tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post397992298640875560..comments2024-03-22T05:20:44.167-07:00Comments on The Disaffected Lib: "Here I Stand" - The Late Rafe Mair on an Independent British Columbia. He Saw This Coming, a Lot of Us Did.The Mound of Soundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-74909877445674343952018-04-17T22:02:44.249-07:002018-04-17T22:02:44.249-07:00http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/paramount-r...http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/paramount-resources-zama-city-pipeline-leak-1.4621904Hughnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-86745356452306190402018-04-17T18:39:29.161-07:002018-04-17T18:39:29.161-07:00Trudeau has the spine of a box jellyfish, Cap. Kin...<br />Trudeau has the spine of a box jellyfish, Cap. Kinder Morgan came up with this shakedown deadline and Trudeau folded, sending his envoy, Morneau, to Texas with the federal chequebook.<br /><br />Trudeau is not as bright as I had hoped. He has the intellect of his mother, not his legendary father. He's full of bromides but bereft of vision.<br /><br />I don't believe the Liberals have had a great leader since Pierre Trudeau. Chretien was mediocre at best, his success largely due to the civil war that raged between the PCs and Reform/Alliance. Pretty easy to score a majority when you're pushing on that open a door.<br /><br />Dion was no one's first choice and for good reason. After that disaster the Liberal rank and file became messianic. They annointed Ignatieff because they believed his intellect was akin to Trudeau's. Ridiculous. Trudeau had a powerful intellect but he had real fighting experience from the campaigns against Duplessis, real courage. Ignatieff - a history teacher who wrote some books.<br /><br />Then they went for Justin, scion of all things Trudeau. A drama teacher with no more life experience than Ignatieff. An empty vessel and that's what we're stuck with today.<br /><br />I recently went to a site of the Nobel organization and read the fascinating biography of Lester "Mike" Pearson. What a rich and full life he brought to his premiership. Small wonder he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.<br /><br />Shakespeare put it this way, "whilst I, by looking on praise of him, see riot and dishonour stain the brow of my young," Justin.<br /><br />Our man is lousy at the helm and worse at navigation.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-67828450021893586932018-04-17T17:05:45.082-07:002018-04-17T17:05:45.082-07:00Mound, what Rafe Mair said makes sense and I'v...Mound, what Rafe Mair said makes sense and I've never lived in BC. What's maddening is that there's a solution to this constitutional problem that includes the interests of BC residents and takes away the stick Kinder Morgan is using to beat us with. The solution requires us to jettison our biggest constraint on policy-making in the national interest - NAFTA.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow">As James Laxer points out</a>, NAFTA limits both our ability to address climate change and to deal effectively with the TM pipeline problem. NAFTA's proportionality principle and its Chapter 11 ISDS mechanism effectively lock us into a high-carbon future. The proportionality principle prevents us from altering the proportion of bitumen, oil and natural gas we export to the US. It stops us from phasing out bitumen faster than the other less polluting products or refining significant amounts of bitumen to make it safer to transport. Now let's say Trudeau takes a walk in the snow and suddenly decides to address GHG emissions as aggressively as possible. If Canada remains bound by this principle to 2050, we would produce almost 1,500 megatonnes of GHGs more than we would have if we were proportionality-free. <br /><br />The bigger problem is the ISDS mechanism that allows US multinationals to sue Canada before unaccountable tribunals that have a record of siding with oil and gas companies fighting environmental and resource regulations. It's beyond my understanding why Trudeau continues to champion this mechanism that has already cost Canadians <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/nafta-lawsuits-cost-canada-almost-100-million-more-previously-estimated" rel="nofollow">$219 million in awards and settlements, $100 million in legal fees</a> and that is currently being used as a cudgel by Kinder Morgan to shakedown his government. <br /><br />Trudeau should call KM's bluff and demand that proportionality and Chapter 11 be removed from NAFTA at the current negotiations. Trump wants to get rid of Chapter 11 anyway, and it's Trudeau who's insisting on keeping it! If Trump goes ballistic and tears up the agreement, fine. The end of NAFTA can be blamed on Dolt 45, KM won't be able to sue under ISDS, and Canada will be free to act in our own national interest without US Big Oil and former Enron con artists at our throats. Recovering full control over our resources will be worth the expected hit to our Ontario manufacturing sector, and I say that as a former autoworker who is hoping to receive a pension. NAFTA never did much for BC's softwood industry anyway.<br /><br />Cap<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-9710453418734416332018-04-17T14:23:18.388-07:002018-04-17T14:23:18.388-07:00.. wicked ass posting - essay
Rafe was never ever ..... wicked ass posting - essay<br />Rafe was never ever a lazy journalist<br />never lazy at anything<br />He defined 'vibrant'<br />cooked with the burner on high<br /><br />I advised my son - a skilled shooter & video editor<br />to connect with Rafe, Damien Gillis or Alexandra Morton<br />and get to the hot spots.. back their play<br />salmon, lumber, bears, wolves<br />the Salish Sea.. risky stuff<br />but he wasn't ready to leave Ontario<br />and be with such exemplars.. yetthe salamanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06853337802990122289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-81361400867608466132018-04-17T13:33:34.545-07:002018-04-17T13:33:34.545-07:00I didn't mention that in this post, Toby, but ...<br />I didn't mention that in this post, Toby, but there will be other powerful changes coming, stressors in some ways, that will fray the ties of Confederation and and weaken the viability of vast nation-states.<br /><br />A year or so ago the editor of the environmental web site, Grist, did a map that delineated the United States according to what climate change held for it, region by region. It was obvious that some places, the hot,dry regions such as New Mexico and Arizona will probably be unable to support the populations they currently have. With the High Plains aquifer, the mighty Ogallala, now beginning to run close to empty under a few states grain farming is now having to give way to open-range grazing and many farm towns across that region are being abandoned. Harper's magazine did a piece on these new ghost towns a couple of years ago. <br /><br />Canada shouldn't be as hard hit as the States but we won't be immune to climate change stresses either.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-34294364026464548492018-04-17T13:17:48.563-07:002018-04-17T13:17:48.563-07:00There are several forces coming down the pipe whic...There are several forces coming down the pipe which will change everything, global warming, the end of the oil era, over population, etc. We have all posted about them many times. All of these put the 18th Century nation states at peril. There are going to be re-alignments. One of the re-alignments could easily be BC leaving to become part of some form of Cascadia. <br /><br />It's a geographical thing. BC was part of the old Columbian District until Queen Victoria traded half of it away. The obvious advantages of such an alliance are still there. Being artificially attached to the entity on the other side of the mountains becomes increasingly fragile. <br /><br />Note: I'm observing, not promoting. Tobynoreply@blogger.com