The Harper Conservatives have fallen 16 points in B.C., hopefully in part because of their bully campaign on behalf of Enbridge's tar sands pipeline. But they show no sign of letting up, with an oil-soaked budget expected on March 29.
Former Conservative Fisheries Minister Tom Siddon just spoke out against leaked plans to gut federal habitat protections for fish. Reports say that Harper will slip this into the budget, and the government has not denied it.
Bloomberg Businessweek also tells us the budget will contain other measures to speed oil infrastructure projects.
All this comes as Alberta's oil economy is already already more than booming -- with real GDP growth forecast at 3.9 per cent in both 2012 and 2013 -- while our petro-fuelled high dollar causes economic harm to other manufacturing industries in Canada, with 500,000 lost jobs lost.
With the tar sands therefore needing no help, thank you very much, it's hard not to conclude that the budget's boosting of big oil is purely ideological.
If a minister tries to tell you that gutting protections is about "balance," according to a statement released by the fisheries minister's office,
take another look at an open pit tar sands mine or at the trillions of litres of toxic tailings now gracing the Athabasca region in vast, leaking, human-made lakes. Yes, that's right, according to an article in Albert'a alt-weekly, Vue Weekly, the tailing ponds from the tar sands are growing: "Every day, roughly two billion litres of water--enough to fill 800 Olympic swimming pools--are added to the ponds, which are already over 11.5 trillion litres in volume."
If anything, a rational response from a government that wants to try and justify doubling down on fossil fuels at a time when climate scientists tell us we must do exactly the opposite would be to strengthen, not weaken, environmental laws. Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver and Environmental Minister Peter Kent will have a harder time in their international tar sands lobbying trips having to gloss over the fact that they are taking things backwards, not forwards.
So, we Canadians must accept the fact that we have at least another three years of oil ideologues holding the levers of power in Ottawa. The polls in B.C. are at least encouraging, showing that voters there aren't buying it. Let's hope that the rest of the country soon wakes up too.
On January 29, 2012 the federal government closed the popular ecoENERGY Retrofit-Homes program, two months early and with less than half the promised $400 million invested in home retrofits. Ten days later, the Prime Minister visited China to promote Canada's oilsands to Asian markets.
Together, these events send a troubling message. Energy efficiency should be at the top of Canada's energy and jobs agenda, not at the bottom
Canada is about to spend billions on new oil sands projects, pipelines, nuclear and fossil-fuel power stations, hydroelectric dams, solar projects, and wind farms. But as we prepare to generate more energy, it makes sense to save energy first.
We need to get serious about energy efficiency. The global economy is struggling and governments want to create jobs. This is a huge opportunity for Canadian governments to help Canadian families save energy. Making our homes more energy-efficient creates jobs in all communities.
Extending ecoENERGY will Save Energy First, reduce our energy bills, protect the environment, generate net-positive tax revenues, and create local jobs across Canada.
http://www.SaveEnergyFirst.ca
to taste paradise put up a parking lot --take all the trees and put them in a tree museum and charge all the people a dollar and a half just to see em.
i think she may have written the alberta "national"anthem----to taste paradise put up a tar sands sludge pond
Even Obama's shade of green is fading rapidly, as he attempts to straddle the fence. The goal will be to attain North American energy self sufficiency, and given the Iran's of this world, it's a good cause.
there is no goal to make north american energy self sufficient. you literally made that up. have you noticed gas prices go down since we start extracting all this oil? huhh me neither thats strange. and ahrper never once mentioned being energy self sufficient. you must be pretty high up in the party to know something even harper doesn't..
how about given the US's of the world. a country that loves to bully helpless 3rd world country and murder civilians. classy
As for jobs, the Harper government has done a credible job of assisting job creation. Certainly better than the US record from 2008 to the present. It's the US that still has not recovered all the jobs it lost since 2008. Get your own facts straight.
Your anti US rant is deplorable and largely unfounded.
Take your socialist rhetoric somewhere else, we're all filled up here.
Just get the man and his ideas out of Ottawa.
Big transfer payments to Ontario? This province paid the way for virtually all of the others for a long time and still sends a h--- of money to Ottawa. With a gutted manufacturing centre, thanks to free trade, worshipped by Harper and his merry band of thugs, transfers to Ontario are having to be increased.