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Friday, February 12, 2010 10:19 AM EST
Quebec’s climate change hypocrisy
In a speech at the University of Ottawa last week, Gilles Duceppe cited climate change policies as another reason that Quebec would be better off as a separate country. For that reason alone, federalists should keep a close eye on what’s actually going on in the distinct society.
This morning, Le Devoir reports that Jean Charest’s government has invited Quebec business people to “seize the opportunities” in the oil sands as part of a subsidized trade mission to Edmonton, from March 22-25.
Meanwhile, La Presse is reporting that Ontario’s Minister Sandra Pupatello says that Quebec’s tailpipe emissions standards are a complete waste of time as the province only represents 4 per cent of the North America market and will have to adjust its standards when continent-wide standards are put in place.
And the New York Times reports that, because of economic concerns, Arizona has pulled out of the Western Climate Initiative, of which Quebec is a member, which is supposed to inaugurate a cap-and-trade program in 2012.
Link to this postTuesday, February 9, 2010 9:36 AM EST
Charest’s been blowing smoke on tailpipe emissions
Remember that tiff last week between Jean Charest and Jim Prentice, after the federal environment minister dared to criticize Quebec for going it alone on tailpipe emission standards?
In today’s Journal de Quebec — under the headline “Quebec is giving preferential treatment to obtain SUV’s,” Michel Hébert reports:
“Since January 14, Quebec has been applying tailpipe emission standards in regard to SUV’s that are tougher than California’s.
A few days after the regulations came into effect, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Volkswagen and Nissan met with officials of the environment ministry and further meetings are planned.
In a letter sent to the ministry, the manufacturers say they are “delighted with your offer to review ways” of quickly adjusting the major elements of Quebec’s regulations that differ from “those of California.”
Without knowing it, some 2010 models were not available in Quebec but were sold in Ontario. So, after GM refused to sell large 4 WD vehicles to Hydro Quebec because of the Quebec standards, a quiet agreement was made to exempt the Yukon, Escalade and Savana models from the regulations.
Quebec intended to align its regulations with California’s, but the Schwarzenegger administration accepted the more flexible regulations that apply across the United States.”
Monday, February 8, 2010 7:50 AM EST
Nanos poll predicts reduced Tory minority
In La Presse this morning, you can find the results of Nik Nanos’s latest poll conducted between Jan. 29 to Feb. 4:
The Conservatives led by nearly 10 points in mid-November… they are now at 35.6 per cent while the Liberals are at 33.9 per cent... the NDP is at 16.4per cent and the Greens are at 5.6 per cent... in Québec, the Bloc is at 33.2per cent... the Liberals are at 29.3 per cent... the Conservatives are at 22.2 per cent and the NDP are at 10.5 per cent.
With these results, Mr. Nanos says that the Conservatives would be re-elected but with fewer seats than the 145 they won in the last election.
(Sample size 1002; margin of error 3.1 per cent nationally, 7.1 per cent in Québec)
Sunday, February 7, 2010 9:36 PM EST
Let Ignatieff be Ignatieff?
Let Ignatieff be Ignatieff?
That’s the Liberals’ game plan, according to Lawrence Martin. However, serving up wedge issues—the approach suggested by Peter Donolo, pollster—suggests that the Liberals have not exactly decided to take an intellectual’s approach to politics.
This week, in Québec, we got another example of where the party is heading in its bid to form government, after the band council at Kahnawake moved to evict non-natives living with natives from the reserve.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Chuck Strahl, has refused comment, but a departmental spokesperson says it’s an internal Kahnawake matter.
Over at the NDP, Thomas Mulcair says, “At first, this may seem shocking, but you can’t blame them for being careful.”
Only Michael Ignatieff criticized the band council, asserting that Canadians must learn to live side by side.
“We support the protection and development of aboriginal culture… However, separating families is unacceptable. In Canada, people of different origin or communities live together. We strongly demand that the band council review its decision. If Parliament were sitting, we could discuss this issue.”
Interestingly, one of the NDP’s most prominent Québec members—civil rights lawyer Julius Grey—sides with Mr. Ignatieff. At the other end of the political spectrum, so does the National Post.
On the other hand, this could simply be Mr. Ignatieff being himself: let’s not forget that Jean Chrétien, as a minister in the Trudeau government, authored the White Paper on Indians—described by some as favouring integration, others as pursuing assimilation—before the Liberals abandoned that approach and entrenched the current one in the Constitution.
Wedge issue, or Ignatieff being Ignatieff? It’s hard to discern, but it sure would make for fascinating politics.
Friday, February 5, 2010 3:58 PM EST
Buy America, bye-bye Copenhagen howler
Pity.
Just when I thought that Michael Ignatieff was beginning to sound prime ministerial, here he goes reverting to the role of niggling opposition leader at the news of the Buy America agreement announced this morning.
Too little?
In fact, this arrangement with the United States could double the total size of the stimulus program brought in by the Conservative government and supported by the Liberals. Without any further increase to the deficit. And with savings to taxpayers from more competitive provincial procurement practices.
Too late?
Would Mr. Ignatieff have signed on earlier to a deal that will see the White House treat sectors of the Canadian economy as if they were American? President Barack Obama issuing executive orders on the basis that the supply chain between our two countries has become increasingly integrated since the free trade agreement which, itself, was a sell out of our sovereignty, according to the Liberals back then? And this from a leader who’s been criticizing the loss of sovereignty in the Conservatives harmonizing Canada’s climate-change policies with those of the Obama Administration?
Let’s be frank.
From their initial meeting, Prime Minister Stephen Harper understood Canada’s only source of leverage in these negotiations: With tit-for-tat protectionism between China and the United States increasing, Mr. Obama needed to show his trade partners and competitors that he could lower barriers with at least one partner.
This he has done — to the benefit of Canadians.
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Update I see that my blogging colleague Rob Silver says the Conservatives will be breaking a campaign commitment to submit all international treaties to Parliament for ratification.
In fact, the Buy America agreement — one of hundreds a government signs in the course of a mandate — is explicitly not an international treaty.
Instead, the President will proceed by Executive Order.
The reason It’s structured that way, is because President Obama knew that the delays in getting it through the Senate would have been a lot, lot longer than a month, which is what concerns Rob.
Indeed, in today’s climate in Washington, it’s unlikely that he could have gotten a treaty through the Senate at all.
Friday, February 5, 2010 9:05 AM EST
On Mideast, Ignatieff sounds prime ministerial
In Le Devoir, Michael Ignatieff directs some sharp criticism the Prime Minister’s way today: “The Conservatives have attempted to turn Canada’s Mideast policy into a domestic political issue and that’s a grave error.”
He’s right.
It’s one thing to shift Canadian foreign policy away from the Arabist position that has dominated our foreign affairs department during and since the birth of Israel – as it has at foreign ministries around the world. Paul Martin began the process during his short-lived government. And, from some of the other things Mr. Ignatieff had to say to Le Devoir, it appears that a government led by him would likely shift our policy back to the prevailing bureaucratic view.
But that position does not derive from anti-Semitism; it derives from bureaucratic interests plus their calculation of our national interest – devoid of political considerations and un-tempered by the geo-strategic interests and obeisance to common values that you find in U.S. foreign policy.
It’s one thing to court Jewish votes by giving out grants or eating bagels or visiting Israel or appointing members of the tribe to sit along people of Italian, Lebanese and Greek origin in the senate. However, not since Joe Clark promised to move Canada’s embassy to Jerusalem have we seen such a blatant use of Mideast foreign policy as an electoral issue.
The primary responsibility of a Canadian prime minister is to maintain domestic harmony – be it between Quebec and the rest of the country, be it among people of various origins in our increasingly multicultural society. One of the ways of doing so is to keep the divisive Mideast conflict out of domestic politics.
Mr. Harper is not fulfilling that responsibility. Mr. Ignatieff promises to, as he promises never to abuse the power to prorogue.
As Muslims say: “Inshallah.”
Thursday, February 4, 2010 9:39 AM EST
Mr. Harper continues to surprise
Perusing my morning read, I see that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has set a trap for the opposition. Some trap.
By suggesting that the House sit an additional 12 days in March and April, Mr. Harper has badly outmanoeuvred Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff. With both gentlemen having been out of the country when the media-stimulated prorogation storm hit Canada, this is an offer that neither can refuse.
How so?
According to the House of Commons calendar, MPs are to sit for a week and a half when they return in March, would then have a week off starting March 15, and would then sit another nine days, following which they would have another two weeks off in April.
Perhaps that’s the way business is done in Ottawa on the taxpayer’s dime. However, you want to see a grassroots revolt? I’ll show you one. Nor would it look particularly good for opposition MPs to put their plans for two more vacations ahead of the pressing need to examine whether Richard Colvin is to be believed in alleging that members of the Canadian Forces abetted the commission of war crimes in Afghanistan.
Speaking of Afghanistan, yesterday Mr. Harper smoothly took the option of repatriating Omar Khadr off the table.
Why is this important?
Last week’s Supreme Court decision reversing decisions by two lower courts ordering his repatriation has been widely misinterpreted – if not deliberately distorted – by Mr. Khadr’s lawyers, sympathizers in the media and academe – and by the large number of Canadians who’d never, ever consider voting Conservative. And still is being, as you can see in the lead of a report in today’s Toronto Star: “Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not be asking the United States to return Omar Khadr to Canada, despite a Supreme Court ruling that his rights were violated by Canadian officials.”
Contrary to the Khadr lobby, repatriating Omar Khadr is not the only option for complying with the Court decision. In fact, the only option not open to the government is the option of doing nothing in light of the violation of his rights by Canadian officials in 2003-2004.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:45 PM EST
Say what? Quebec won’t meet the Kyoto targets?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper should definitely have a word with Jim Prentice for touching one of the third rails of Canadian politics — criticizing Quebec.
Unless, that is, Mr. Prentice was acting with prime ministerial approval or with the approval of the PMO in criticizing the province for going it alone in Canada on setting California-type auto-emissions standards.
In which case, Mr. Harper needs new Quebec advisers. Failing which, his days in high office are nearing an end.
For one thing, helped along by the media, criticizing the province from outside is guaranteed to reinforce the “Québec consensus” — especially when that consensus consists of a high proportion of myth to reality — as in the case of Québec’s self-proclaimed green image.
For another, this kind of gaffe is the perfect opportunity to pander to Quebeckers’ sense of moral superiority relative to the rest of Canada.
Let’s be clear: the “leadership” to which Michael Ignatieff referred yesterday is mostly due to Québec’s abundant hydro power. And Jean Charest’s insistence on using Kyoto’s base year of 1990 is totally due to his objective of having Québec do as little as possible to help meet Canada’s target of achieving a 17per cent reduction relative to 2005 levels by 2020 — an objective that is being dismissed as insufficiently ambitious by Jean Charest today. He also accuses the Harper government of slavishly following the U.S. lead — unlike Québec’s auto emissions standards, for example.
Though it’s not hard to understand why Gilles Duceppe would seize this or any other opportunity to argue that Canada doesn’t serve Québec’s interests, it’s a bit harder to grasp why Mr. Ignatieff and Jack Layton would lend support to the argument that Ottawa is protecting Ontario’s auto industry at their expense.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:42 AM EST
An expert, ex-Liberal MP speaks out on prorogation
The best thing about writing in the Globe’s dead-tree edition is the feedback from its unique readership.
For example, in reaction to yesterday’s column, I received an e-mail from Edward McWhinney – a former professor of constitutional law and adviser to governments, who sat in the House of Commons as Liberal MP for Vancouver-Quadra from 1993-2000. In it, Professor McWhinney disses the Liberal and NDP prorogation proposals and suggests an ingenious one of his own:
Norman Spector, Columnist, Globe & Mail
I read with great interest your comments in the Globe and Mail of February 2 on a current proposal by the federal NDP leader, and a later, rather more intricate and “Gothic” plan by the Liberal leader, to have the House of Commons establish, in terms, specific limits and conditions to the Governor General’s Reserve, Prerogative powers, such as they may exist today, as to Prorogation. I fully share the constitutional-legal doubts expressed by Quebec jurist, Benoit Pelletier, as reported in the G&M of January 26, as to Mr. Layton’s proposal, and these doubts would seem to apply even more to the brief now advanced by Mr. Ignatieff.
It is surely beyond the constitutional mandate and competence of Parliament to seek to legislate in regard to what is, after all, a fully autonomous and separate, coordinate institution of government in relation to Parliament.
To say that is not to suggest that constitutional changes should not be considered to the incidents and attributes of the office of Governor General today or, more specifically, to the constitutional relations inter se of the institutions of head-of-state and head-of-government: it is simply that the office of Governor General is too important in our system of government for amendment in it to be ventured upon by conscious constitutional indirection, in the interstices of a proposed change to Parliamentary rules and practice.
If Mr. Layton were now to delete the references to the Governor General and to limit his proposal to the “saving” of public legislation still before the House at the time of Prorogation he would respond to heartfelt irritations felt by MPs of all main parties in recent years in having Bills on which they had spent many hours working together in Committee automatically disappear into legal limbo on the grant of the writ.
Mr. Layton could at the same time suggest the addition to all such grants in the future of a specific, deliberately limited time duration: this has certainly been the practice, one might say convention, in exercises in grants of Prorogation under the Chretien and the Harper governments equally, and there is no reason why it shouldn’t now be formalised.
Why not, at the same time, replace the esoteric Latinism, “Prorogation” by something in plainer English that is more nearly descriptive of what has actually been involved in the historical record of the 105 grants of Prorogation, to Liberal and also Conservative Prime Ministers, since the Constitution was first adopted in 1867?
Best wishes, and keep on with your always stimulating columns. [I remember earlier valuable exchanges of views with you during your years in Ottawa when there was still the possibility to save Meech Lake].
Ted McWhinney
Monday, February 1, 2010 5:18 PM EST
Mr. Ignatieff is blowing hot air
The surprise in Jim Prentice's announcement was not when he made it: the deadline for "inscribing" emission reduction targets was Sunday, and - as will become clear tomorrow - Canada is in the small minority of countries that met its Copenhagen commitment.
Nor is the fact that Canada matched the emissions reduction target put forward by the Obama administration a surprise to Michael Ignatieff: Mr. Prentice has always made it clear this was his intention - and he lived up to that commitment once he and the government had a chance to examine the U.S. submission.
The Liberal Leader is well aware of that, as are reporters in Ottawa.
What was most remarkable in Mr. Prentice's announcement, as Gloria Galloway reports in today's Globe, is that the documents filed with the UN say that Canada's goal will "be aligned with the final economy-wide emission target in the United States in enacted legislation."
Why is this important?
At last month's Copenhagen conference, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change, said: "Canada has a tough period behind it in terms that Canada did rise and ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but its main trading partner, the United States, did not, which left it in a very unbalanced situation."
Notably, the documents filed by the United States on Thursday contain a proviso that the emission reduction targets are submitted "in conformity with anticipated U.S. energy and climate legislation, recognizing that the final target will be reported to the Secretariat in light of enacted legislation."
In other words, the targets are subject to the same process that kept the United States out of the Kyoto protocol.
With Canada having been burned once when the Clinton-Gore administration decided not to submit for senate ratification the protocol it negotiated in Kyoto - following which the Bush administration withdrew completely - the current government is determined that Canada not be burned again.
That's how a responsible government carries out international negotiations. As to a responsible opposition, surely there's no shortage of issues at this time on which Mr. Ignatieff can focus and display his considerable intelligence.
Spector Vision Contributors
Norman Spector
Norman Spector, a former chief of staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, is also a former academic, federal and provincial deputy minister, ambassador and newspaper publisher. He's been writing in The Globe and Mail since 1995 and in Le Devoir since 2003. In 2004, Norman began providing a daily review of the Canadian and international press on his website Norman's Spectator. His book, Chronicle of a War Foretold: How Mideast Peace Became America's Fight, was published by Douglas and McIntyre in 2003. The following year, he contributed an afterword to William Kaplan's A Secret Trial, published by McGill-Queen's University Press.