Amanda Lang Interviews Ed Broadbent

If you have as low an opinion of the CBC's disgraced chief business correspondent, Amanda Lang, as I do, watch the following video. I think you will find that, with her absolutist questions typical of the extreme right and the intellectually deficient, she does not exceed expectations.



For Broadbent's thoughts on how Harper has failed this country, click here.

And Speaking Of Harper's Former Friends and Appointees....

Another one sends his greetings from jail in Panama. The disgraced Arthur Porter, the Harper-appointed former Chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee of Canada and alleged fraudster, has a message for his former good buddy:

Porter told The Canadian Press in a recent phone interview from La Joya prison that he wouldn’t mind a visit from Harper while the prime minister is in the region this weekend for the Summit of the Americas.

“If he wishes, he is most welcome to come and see the conditions that I live in now,” Porter said of Harper during the conversation, which was drowned out at times by the shouts of other inmates in the background.

“The [prison] air is the same, the infections are the same, the difficulties in finding water and food are the same. You know, some days are better than others.”

Porter has been detained since May, 2013, in the Central American country as he fights extradition to Canada. He faces fraud charges in Canada related to a $1.3-billion hospital project in Montreal.

Alth0ugh the Prime Minister will likely pass on the invitation, I can't help but think he would find that prison air, shall we say, bracing.

Tells You All You Need To Know, Doesn't It

It is a mental picture I hope all Canadians carry to the polls this October:



“To Duff, a great journalist and a great senator, thanks for being one of my best, hardest-working appointments ever,” reads a photo signed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper entered as an exhibit Thursday.

Just A Reminder Of Some Upcoming Events

And who says there's nothing to look forward to?

Is A Carbon Tax More Effective Than Cap And Trade?

Truthfully, I don't know the answer to that question, although some might say that any action is better than none on the climate-change file. In any event, a Star reader offers his thoughts on the matter:

Provinces can lead the way on global warming, April 7

The fact that the Ontario government’s decision to endorse cap and trade was leaked to Canada’s leading business newspaper confirms my worst fears. This decision is a victory of Bay Street over Main Street.

Clearly, we need a system of carbon pricing if we’re serious about making the polluters pay. Cap and trade offers many benefits for corporations, lawyers and consultants, but there is no evidence that it has been successful at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, whereas there is clear evidence that the carbon tax in B.C. has already resulted in a 10 per cent reduction in GHGs.

Cap and trade is an excuse for inaction that appeals only to those sectors of the corporate community that profit from pollution. It is losing its appeal to the insurance companies and enlightened business leaders who have to pay the price of inaction on climate change.

It has no appeal to the rising number of environmentally conscious Canadians who want to see our government regain respect in the world community.
Even those who invented the cap and trade system prefer a carbon tax for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Cap and trade works in theory but not in practice — the United Nations says it has worked badly or not at all. It is complex and difficult to co-ordinate across different jurisdictions; it requires constant tinkering, constant political will and a large bureaucracy. It creates synthetic, government-backed assets that are vulnerable to manipulation and speculation. In short, it is a highly indirect, economically inefficient and expensive way of curbing GHGs.

We need a carbon tax. It could be spun as a fee and dividend system in order to gain political support, if done with two caveats.

1) A portion of the revenues should be invested in a climate change fund that would finance mitigation and adaptation. For example, 40 per cent might be invested in renewable energy, rapid transit and energy efficient housing; and another 10 per cent devoted to disaster management — not only here in Ontario but in those countries where climate change will be most disastrous.

2) Rather than give each citizen an equal share of the revenues, with a half-share for children, we need to take special steps to lessen the impact of a carbon tax or fee on low-income households and on rural and remote communities. We can do this via tax credits or lump sum payments that are indexed to match increasing carbon levies.
Opting for cap and trade will clearly be putting Bay Street ahead of Main Street.

David Langille, Toronto

How Do You Define A Threat?

It's all a matter of perspective, I guess:

The Great Thing About the Extreme Right Wing

... is that their egregious stupidity is self-evident: