Blue Like You

Joan Tintor has a must-read response to Ralph Goodale’s pouting editorial, How Stephen Harper ruined our national balance sheet .

I love this paragraph from Joan’s If you want more money, Ralph, you’ll have to ask the voters :

...What Ralph’s beef boils down to is this: Liberals think that giving citizens more than a little taste of their own money is a really bad idea. Instead, the federal government should take that money, keep some for itself, hire consultants to research and write papers on day care or global warming (keeping some money for themselves), set up pilot projects (those need money, too), and give some money to the provinces that are going to play ball with the Liberals (there goes some more money). Then if the Liberals happen to lose power (“God d*** you Layton and Zaccardelli!”), they blame the Conservatives for destroying their brilliant, about-to-be-rolled-out program …

I love the last paragraph too, but I’m not going to spoil it for you.

Frank Hilliard takes issue with Goodale’s reference to the government as "an instrument for good":

…But the really significant phrase in the quote above is this; "an instrument for good". Good? Who’s ‘good’ would that be Ralph? Would that be the Progressive ‘good’ that brought us prohibition? Would that be the misplaced Liberal guilt trip called the Kelowna Accord? Would that be the ‘good’ that ignored the constitution and allowed the Federal government to meddle in provincial affairs?

And would that also be the ‘good’ that brought us all the joys of the Trudeaupian era?

Good stuff, guys. Keep it coming!

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Monday Update : Goodale doesn’t understand taxes - Jim Flaherty (Letter in Post)

Stephane Dion seems to be basing his economic policy on the so-called irrefutable science of man-made climate change. While I totally agree with his concerns about pollution and the inherent need to clean up the environment for the health and safety of Canadians, I have a difficult time buying this line:

…Finally, we need to play a bigger role in the international efforts to solve the climate-change crisis. We need to participate in the setting of international goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and international rules to put a price on the cost of inaction. We cannot ignore the science of climate change simply because we don’t like what it forecasts . We need to work together to bring together the environment, the economy and social justice so we can lead the way toward a sustainable future…

Well, there are many scientific forecasts which seem to challenge Monsieur Dion’s unwavering belief system on climate change. Just today we have relevant editorials by Lorrie Goldstein and David Warren , and a piece here questioning NASA’s model.

So the fact is that the science is not clear. There are still many questions and obviously many mitigating factors that can affect trends and changes in the temperature of the earth. And as Fred points out, very little MSM coverage is given to events that appear to contradict the prevalent climate- change theories. One would almost suspect that it is a conspiracy of some kind. But hopefully the light of healthy skepticism will start to peek through the cracks of the cover-up.

So if Stephane Dion wants to follow Australia’s example and try to take advantage of the gullible, that’s his choice.

But don’t pretend that it is such a noble cause, when in fact it’s just an excuse for another burgeoning, money-sucking bureaucracy that will have the net effect of driving up the costs of goods that Canadians wish to purchase - including gas, and every commodity that relies on gas for transportation.

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Update: CBC’s At Issue addressed the issue of gas prices and politics this week.

Also worth watching is Rex Murphy’s take on ‘The End of the Ethanol Dream’ .

I can’t believe I just linked to CBC twice in one post!

The Maple Three - New Liberal Slogan: "Heating bills from hell are on the way. "  (One of my favourite Liblogs)