservatives and bring down Paul Martin's government has already been put to rest with the RCMP reporting "no evidence" to support such an allegation.

But there is still the matter of the lawsuit filed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper against the Liberal Party for having published statements on the website to the effect that Stephen Harper knew of a bribe.

Part of the lawsuit hinged on a tape recording, a tape recording that the Conservatives now say has been doctored.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion had eighteen months to pay of his debts left over from his leadership bid.  He has failed to in a rather spectacular manner.  Of the original debt of $800,000, he has $600,000 to go.

Now Stephane Dion has to face the legal ramifications.  Unless he can convince Elections Canada that he has a really good excuse -- like he didn't know it was due today, or something like that.

Conservative Environment Minister John Baird has some issues with the proposed Ontario-Quebec cap-and-trade system.  But did he really sneer?

The news staff at CTV thought so at 1:47pm today.  Thirteen minutes later the news staff thought otherwise.

The reaction of the government to a proposed cap-and-trade system being set up between Ontario and Quebec seems short-sighted to me.  Isn't there a way to make this work in a way that everyone wins?