| Tar, the Prime Minister and the End of Civility and the Disappearing Ozone Except for exaggerated job claims, unlike the Canadian government, the oil and gas industry is extremely forthright about the profits it expects to make from the tar sands and how it will do this; one of these is getting the government to bring in more foreign workers to keep the wages paid to Canadians as low as possible. Industry calls on Ottawa to reform policy in order to bring more skilled workers to Canada. Alberta is facing a shortage of 77,000 workers within the next 10 years, according to a recent report from Ernst & Young, which cited the provincial government. The oil sands’ projected growth is a key force behind the deficit, with bitumen production expected to double by 2020 as companies pour billions of dollars into their projects. While labourers enjoy higher wages as the employee pool dries up, rising salaries eat into corporate profits and put projects at risk of delay. Globe and Mail, Dec 22, 2011 Unlike the government, the oil and gas industry will not risk being accused of misleading potential investors and shareholders by not being honest about its operations and goals. If it was not for the industry, we would know next to nothing about the government’s plans for the Athabaska Tar Sands, which are the industry’s plans. Not only has the Harper Government cut back on expenditures to study the impact of the mining and processing of tar on global warming, but any information related to the Tar Sands is closely held within government circles. Most of the information on which Canadian non-governmental environmentalists base their assessment of the impact of mining the Tar Sands is based on information provided by the oil and gas companies operating in Alberta. Even their rosy predictions are cause for alarm, which should give everyone pause. The Harper government is a government you can no longer trust to tell you the truth about anything. Most of the lying, by my reckoning, being about the Tar Sands, their impact on the environment and global warming, and the need to lock up young people – the only demographic that could effectively challenge Harper’s one-man-government but can't be bothered to vote and are about to pay the price. Lying does not come naturally to many of Harper’s Ministers. The body language, the cringing when compelled to repeat a lie drafted for them by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) or the Privy Council Office (PCO) betrays the normally honest men from the natural-born liars. You know who they are. This lying has made a laughing stock of the Environment Minister, who is still struggling with telling a convincing lie. Unlike your natural-born liar, he works almost exclusively from a script given to all Ministers every day Parliament is in session. He will stick to this script like a drowning man to a life preserver. It is appalling entertainment for those who worry about what the Machiavellian machinations of the Prime Minister and the men and women who are only following orders are doing to inform debate in the Parliament when on so many pressing issues informed debates are so desperately needed – my Christmas Eve experience being a case in point. Insulting the Member of Parliament asking a question of a Minister is also now the norm in the House of Commons. A gratuitous, general purpose insult, or insults, are usually part of the Minister’s script. The Minister of Environment, during the last session of Parliament, showed us how it is done, in his inept sort of way. First, a badly delivered scripted insult that has nothing to do with the question asked. From the Globe and Mail: Too tightly scripted and perhaps caught off guard, the Environment Minister stumbled in the Commons Monday when the Montreal Liberal asked him to “explain to the House what ozone is and what is the difference between its impact at low altitude and high altitude”? Mr. Kent, like every other minister during Question Period, did not waver from his talking points. Instead, of trying to answer the question he simply threw back an insult at Mr. Trudeau, criticizing the “quality” of the questions from the Liberal opposition. The minister added: “This government would gladly compare our record on the environment, in all its dimensions to...” At that point, a frustrated Mr. Trudeau interrupted: “You don’t know what ozone is.” The Speaker called for order and Mr. Kent continued: “...to complete my question, again the opposition is using a questionable media source quotation of one of my staff that has been taken out of context.” Next, a badly delivered scripted attack, concealing a lie, aimed at the environment critic for the Liberal Opposition. The previous day the Prime Minister was quoted as saying “the Kyoto targets were stupid.” The next day, in the House of Commons, Megan Leslie, Member of Parliament for Halifax and Liberal environment critic asked the Minister of the Environment the following question: Mr. Speaker, the international community is watching us. China, France, the UN have all criticized the Conservatives for pulling out of Kyoto. Is the Prime Minister going to call them stupid as well… The Environment Minister, before he was interrupted, began his scripted combination non-answer, insult and lie in the following manner: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. colleague had been in Durban, she would have seen that Canada was among the leaders in the … Maybe it was the chivalry in Pierre Trudeau’s eldest son, Justin, which could not stand a female colleague being wantonly slandered on orders from the PMO by a man with the spine of a jellyfish. He shouted “You piece of shit!” and quickly apologized. The Member for Papineau was incensed that, after preventing members of the opposition parties from attending the Durban conference on climate change in order to give the impression (i.e. lie) that a majority of Canadians support the Prime Minister’s non-initiatives on climate change, the Minister’s script required him to accuse Ms. Leslie of not carrying enough about climate change to attend the United Nation sponsored conference on climate change. Kent took the interruption in stride, or so it seemed, and continued with what every participant at the Durban conference would have known was a lie had they been in the House of Commons that day. As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, if my hon. colleague had not sent a deputy to attend in Durban, she would have seen first-hand how Canada did lead the way in contributing to the creation of the Durban platform.
Anthony Jenkins/The Globe and Mail It was only after he completed his recital of the scripted lie/slander did Kent become aware of what had been said about him, at which point he got up demanding the apology that had already been given and accepted. The hapless Mr. Kent will probably keep his portfolio because he does his best to deliver the PMO’s lies and insults to their designated targets; he is just not very good at it. He may, however, be assigned a stand-in. Perhaps taking a cue from baseball’s designated-hitter, the Prime Minister’s Office, during the last session of Parliament, has started to make use of what can best be described as a designated-liar. This is most often another Minister, a more experienced Minister in the art of not telling the truth, who will rise to answer a difficult question asks of a less skillful Member of Cabinet. Stopping all activity in the Tar Sands will probably have little effect on rising average temperatures worldwide. But that is beside the point. Anyone who has kept up with the debate on global warming has moved on from global warming is here, to “Will it be a runaway effect?” Will the Tar Sands be the tipping point, the point of no return where the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere continues to rise until boiling tar replaces the water of the once mighty Athabaska River, whose proximity to the Tar Sands made their ill-considered, reckless exploitation possible? In an essay which is partly on the rise of incivility, especially since Harper got his long sought majority so he could do as he pleases, I have indulged in what many would consider as reprehensible a behavior as that of government Ministers through which our Prime Minister, by proxy, lies to and insults those who don’t share his views on everything. There, I have also called my Prime Minister a liar. Did it need to be said? I don’t know. But I am not taking it back — at least, not until he tells the truth about why he cares so little about a planet in peril, that he is willing to up the ante with his Tar Sands gamble! Bernard Payeur, Dec. 30, 2011 Updated Feb 24, 2012
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