#1 — CBC | Tories pondered weaker emission targets for oil and gas
The Conservative government has considered abandoning some of the greenhouse gas reduction goals set out in its 2007 green plan and allowing weaker targets for the oil and gas sector, documents obtained by CBC News suggest.
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#2 — CBC | Almrei security certificate struck down
A federal judge has struck down a national security certificate against a Syrian-born man arrested eight years ago on terror suspicions.
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#3 — CTV | Ottawa funding group promoting climate-change skeptics
MONTREAL — Ottawa has been funding an asbestos lobby group that promotes the work of prominent climate-change skeptics.
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#4 — Globe | Coalition allies faulted Canada over handling of detainees
Canada was faulted by military allies in Afghanistan over the secretive manner with which it handled detainees in the early months of its Kandahar mission, The Globe and Mail has learned.
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#5 — Globe | Ottawa buzzing with talk of proroguing Parliament
Rumours swirling around Ottawa suggest the Conservative government is thinking of shutting down Parliament until after the Olympics, killing some of its own bills but also ending the discussion of Afghan detainees that is nibbling away at Tory popularity.
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#6 — LFP | Gloves come off in Senate
OTTAWA — Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq’s skirmishes with the Liberal-dominated Senate exploded into full battle yesterday as two more members of the red chamber assailed tough measures in the new consumer product safety law she has championed.
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#7 — LFP | Aggressive new targets part of elaborate hoax
COPENHAGEN — It was picked up by major news outlets and attributed to Environment Canada, but a press release announcing Canada’s very aggressive new environmental targets was nothing more than a hoax.
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#8 — OC | Senate softens bill to require jail time for even small-time pot growers
OTTAWA — The Liberal-dominated Senate has passed a scaled-back version of a Conservative drug bill, sending it back to the House of Commons for MPs to decide whether to reject the upper chamber’s amendment eliminating a requirement for pot growers to serve jail time for cultivating as few as five plants.
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#9 — MG | Montrealers scrambling to meet winter-tire deadline
MONTREAL – All passenger vehicles registered in Quebec, including taxis and rental cars, must be equipped with winter tires starting Tuesday and until March 15. The Quebec law on winter tires, now in its second winter, includes fines of $200 to $300 for offenders.
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#10 — Star | Canadian praised terrorists
WASHINGTON–U.S. prosecutors had fresh accusations Monday against a Canadian citizen charged with helping to plot a terrorist strike in Denmark, alleging he knew about last year’s deadly attacks in Mumbai several days in advance and even praised the terrorists who planned them.
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Re Ottawa funding group promoting climate-change skeptics: Why am I not surprised, a news report I saw last night also noted that Jim Prentice’s office had accepted something like 120 visits from the oil and gas lobby in the last year or so and 12 from the environmental lobby.
Look stageleft you have your own blog site, you got a hit once from me a long time ago and that was it, why don’t you just leave this site and spew your crap elsewhere comrade.
Keep it coming Stageleft, I dont always agree with your comments but the majority I do. Its always good to hear from ‘the other side’ unlike some from the extreme right who dont like to participate in intelligent conversations, particularly the Blogging Tories.
@the other pete: I’m afraid that’s not your call to make, if Jack doesn’t want me around he’s got my email address, all he’s gotta do is ask me to go and I’m gone.
BTW, what’s the issue with the comment I made, it shows, I believe, somewhat of a bias don’t you think?
#4 Who was the government at the beginning of the Khandar mission. Whose rules were our troops following. So, who are these allies complaining about, it wasn’t PMSH.
Chretain, and still sitting liberal MPs, take a bow for your decisions in this matter.
stageleft: Not really. The energy guys probably had something new to say. They may have been discussing permits, leases, etc. Maybe even what equipment would be required for the maybe-to-be-mandated carbon capture hoax. The idealists were probably just chanting their same-old, same-old.
Yeah – I completely agree that you should stay (No, I don’t have a vote), Jack hasn’t been running his web site like a TV Network under CRTC protection.
Stageleft will remain a part of this site as long as he wants to.
End of message.
The other pete trying to flush out “comrades” again? Pretty soon, it’s just going to be him, Jack (only by default), G Gordon Liddy and Jaime Humberto Uscategui left.
Seriously, if you can’t take another point of view, then it’s you who needs to get gone.
Can’t we at least vote someone off the island for say a weeks time? After of course Jack decides who among us gets a virtual immunity idol for the proper use of grammar and punctuation.
I do not see a problem with Stageleft’s comment.
The fact that it doesnt mean anything should not be the criteria.
So to the point:
None of us know what these visits were about in the first place. Stage is afflicted by the notion that an assumption becomes fact if he says so.
I believe there have been far too many assumptions made already by the proponents of this gigantic swindle called “global warming” or “climate change” or whatever else one chosses to call it.
@Lee: You are correct, none of us do know for sure what these visits were about – but follow my thinking for a bit and tell me if I’m wrong on any of it.
We can speculate based on who was allowed to visit, the frequency of the visits, and how many visits of a different mindset were allowed to visit where Ministerial/government priorities may lay.
I am not unaware that within a portfolio such as Prentice has time is in both high demand and short supply….. neither am I unaware that money is the grease that makes doors open more smoothly, it also has the wonderful ability to stretch time. That is not specific to this government, it works the same with all governments regardless of their political stripe.
Oil & gas have more money to grease the doors and stretch time than environmental groups do.
Anyone who is paying attention knows that oil and gas are not the largest proponents of climate change mitigation legislation or agreements.
This governments’ base is not generally known for it’s significant interest in climate change (other than, of course, to call it a hoax), and neither this government, nor this PM, are exactly what one could call “in the closet” over their opinion on climate change.
We know who wins don’t we?
@Jack: Thanks, I like it here….. anyone can (and many bloggers do) choose to frequent places that I believe we both refer to as echo chambers – they are not, IMO, generally great places to have a discussion.
Just before the Copenhagen climate summit convened, many on the right were calling for Prentice to be fired for having lent some amount of credence to global warming alarmists (though many no doubt staff his department and can be found throughout the entire unionized federal civil service), so the fact that he draws criticism from both sides just goes to show what a thankless task it currently is to be Minister of the Environment, which is probably why Prentice is the third in as many years for the Harper government.
To tell you the truth Stageleft, I pray you are correct in your assumptions. Unfortunately, I am not all that certain That Minister Prentice is not prepared to make some kind of deal in the name of “Global whatever”.
I follow your assumptions, but question whether any visits by any group were refused.
Fewer visits by certain groups could indicate that they asked for fewer visits. One could therefore assume a lack of interest on the part of these groups.
I assume that much of the negativity towards the Conservative Government in the name of “Global whatever” is because of negativity to the Conservatives, whether its “Global whatever” or anything else, and this negativity would disappear once the Liberals get back in power.
This can be seen in the lack of any kind of negativity when the Chretien Government did nothing after agreeing to Kyoto. When the Conservative came to power, all of a sudden it was important to implement the conditions of Kyoto. This is how ridiculous Canadian politics has become.
If our politicians are going to put onerous conditions on the population, it had better be based on something more substantial than what we are working with right now.
@Lee: re I am not all that certain That Minister Prentice is not prepared to make some kind of deal in the name of “Global whatever”
Set your mind at ease about the UN portion of the Copenhagen conference Lee, nothing of any significance is coming from that quarter – of greater likelihood at this point is a North American side deal that is independent of whatever comes out of COP15. Obama has talked some big talk and he’s got a base (both nationally and internationally) to make happy and he carries more weight with Canada than the UN does.
The other day the US and Canadians held a meeting, just after the environ-mentals sandbagging, the US didn’t want any pictures taken of who was at the meeting. Canada insisted, and a photographer got one picture for the archives.
My Hope-and-non-Change is that everything is deferred until the “science” is reviewed. Yes, I know the CRU files are “unavailable at this time”; but we do have access to the homogenised Environment:Canada and NASA data (maybe the un-homogenised data is still available, but I won’t count on it).
Anyway, if this hoax-experiment is deferred 5 years at least we’ll see what’s happened in Euro-Land. Don’t forget they’re moving ahead at full steam into idealism and within 2 years we’ll see a complete breakdown, with domestic unrest (riots). There just won’t be the infrastructure to survive their idealism. The Redcar steel plant fiasco is just the beginning. The Brussels regulations are activated and the suicidal timeline is ticking; no nation can stop it, there are no nations!
As far as the US is concerned, this is just a ho-hum. Their emphasis today is their plunging economy, the EPA being elevated above Congress, the upcoming Fist-gating of their schools. There’s a backlash coming, and environmental idealism is barely on the list.
The US sop-to-the-world will probably be refusing to accept Canada’s Oil-Shale petroleum. Meaning Canada can decrease this supply from our NAFTA obligations and use it internally. Giving us a West Coast surplus to ship to the Pacific Rim nations. By this time we’ll be in a National Emergency and need to quickly build a pipeline west along the Trans-Canada, telling Parks:Canada “Too bad – it’s going through”. And another election-issue for the Liberals. Easily over-come if our Media actually presents facts instead of each reporters herd-opinions.
I had hoped that the Maritimes would get some of this industrial abandonment from Europe; but probably not. Some dregs yes; but most will settle in Quebec under the Power Corp. umbrella. Some Euro industries are already moving to the US; but again, I can’t see the high-energy requirements being satisfied by the US’s Green-Energy stimulus.
2010 is going to be an interesting decade. We can survive quite well, if we want too.
@Lindsay re: The other day the US and Canadians held a meeting, just after the environ-mentals sandbagging, the US didn’t want any pictures taken of who was at the meeting. Canada insisted, and a photographer got one picture for the archives.
Canada insisted? ….. that’s not actually the way I heard it
stageleft: Same place as you. Maybe one of us (you), misinterpreted (you) the item’s impression (you). OK, after the 4th reading, we’re both right. The Tor-Star convoluted the quotes and actions into a SNUB! And I (me) fell for it (again).
@Lindsay: “insisting” on a photo op —- “begging” for a ”we were carpetbagged this morning by (environmental non-governmental organizations) with a false press release, I gotta change the story” photo op after being initially denied….. really, it’s 6 of one 1/2 a dozen of the other isn’t it?
It makes the Canadian Minister and his office look very sad.
stageleft:
Not really – they’re trying to do something to react to the carpetbagging – which was fully and gleefully reported as a criticism of the government negotiators. It’s difficult to defend the status-quo when it’s much more fun to be a liberal forward-thinking save-the-world rebel like Suzuki and Gore – more money in it too with all the “charitable” I-feel-good-about-myself donations.
The sad part is – we allow our level-playing-field restrictions to be ignored. You don’t really think the Suzuki Foundation is a non-political charity, do you? Or, like the CRTC, that Climategate is such a minor news item that it doesn’t fall within the public information section of the Broadcast Act, do you?
If you do think so, I’ll stop typing-into-the-wind.
Re: #12 — You’re welcome. I trust you and while I do not always agree with you, your arguments are welcome ( just like Cynapse). You cause readers to stop and think and that is what this site is all about.
@Lindsay: Asking for the photo-op would have been doing something, pestering the Americans after initially being told no is where it gets somewhat pathetic.
The Suzuki Foundation, like any other lobby group, has an agenda that they try and get politicians and the public to back via any number of tactics, mostly they spend a lot of money on their propaganda – that doesn’t make them a political group any more than the oil lobby, or the cotton lobby, or any other lobby is a political group.
As far as the CRU emails and the Canadian media go I agree with you, the exposure they got, verses what I personally believe they should have gotten, is entirely out of wack… although I’m not sure where the CRTC aspect comes into the discussion – do you think they should now look at the daily news and compel broadcasters to give “X” amount of coverage to this, that, or some other event?
Actually, the CRU emails are old news. The Russians just dumped on the IPCC today and they are NOT on the same page.
Of course, you can never trust a “Russky” or so we have been taught.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100020210/climategate-why-the-russians-experts-might-not-have-our-best-interests-at-heart/
Sounds pretty lame to me (the link).
My view: Russian scientists are pretty good at what they do. We work with them on space projects.
@Jack: I saw that one as well, in the Canadian media btw — it raises questions but not as many as the CRU emails do.
Agreed — but every little bit helps.
stageleft:
The crux of all my statements is openness and fairness, with a level-playing-field. Unfortunately our paid-for Public Departments have dreamed up their own Public Policies and feel they don’t have any responsibilities.
The Suzuki Foundation, like any other lobby group, … is not a charity. It doesn’t matter if 99.9% of Canadians agree with them. They are syphoning thieving money from real charities. And getting tax rebates (as a fair charity donation should). Our forced tax payments are supporting political stances through illegal means.
Canadian media … is entirely out of wack… and unfair, and illegal in the case of Radio and TV; but that’s my reading, certainly not the CRTC’s. Anyway …
Broadcasting Policy for Canada – Section 3.1.(i)
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/B-9.01/page-1.html#anchorbo-ga:l_I
3.(1) It is hereby declared as the broadcasting policy for Canada that
3.(1).(i) the programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system should
3.(1).(i).(i) be varied and comprehensive, providing a balance of information, enlightenment and entertainment for men, women and children of all ages, interests and tastes,
3.(1).(i).(iv) provide a reasonable opportunity for the public to be exposed to the expression of differing views on matters of public concern, and
Same thing with the HST – the Provincial tax structure has been adjusted for fairness. Now suddenly, the fought-for fairness is gone.Why? Besides the bribe money – so business can buy their CO2 shakedowns without raising prices. And the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the welfare groups stay employed by starting all over again (in BC it’s already started). In 10 years all of them will be back.
Jack: The really odd thing is that Russia is putting Billions at stake – Russia would RECEIVE money from any environmental funds. They signed on to Kyoto when their industry was almost non-existent and are classified as undeveloped.
Did you notice the hysteria about the CRU files being on a Russian! server has gone? Ever since the FRU (ex-KGB) said to stop or they’ll tell from where the files originated.
The emails are secondary! The computer model programs, and Harry’s READ-ME, are the proof. But, let’s go local! Where’s Environment:Canada? Oh, here they are – at the UofVic, proudly Homogenising Data
http://www.cics.uvic.ca/scenarios/pdf/workshop/PresCliSce.pdf
Russian scientists don’t have the advantage of patent law suits or the privilege of paying to use patented items, or concepts, or software, or …