However, I was able to muster up the strength to watch this snippet, after which follows a critical analysis on the CBC website of Mr. Harper's claims:
Harper Whopper Number One:
"We’ve got more work to do, but our emissions are falling," Harper said on Wednesday.
"Other countries’ emissions for the most part are going up. World emissions are going up. Canada’s have not been going up."
But the government's own report suggests emissions will go up dramatically by the end of the decade because of oil and gas production, Canada's emissions will be 22 per cent higher than its Copenhagen target of reducing greenhouse gases by 17 per cent below their 2005 levels by 2020.
Harper Whopper Number Two:Says David McLaughlin, an adviser at the University of Waterloo’s school of environment,
Harper says he'd be open to using a carbon-pricing system like Alberta's for the entire continent, a concept he's previously opposed.
"I think it’s a model on which you could, on which you could go broader," Harper said in Wednesday's interview.
... emissions continue to rise under Alberta's system of carbon pricing.Harper Whopper Number Three
"The price of $15 a tonne is too low to actually get the emissions reductions we want from these big emitters. So it would not do the job of reducing emissions in Canada."
The prime minister also took credit for getting tough on coal.Alas, as with most pronouncements by the Prime Minister, there is less here than meets the eye:
"We are phasing out in Canada through regulations, we are phasing out the use of traditional dirty coal. It’s going to go to zero in the next 15 years or so," Harper said.
New federal coal regulations apply to new plants built after 2015. Existing plants built in the last 50 years are grandfathered, meaning they would have up to 2030 to close or introduce carbon capture and storage technology to reduce emissions.And Ontario's Environment Minister Glen Murray points out an inconvenient truth:
...the province closed coal plants with no help from Ottawa.Thanks for taking a few moments to see through the Emperor's diaphanous attire.
[I]"f the federal government wants to start taking credit for provincially funded initiatives, they could at least have the decency to make a commitment to support those initiatives in the future."
Lorne, Harper has no problem out and out right lying. With the election coming in 2015, we'll be hearing alot more of those lies. I really wish someome in the MSM would call him on them
ReplyDeleteThe fact that they don't points to the abject failure of most of the MSM, Pamela. Note that Harper won't submit to questions from a 'real' journalist. There would have been a time when such as he would have feared appearing on the CBC. The fact that he is now their broadcaster oi choice speaks volumes.
DeleteEvery time that Harper or one of his flunkies opens his cakehole and that froth about the “sector-by-sector approach” strategy oozes forth, I want to take hold of the shill conducting the questioning and shake with sufficient force to determine whether there is any possibility that the obvious follow-up questions could form in his or her head. I haven’t seen Harper or any of his spokespersons called on this fabrication. Mansbridge is either, like many of his colleagues, complicit in Harper’s act or he’s a complete idiot.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be great, John, if the CBC were barraged with a letter campaign demanding the most reverent Mansbridges's retirement?
DeleteI suspect Manbridge's questions had all been vetted and approved by the PMO.
ReplyDeleteIf you read the blogs, there are many comments that Dear Leader looked very nervous. The latter would make sense because he knew what the questions already were in advance, even though they were likely pre arranged softball questions.
Harper is no genius, we know that, even though he apparently can lie with a straight face. He looked worried (someone joked that the embalming fluid must have broken down) because he probably could not sleep well the night before in case he fumbled the answers. Lol.
Mansbridge really should retire. The reputation of the CBC is already in the dumps. He is making it worse.
As I have said before on this blog, Anon, the CBC's policy of appeasement is doomed to failure. Getting rid of Mansbridge might be the first step on the road to any possibility of restoring integrity at the CBC.
DeleteAnonymousDecember 19, 2014 at 6:51 PM:
ReplyDelete"I suspect Manbridge's questions had all been vetted and approved by the PMO."
And I bet they didn't have to change a single one.
"[Mansbridge] his chief courtier and media enabler" who I used to think was pandering in a vain effort to maintain funding for the CBC, but now it's clear he's angling for a senate seat . . .
Mr. Mansbridge should be careful what he wishes for, Anon. The record of media sycophants who got the Senate nod is, to say the least, stained.
Delete