Standby for the brown envelopes

#Cdnpoli - 

Greg Weston points out that Harper, instead of providing separate bills to alter or repeal several pieces of critical legislation has bundled them all together in a single bill which will prevent them from being properly vetted at committees appropriate to their content.

In short, the single catch-all bill slipped into the Commons last week includes at least a dozen major pieces of legislation that could have been — and should have been — introduced in Parliament, debated, reviewed by the appropriate committees and passed separately.

Instead, the government has intentionally created a confusing legislative hodge-podge designed to minimize debate.

This is now a Harper trademark. And it's misnamed in such a way that in the future he can point at the opposition and state that they voted against, jobs, growth and long -term prosperity.

Weston brings up something else however. How does a government give the boot to 20,000 public servants without some of them taking the information they had hidden in the back of the filing cabinet with them? It's called "insurance" and it ends up on some reporters desk.

History also suggests that thousands of public servants being showered in pink slips risks the government's being buried in a hail of brown envelopes, all those politically embarrassing secrets in bureaucrats' filing cabinets magically transferred to the desks of the national media.

Should make for good reading in any case. 

Joe Oliver attempts to lampoon Saturday Night Live

#Cdnpoli

Jebus H. on a popsicle stick, take a read of this fool:

Environmental groups that don’t have particular expertise to offer shouldn’t be able to participate in environmental review hearings, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said Wednesday.

That also goes for ordinary citizens concerned about projects like the Northern Gateway pipeline but who don’t live or work near the project, he said.

Oliver was defending his government’s plan unveiled a day earlier to “strengthen environmental protection” by limiting participation to members of the public who are “directly affected” by major projects.

“We don’t see the need” to allow testimony from Canadians outside the project areas, or from environmental groups without specific expertise, Oliver said in an interview.

So what Oliver is actually saying is that you, citizen, because you don't live directly in the path of the right-of-way falling machines and the bulldozers, have less say on the Northern Gateway tar moving project than the Chinese investors.

Not. Fucking. Likely.

“We’re not telling the NEB what to say, we’re not influencing their decision. They will come their decision independently, objectively, based on science. Then we will draw conclusions from it.”

Oh good. Now they're tossing out a "science" line. That's rich coming from a bunch of clots who regularly reject science when it doesn't suit their ideology.

“We’re not undermining the integrity of the process.”

He's right there. They're destroying it.

Enough.

These guys are intent on laying waste to British Columbia. It's time government of BC took a stand. British Columbia has little to gain from this project. Alberta has dabbled with the idea of sharing infinitesimal amounts of petroleum royalties with BC in exchange for support.

Big deal.

I have a better idea. Get the legislation in place now. What's the most effective means a government has of altering behaviour? Taxes. 

 

Impose a Bitumen Transfer Tax on all terminal transfer points in the province. Make it worth everyones' while. The equivalent of what Alberta takes in royalties is a good place to start. Make every drop of diluted bitumen pay back to the citizens of BC exactly what Alberta is stuffing in their coffers.

Hit 'em where they'll notice. Right in the profit margin.