The Pie in the Sky Greening of Quebec

..it is a tale Told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. -Macbeth

For personal reasons I don't usually write negatively about Premier Charest, but I shall make an exception and comment on his speech about reducing greenhouse gases out of profound admiration for his unbridled 'chutzpah.'

I couldn't help but get a chuckle at the ridiculously amateur and completely ineffective plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that he outlined in his speech on November 24th. It was patently clear that he hadn't put much effort or content into his plan, correctly and cynically concluding that nobody in the press would dare to tell him that his plan was as phoney as an Emperor with no clothes.
That the press took him seriously and failed to challenge him on the crock that he spouted was another case of failed journalism.

As skillfully as David Copperfield, our illustrious premier used the tried and true magical device of misdirection to concentrate and direct our focus elsewhere. Suffering from scandal after scandal and in virtual free fall in the polls, the Premier decided to re-focus the subject of public debate in the faint hope of changing the dynamics of a government in trouble.

And so, out of the blue, Premier Jean Charest announced, with a straight face, that by 2020, the province will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels, a goal similar to the target the European Union has adopted. The idea is so absurd, it as testament to his sang-froid and his confidence in his ability to mislead convince us.

Let's do some high school math to figure out what his proposed reduction actually means. For argument's sake, let's assign a number of 100% to the benchmark 1990 emissions level that the Premier referred to. To reduce emissions by the 20% that the Premier proposed, we'd have to get down to 80% of that number. Considering that our emissions have risen by 26% since 1990, we'd have to cut  greenhouse emissions by a whopping 36% in ten years to achieve Mr. Charest's goal.

Doable? Not a chance!
To pretend that it is, is nothing but pure fantasy, as realistic as Canada's Kyoto Accord commitment wherein we promised to cut emissions by a paltry 6% and failed miserably, actually increasing our output by 26%. Deja Vu?

How does the Premier intend to get to this mythical land of environmental equilibrium? Through a nonsensical and unrealistic mixture of hyperbole, magic and fantasy. His plan doesn't even stand up to the most cursory of analysis.

"Mr. Charest said he plans to reach the new objective by investing in public transportation and adopting tough regulations to reduce automobile emissions similar to the strict standards set in California. The province is also hoping rapid development and marketing of electric automobiles will significantly reduce its dependency on fossil fuels." Globe and Mail

Electric Cars Ha Ha!!!!

Let's quickly expose Mr. Charest's ideas as pie-in-the sky.

Increasing Public Transportation. People take public transport because a car is either unaffordable or inconvenient. If Mr. Charest thinks he's going to convince a significant number of those people, for which a car is affordable and a convenient alternative to public transport, to switch, out of an altruistic respect for the environment,  he is sadly out of touch with the human condition. A fact that environmentalists ignore, is that public transport is only marginally more environmentally friendly than cars. Aside from rush hour, buses and trains run all day long, near empty, while cars remain parked. At any rate public transport ridership in Canada has been increasing by less than ½ of one percent per year, unimpressive at best. If Mr. Charest increases that figure by ten-fold (a mean feat)  it will mean a paltry 5% increase in public transport use, hardly a breakthrough.

Lower emission Standards. The internal combustion engine has progressed to the point where new efficiencies are going to be marginal at best. The only way to lower emissions is to mandate smaller cars with smaller engines. The other alternatives is to eliminate cars. Do you think Mr. Charest is planning to enact legislation setting upper limits on size and horsepower or by banning the second family car?

Electric Cars. I'm not even going to comment. Perhaps Mr. Charest's next suggestion is that we power our cars with foot power à la Fred Flintstone.

For Mr. Charest and the citizens of Quebec discussing the reduction of carbon emissions without addressing the proverbial 'Elephant in the Room" is disingenuous.

Instead of nonsensical solutions, Mr. Charest and the good citizens of the province should address the problem of the hundreds of thousands of wood burning stoves, still in use in Quebec, which represent a monumental environmental disaster. While several Quebec cities have recognized the problem and moved to ban the purchase or installation of new stoves, nobody is remotely considering a plan to get rid of the old ones.

...."This is as rational as banning the purchase of new cars but letting people continue driving gas guzzlers."

..."Environment Canada asserts,  for example, that a conventional wood stove, burning for nine hours, emits as much particulate matter – known historically as soot – as a car driven 18,000 kilometres."

...."Combined, Montreal's wood stoves emit as much particulate matter as a car driven 207 billion kilometres. -NEIL REYNOLDS Globe and Mail

What is more disheartening is that 90% of the wood stoves currently in use in Quebec, are the old inefficient ones that burn up to 94% less cleanly than the newer models, the ones that follow EPA standards. Quebeckers who heat with wood and who are too cheap, lazy and inconsiderate to upgrade their equipment in the name of lowered emissions, are the real environmental bandits among us. Instead of carping about the Alberta Tar Sands, why don't we Quebeckers and Mr. Charest concentrate a little closer to home. An inconvenient truth, perhaps?

If Mr. Charest was the least bit interested in making genuine progress in reducing Quebec's emissions, he'd start by dealing with this environmental disaster,  one that can be actually remedied rather easily, or a least with less pain and expense than other solutions that reduce emissions.

Quebec has the lowest electricity rate in North America and forcing the public to switch to electric heating from wood (or oil and gas, for that matter), would be the first logical step in lowering our carbon footprint. If Quebeckers are the environmentalists that they claim to be, we would embrace a law that would phase out wood-burning stoves and gas and oil furnaces. Electricity may cost more than fossil fuels, but the cost-benefit co-efficient is the highest of any currently available option to lower carbon emissions. Banning fossil fuels as heating devices, would be the first real step to changing our lifestyle and a concrete commitment to change.  It's a no-brainer.

So why isn't the Premier talking about meaningful change? Because deep down, he knows that real change is hard to sell. The public, despite the talk, isn't really ready to sacrifice. That's why our carbon footprint continues to grow.
I once heard an environmentalist question an audience, asking how many people had really made a significant change in lowering their personal carbon footprint, a change that entailed considerable personal hardship or expense. Nary a hand went up.

Instead of real change, our Premier talks about mythical electric cars. The  media eats it up and the public is satisfied that we're supposedly on the way to doing something.

Deep down, none of us really care enough to change our lives, and none of us are prepared to take a significant hit in our pocketbook or in our lifestyle.

As we poke fun at world leaders who have jetted over to the Copenhagen conference on climate change in private planes and who are flitting about the city in oversized limousines, let us accept that we are every bit as hypocritical.

Mr. Charest, you are not alone....

Are the Montreal Canadiens Fudging Attendance Figures?

On Thursday I attended the Penguins/Canadiens game and like the rest of the fans was disappointed with a quick whistle that deprived the Canadiens of the tying goal in the third period. As the fans around me moaned in agony at the unfairness of it all, I was loathe to remind them that just a a couple of weeks ago, at another game I attended, the Canadiens were the beneficiary of another blown call when the referees failed to blow the whistle after the puck had struck the protective mesh behind the net, subsequent to a Canadiens goal.

No matter, I was concerned with weightier matters, namely why the Canadiens continue to claim sell-outs when it appears that tickets are unsold.

Even though the city of Montreal had just survived it's first big snowstorm of the year, it didn't seem likel that it would affect attendance, as the streets were quite passable after a magnificent job by snow cleaning crews and for the fact that the Stanley Cup champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins were in town.
Sydney Crosby is always a huge draw here in Montreal, but perhaps his recent refusal to give any more interviews in his rudimentary French has taken the sheen off his halo among the Francophone fan base, who have in the past, considered him a semi-native son in virtue of his junior career in Rimouski.


I did arrive quite late to the game because some genius planner had the bright idea to run the Olympic Torch Relay through the downtown core at the exact moment some 22,000 fans were arriving for the Canadiens game.  Various parts of Ste. Catherine Street and René Levesque Boulevard were shut down and grid-lock quickly took hold. It was close to eight o'clock before I got to the Bell Centre entrance on La Gauchetière street and I was quite surprised to see a tickets for sale sign posted on the electronic message board attached to the building;

Now this was well into the first period and nary a soul was in the ticket office buying anything.
Not surprising since a plethora of scalpers were giving tickets away at below cost right in front of the building.
I waited for the P/A announcement thanking the fans for another sellout, but it never happened. Come to think of it, the Canadiens haven't announced attendance since early in the season.
The box score in the morning paper, once again announced a sell-out and Red Fisher of the Gazette mentioned the sell-out in his column. I remain highly sceptical....

I saw the same thing earlier this year at an Islanders game, but since I had arrived on time, I figured that they could possibly sell-out.

Are there cracks forming in the hitherto Habs sell-out phenomena?

It's already happened to the Toronto Maple Leafs who were unable to sell out all the luxury suites at Air Canada Centre for the first time in 10 year.

The Ottawa Senators are also suffering an attendance slump. A recent game against provincial rivals, Toronto, had thousands of tickets unsold.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the crappy on-ice performance of these three teams is a factor.

I shudder to think what will happen to attendance in the dead of winter in late February if the Canadiens and Sens are below .500 and unlikely to make the playoffs.

Incidentally the hockey movie that was produced in conjunction with the 100th year anniversary is bombing in the theatres.  The dud, 'Pour toujours les Canadiens' had a horrible opening weekend, with sales of only $112K in close to 100 screens throughout the province.

How The Habs Can Improve Their On-Ice Product.

The cleaning crew guys come out three times during each period to scrape up ice shavings. The stoppage is extremely boring and annoying.

The Canadiens can improve the on-ice product without affecting the salary cap with a few simple trades!!

Added attractions:
10 Sexiest NHL girfriends

and the;
World's Hardest Hockey Shot

Best shoot-out goal.....

Worst hockey Mom;

Never Date Within the Division

Florida Fan Flashes the Cam;

Steve Colbert steals HNIC theme song....Arrrgghhh.......

Hypocritical Pauline Marois Gets a free Pass from Press

I don't often get upset at the antics of politicians, they are what they are. As a group, politicians are generally shallow, dishonest back stabbers who put their own interests before those of the people they purportedly serve. Those are the good ones, the bad ones are utterly callous opportunists who hold the public in utter disrespect and use their time in public life to steal as much as they can for themselves and their friends.

It's the media's job to keep politicians in check by exposing their transgressions. For the press, it's good for business, scandal sells newspapers. Just look at Tiger Woods.

Usually the press does a good job, but here is the first of two stories (I'll write about the other one next week) where they let their guard down badly.

The Parti Quebecois has been testing the issue of Jean Charest's extra pay package for a week or two  and now finally satisfied that the issue is a winner, Pauline Marois herself, weighed in.

She hammered Charest for accepting a $75,000 annual payment from the Quebec Liberal Party in addition to the $175,000 salary that he is paid as Premier.

"Your salary has to come from the government of Quebec, not the Quebec Liberal Party," complained  Marois. "If the Liberal Party pays him $75,000 it is because it has expectations and I think this is not acceptable," 
Expectations!!!! HA! HA! 
Anyone in politics knows that a politician's first level of loyalty is to the political party that gets him or her elected and it's obscene that Marois knowingly misrepresents the facts in so blatant a manner without being called out on it. 
Ninety-nine percent of everything Madame Marois says and does is meant to satisfy her political party. To say with a straight face that the Premier of Quebec or the leader of the opposition or any member of the assembly works for the good of the people before the good of party is claptrap.

The Quebec Liberal Party is Jean Charest's real employer and whether you like it or not, being Premier is a job he splits with working on behalf of the Liberal Party, to further it's success. The same goes for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party and Pauline Marois herself and the Parti Quebecois.



That Marois has stated that the Premier must work for the people and not his party is utter nonsense. 
She went on to say that Mr. Charest should live on his salary. I guess it's an easy thing to say when you're the wife of a multi-millionaire and live in an eight million dollar home. It's akin to Donald Trump telling us to be satisfied with what we have. Isn't anyone in the media going to ask her if she is really the right person to scold anyone on the merits of living on a budget.

Isn't anyone going to ask her to explain how her husband, Claude Blanchet got so rich? He was the failed and incompetent directer of the government's Société Général de financement, who left the agency in disgrace, almost a billion dollars in the hole, but not before negotiating himself an $80,000 pension for life from Madame Marois' PQ government.  Is anyone going to ask her how this idiot became such a big wheeler and dealer, getting rich doing business with the government while his wife was a Quebec cabinet minister? Did his time running the sleazy FTQ Solidarity Fund and his business relationship with the infamous Tony Accurso also somehow lead to his new found millions? 
When it comes to ethics there is little Marois can contribute. The stink surrounding the construction of the mansion she and her husband built on agricultural land hasn't gone away or been forgotten. 
She should be ripped apart for her hypocritical stance.

As for the $75,000 bonus paid to Mr. Charest by the Liberal party it's none of our business.

At the time Mr. Charest was being courted begged to leave Ottawa, the pressure applied to him and his family was nothing less than ferocious. Hundreds of phone calls, messages and requests for personal meetings were made from desperate politicians, party mandarins and millionaire businessmen.

The Liberal party was in desperate need of a leader and Charest was seen as it's saviour. The decision to uproot his young family and accept a new and uncertain job was difficult. Would it have made sense to move from a secure job in Parliament as leader of a national party (albeit diminished) without some personal guarantees and financial reward?  There was no guarantee at the time that he would become Premier.

When is it unethical to do the best for your family?
I know the agony he went through in making the decision to accept the job. He could have asked for triple what he did and it would have all been paid willingly. Millionaires were lined up, ready, willing and able to make 'brown bag donations' to insure that he took the job.
Instead he negotiated himself a package from the Liberal Party, no different than anyone else being courted for a position by a desperate employer.

There is nothing sleazy, dishonest or unethical with a political party topping up a leader's salary. While most citizens believe that $175,000 is a fantastic salary, it is paltry compared to what any top level CEO is paid. It is also fair to remind people that Mr. Charest's wife by virtue of her husband's position cannot seek employment. She does in fact work tirelessly on behalf of the government, the Liberal party and many charities as an unpaid goodwill ambassador. 

Look at Brian Mulroney and the Karl-Heinz Schreiber situation. Mulroney stated that he was desperate for the money. Is that the position we want our Premier to be in? Let us not be hypocrites like Madame Marois.

Quebeckers are generally a jealous lot when it comes to success and wealthy people and the issue of Charest's salary is one that will unfortunately pay dividends for the PQ. Usually these types of attacks are off base, since the separatists started the Liberals should start attacking Marois' wealth. 
It reminds me of a joke that I'll Canadianize.

A father and young son on a Calgary street watch as a Rolls-Royce drives by. "Son, see that car. If you work really hard and become successful, one day you might be able to buy one!" 
A father and son on a Quebec City street see a Rolls-Royce drive by. "Son, see that car. Bought with stolen money by the exploitation of workers!

PQ's Dishonest Plan to Get Rid of Religion in Public

Last month, an internal Parti Quebecois conference made headlines because of two proposals put forward that had the effect to further restrict English usage in Quebec. The first demanded that English CEGEPs (junior colleges) be subject to the constraints Bill 101, which would effectively bar Allophones and Francophone from attending. The second proposal, one which the English press had great fun with, was the proposal that would bar Allophones and Francophone toddlers from attending 'English' daycare.
Lost in all this was another proposal, one which was put forward as a draft law in the  National Assembly. Athough it seemed innocuous enough, it could have profound implications should it ever be adopted.

The Parti Quebecois proposed a law (Loi 397) that would change the preamble of the province's CHARTER OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS which would be amended to include references to the primacy of French, the equality of men and women and the separation of Church and State.

"Whereas equality of women and men,the primacy of French and the separation of state and religion are fundamental values of the Québec nation;"

Seems simple enough, but the draft law went a bit further and proposed to replace Section 50.1 which presently reads;

50.1. The rights and freedoms set forth in this Charter are guaranteed equally to women and men.

with this;

“50.1. The Charter shall be so interpreted as to take into account Québec’s historical heritage and the fundamental values of the Québec nation, including equality of women and men, the primacy of French and the separation of state and religion.”(my emphasis)

 What a dishonest cop out!

According to this new interpretation, the government should be no longer be involved in religious matters, but in ordering it's affairs, should take into account the province's 'historical heritage,' which is nothing more than code for Catholicism.

The language was inserted to allay fears that Quebec could not only lose it's Christian heritage, but be forced to modify or eliminate Catholic symbols and customs in society to reflect this new official secularism.

The irony was not lost on Daniel Baril who in a blistering attack in a Le Devoir opinion piece said;

"We know where this is taking us, the continued presence of the crucifix in the National Assembly erected by Duplessis to mark its alliance with the Catholic Church, now preserved through a revisionist doctrine, as an object of historical heritage!"

The effect of the change in the Charter would be to remove religious symbolism and practices from public life, but not necessarily those that are Catholic.

It's a case of having one's cake and eating it too.

The real effect of the proposed law is nothing more than a blatant attack on minority religions,  Islam and Judaism, particularly.

Under the new secular edict, government workers couldn't greet clients wearing a head scarf, yarmulke or turban. Schools that offered religious training would no longer benefit from any government support and time off from work wouldn't be allowed for the celebration of non-Christan holidays.

 While in the name of secularism, the Jewish General Hospital might be required to change it's name, the 'Hotel Dieux Hospital' would protected because of it's 'historical heritage.' Same with the crucifix on Mount Royal and the hundreds of street names starting with "Saint."

It's a cynical and cruel double standard, meant to portray Quebec as secular, while protecting Christan symbols and conventions.

One of the fundamental problems in enshrining secularism in the Quebec CHARTER OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS is that it is in direct violation of the CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, whose opening preamble is this;

PART I

CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:

Hmmmm.....