The Election: Day Thirteen/ Beer and Popcorn

Scott Reid, Martin's director of communications, stepped in dogshit today when, during a panel discussion on CBC News: Sunday, he criticized the Conservative daycare proposal saying:

"Don't give people 25 bucks a week to blow on beer and popcorn."

Reid was attacking a Conservative plan to give families of young children $1,200 a year for child care. The Conservative on the Panel reacted angrily describing the remark as an insult to families, showing that the Liberals don't trust families to make their own choices about what's best for their children

After Liberal spokespersons first defended the remark, they calculated the potential damage and both Reid and Martin apologized.

Martin tried to repair the damage:

"There's no doubt in my mind that parents are going to use (the money) for the benefit of their families. They're going to use that money in a way that I'm sure is responsible. Let there be no doubt about that."

The Election: Day Twelve

This was a relatively quiet campaign day.

The most significant event was an announcement by Stephen Harper that a Conservative government would adopt a national strategy to control cancer.The Conservatives would spend $50 million a year in new money to fund an existing plan developed by more than 700 experts and cancer survivors.

In Quebec Gilles Duceppe demanded more money for forest jobs. He said the government should be providing more loan guarantees to help the forest industry.

The Liberals and NDP had no campaign events scheduled for Saturday.

After viewing the Conservative English ads numerous times I would have to say they do not do justice to Harper and the Conservative platform in this campaign. It's time for the CPC to dump these ads and replace them with something more creative.

The Election: Day Eleven

The major issue today was not the proposed handgun ban by the Liberals but rather blowback from remarks Martin made in Montreal at the UN Climate Change Conference on Wednesday.Washington is supposedly furious over Martin's climate change comments. Apparently the White House officially complained about Martin's comments this week.

Jim Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality,told Canadian Ambassador Frank McKenna that Martin's comments are the worst slight against President George W. Bush since Germany's Gerhard Schroeder suggested Bush's stance against the Kyoto Protocol was responsible for hurricane Katrina.


The focus of the indignation was Martin's statement that:

"To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say there is there is such a thing as a global conscience. Now is the time to listen to it. Now's the time to join with others in our global community. Now is the time for resolve, for commitment and leadership and, above all, now is the time for action. Because only by coming together can we make real and lasting progress."

In fact Martin's speech was the hypocritical peak of the campaign so far, given Canada's track record with greenhouse gas emissions increasing 24% since 1990.

Today Martin capitalized on an appearance at the Conference by former US President Bill Clinton to show up again and hold a joint press conference with Clinton. Questioned about the US reaction, Martin stated the obvious- that Canadian foreign policy is set by the Canadian PM, not the White House.

Is it possible that the Liberals are stoking the fires of anti-Americanism to isolate Harper as an American "lackey"? While Harper is laying a policy foundation in the first part of the campaign, the time will come for Harper to start reminding voters of the Liberals' scandalous track record in Quebec.

After a couple of polls (SES and Leger) which showed the Liberals gaining nationally, the Conservatives could take some solace from the latest Strategic Counsel results. This suggests that the Liberal Party's steady lead in the national election polls is masking a series of regional swings that would significantly reduce Paul Martin's minority and leave Canadians with an even more deadlocked Parliament than the last one.

The poll indicates that the Liberals have lost a substantial amount of support in Montreal, where the Bloc Québécois is poised to pick up more seats, while the Conservatives are doing better in Southwestern Ontario than they did in the 2004 election.

By the same token, regional changes in British Columbia suggest the Tories could see their Ontario gains offset by losses to both the Liberals and the New Democratic Party in British Columbia.

Overall this suggests a significantly reduced minority government for the Liberals. The Strategic Counsel points out that a shift of a couple of percentage points could see the Tories under Stephen Harper form a minority government, even without taking as many overall votes as the Liberals.

One final note: the NDP has come out with the best English campaign ad so far. See GiftAD. Basically it suggests the Liberals should be "given the boot".

The Election: Day Ten

Paul Martin grabbed the headlines today with his announcement in Toronto that handguns would be banned.This was done in the context of escalating homicides in Toronto where firearms were used. People have been calling for tough action to deal with the senseless killings.

Martin said that his government would immediately introduce a ban on handguns, with narrowly defined exemptions for target shooters and allowing collectors time to sell or dispose of their weapons. Collectors would have to sell or surrender their weapons over five years or become target shooters.

Handguns are already prohibited but people are allowed to possess a restricted firearm for target practice, target shooting competitions, to form part of a collection or, in rare cases, for employment purposes or to protect your life.
Currently Canadians legally own 520,000 handguns.

Although Martin portrayed it as a ban, in fact provinces could opt out of the program. It is widely anticipated that Westerners, who own 40 per cent of Canada's handguns, will not sign on.

Meanwhile Stephen Harper, campaigning in northern Ontario, was addressing postsecondary education. Harper announced that a Conservative government would offer grants and tax cuts to tradespeople, apprentices and post-secondary students.
The plan includes giving workers a tax deduction of up to $500 for tools. As well, there would be a $1,000 grant for apprentices in their first two years, and a tax credit of 10 per cent of an apprentice's wages for two years, to a maximum of $2,000. Post-secondary students would get a tax credit of up to $500 to help cover the cost of textbooks. Harper also said the first $10,000 of a student scholarship or bursary income would be exempt from taxation.

Campaigning in Nova Scotia, Jack Layton announced a plan to raise the level of care available to seniors across the country. The NDP's plan involves spending $1.5 billion a year on long-term care and home care. The NDP plan would include an annual transfer to the provinces of $1 billion for home care, and another $500 million a year for long-term care. Layton estimated that the money would provide home care for about 100,000 people.

Unlike last week, Martin was in command of the headlines today. But critics quickly emerged to say that the proposal would have little impact since essentially handguns are already banned and the Liberal proposal would do little to deal with the traffic in illegal handguns smuggled across the border from our gun-loving neighbours to the south. By nightfall it appeared that by promising a ban on handguns Martin had in fact offered the proverbial "sleeves off his vest". Issues were also being raised about Liberal credibility on this matter given the gun registry fiasco of recent years.

Is Martin a "pyromaniac" ?

While campaigning on his economic record elsewhere in the country, in Quebec Paul Martin is attempting to make the election about national unity instead of Liberal corruption. Bernard Lord, Premier of New Brunswick has decribed Martin as a "pyromaniac" who was setting the unity fire and then asking to be the one to put it out. Others have expressed similar concerns.

It is known that Martin was not a big supporter of the Clarity Act when Chretien introduced it. Now he's wrapped himself in the national unity flag in an effort to hang on to seats in Quebec. Will this pay off for him?

How much more hypocrisy will Canadian voters tolerate? Martin has already delivered the most hypocritical speech of the campaign on global warming , worthy of the campaign's first Hypocrisy Award (see previous post).

New Orleans still in crisis

The New York Times had an excellent article today on the current state of New Orleans 100 days after Katrina struck. The conclusion:

In effect, New Orleans remains in a state of emergency more than three months after it was officially declared. While some people - particularly those with their own transportation and children in private schools - have been able to start remaking their homes and lives, most everyone else remains in a holding pattern.

For details on what has happened post-Katrina go to the NYT

The Election: Day Nine/Hypocrisy Day

The second week ofthe campaign got into full gear today with all three major party leaders staking out new positions (or trotting out old ones wrapped in Xmas paper).

Steven Harper's new proposal today was relatively modest compared to his earlier pronouncements. Campaigning in Saint John, Harper offered a package of tax relief to small businesses.The Conservative proposal would raise the threshold for the small business tax rate to $400,000. Currently it's $300,000. Businesses with an income above the threshold pay 21 per cent tax. Below it, they pay 12 per cent.
Harper claimed that tens of thousands of businesses would benefit from raising the threshold. He also promised to reduce the small business tax rate by a percentage point, to 11 per cent, within five years.

Campaigning in Montreal, Jack Layton announced the electoral reform part of the NDP accountability package. In particular, members of Parliament who switch parties should have to face their constituents in a byelection, Layton said. Following hard on the heels of a speech a couple of days ago where Belinda Stronach defended her
switch of parties by comparing herself to Churchill, Layton used the Stronach example:
"The next time Belinda Stronach decides to change leaders, she'll have to go back to a byelection to see if her voters agree."

The NDP proposals also include electoral reform that would see proportional representation added to the current system of constituency-based representation.

The NDP accountability proposals also include:

Reducing the influence of lobbyists.
Ensuring key appointments are based on merit, not on connections.
Improving the access to information legislation.
Better protection for whistleblowers.
Accountability on leadership contests.

Layton also took the occasion of his appeal to Quebec voters to clarify that
he had reversed his opposition to the Clarity Act and no longer wants to repeal it.

Also in Montreal, Paul Martin used the occasion of the UN Climate Change Conference
to urge nations to get tough on energy consumption.Long again on rhetoric, Martin said there is no way societies around the world can sustain their current level of energy consumption and called for a change in human behaviour to fight global warming. He called on world leaders at the conference to reach a consensus on global warming:

"If we fail to meet the challenge of climate change, it will be not be a failure of nations. It will be a failure of people, of me, of you, a failure of character for all who today are confronted with the clear cost of our indulgence and who refuse to submit to sacrifice and new ways."

Apparently he conceded that Canada's record on fighting climate change needs to be improved. The Opposition leaders were quick to pounce.They slammed the prime minister, saying the environmental record of Paul Martin's own party is dismal.

Harper said: "It's kind of strange to go around preaching that you believe greenhouse gases should be reduced as a number 1 priority and then you preside over a 25 per cent increase in greenhouse gas emissions."

He was referring to the fact that while the Kyoto Protocol calls for a six per cent cut in Canadian emissions from 1990 levels by 2012, Canada's have so far risen 24 per cent.

NDP Leader Jack Layton also attacked the Liberals' record on the environment stating that "We have one of the worst environmental records in the world."

Green party Leader Jim Harris also joined the attack on Liberal hypocrisy.

The score today:

Harper: 3 stars for the proposed small business tax changes which will appeal to his Conservative base.

Layton: 4 stars for announcing a solid proposal for electoral reform.

Martin: -5 stars for the most hypocritical speech of the campaign so far. In fact I would give him the first Hypocrisy Award of the campaign. How he can stand up before such an audience and call for international action to combat global warming in the face of Canada's track record is mind-boggling.

The Election: Day Eight

Finally, as we enter week two, some sparks in a campaign which so far has been dominated by daily CPC policy announcements as we enter week two.

Paul Martin today upped the amount of the Liberal commitment to their previously announced national day care program. He did that by extending the commitment from the original five years to ten years (2015). In effect, he committed no new money for the period up to 2010. But the battle has been joined on the different nature of the proposals. The Liberals will work through the provinces to create new daycare spaces and provide some subsidies. The Conservatives have proposed a day care allowance per child for children under six, with parents to choose how that money is spent. He's also promising $250 million a year to create new day care spaces.

While the financial commitment is high in both cases, there is a fundamental difference. Haper's proposal has been described by some bloggers as a "baby bonus" while some parents interviewed on TV and radio have been praising it as the way to go. Most organized child care advocates appear to be opting for the big government Liberal approach.They are afraid parents, if left to choose, will "waste" the money on other things rather than spend it on day care. They are probably individuals who would argue for the "right to choose" in a different context. But at last we have a genuine difference of approach on an issue for voters to ponder.

Meanwhile Stephen Harper, campaigning in Newfoundland and New Brunswick, pledged to take tough action on foreign overfishing by taking unilateral action to extend Canada's fisheries jurisdiction beyond 200 miles. He indicated this would be implemented over the first term of a Conservative government. The Liberals had already promised "custodial management" in the previous election but have failed to deliver.They appointed an Advisory Panel on Straddling Stocks last winter but deep-sixed the Panel's report this summer. The Panel recommended the replacement of the exising Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) with a new organization with new powers and eliminating the major defects of the exising institution. The Liberal government chose not to accept the Panel's recommendation but to attempt instead to muddle through and try to improve the existing organization. NAFO at its Annual Meeting in September established a Working Group co-chaired by Canada and the EU to look at reform. Early indications are that this is a "talk-fest" dominated by the EU.

Harper also promised an independent judicial inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River salmon, an issue dear to the heart of B.C. Conservative MP John Cummins and Conservative candidate Phil Eidsvik.

Jack Layton also staked out new ground today announcing NDP environmental proposals.He promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-quarter over the next 15 years as part of the NDP's plan for the environment. Layton slammed the Liberals' environmental record while speaking to reporters outside an international climate change conference in Montreal. The NDP plan includes the creation of a new clean water act that would set national standards for drinking water; an act to force polluters to clean up, and a new clean air act. He also proposed a $10-billion plan to retro-fit hundreds of thousands of homes with more energy-efficient technology.

Given that the Liberals and Conservatives have said little or nothing about the environment during this campaign, Layton has finally staked out a position on an important issue that would otherwise not have received attention during this campaign. Whether it will attract any more voters to the NDP banner remains to be seen.

The Election:Day Seven

Harper struck again today announcing a CPC day care allowance plan. The plan consists of a $1,200 annual child care allowance per pre-schooler. A family can spend this day care allowance as it sees fit.Harper also promised an additional $250-million in federal grants to help build new childcare facilities.

Paul Martin attacked the Conservative child care allowance as being nothing more than small change, about $25 a week, although the totals are equal too or greater than the $5 billion the Liberals previously announced for day care over five years.

Campaigning in Newfoundland, Martin talked about a possible center for studying global warming and its impact on oceans and fisheries. He mused about how suitable the soon-to-be-deserted CFB base in Goose Bay would be for such a center. He neglected to mention that weather forecasts on the east coast of Newfoundland have become much more unreliable since the Liberal government closed down the weather forecasting facility in Gander last year and moved the capability to Halifax, Nova scotia. Apart from that, he trotted out announcements which had been previously made over the past year. On the side Liberal aides were promising a big day care announcement tomorrow to knock Harper's announcement out of the park.

Jack Layton recruited a star candidate in Toronto, an economist with the TD Bank. Layton criticized the Liberal and Conservative tax cut proposals but promised that an NDP government would not increase taxes. And Gilles Duceppe "apologized" to the Liberals for excessive rhetoric when he said they would disappear.

So what to make of the first week? Harper clearly commanded the agenda for most of the week, showing that the CPC does have a policy platform for this election that is more than just the "throw the corrupt bastards out" that the media widely heralded. But this is only the first week. Where from here? The polls do not show much change. Nationally there's a four or five point lead for the Liberals. Conservatives are up in the west some but down in Ontario. Duceppe has a comfortable 30 point lead over the Liberals in Quebec.

Perhaps the first real sparks of the campaign will occur during the mid-December debates. If things remain static until Xmas I expect the last three weeks of the campaign to get real nasty.

The Election: Day Six

Paul Martin continued to hide in the weeds today. Jack Layton stumbled on healthcare and Gilles Duceppe talked of the BQ taking all 75 seats in Quebec.

After struggling valiantly all week to attract some attention to the NDP, Layton muddied the waters of the NDP position re healthcare today. Layton says his party will focus on stopping the flow of public money into private health care, not on shutting down private clinics.

Campaigning in Vancouver's Chinatown Sunday, Layton said private clinics are a "fundamental aspect" of the health-care system founded by former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas and not much can be done about them. Layton says he wants to stop tax dollars from boosting the bottom lines of big health-care corporations.

"Our focus is to keep public health-care dollars going to public and non-profit facilities. What happens with people in the privacy of their own relationship financially, that's up to them."

Layton said private clinics have been around from the beginning. He said the NDP focus is on what happens to the public tax dollars.Layton said: "We want them going to non-profit and public facilities and services."

Layton's statement seems to contradict what the NDP has been saying about stopping the privatization of health care. If he doesn't clarify his position quickly, he's going to lose one of the few clear issues on which the NDP had been able to differentiate itself from the Liberals.

Meanwhile Duceppe boasted of a possible Bloc sweep in Quebec. Bolstered by a 30-point lead in opinion polls over the Liberals,Duceppe said the sovereigntist Bloc will win all of Quebec's 75 ridings, effectively making the Liberals disappear from the political landscape. Does Duceppe know something we don't or has he fallen prey to a flight of rhetoric?

The Election: Day Five

Martin took the day off. Harper and Layton campaigned in B.C. Duceppe marched in the Montreal parade against global warming.

Harper struck again to seize the headlines by announcing tough Conservative policy on drug crimes. A Conservative government would legislate mandatory minimum prison sentences of at least two years for people convicted of serious drug offences.
The terms would apply to people convicted of trafficking, manufacturing or importing hard drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and crystal methamphetamine.The CPC would also introduce mandatory prison time for anyone convicted of running marijuana grow operations. As well the party would ban conditional sentences and house arrest for serious and repeat drug offenders.

Jack Layton seized some media attention by denouncing the current government's inaction on the softwood lumber issue.He announced that the NDP would pursue export levies on energy going to the U.S.

Some columnists described the Liberal strategy in the first week as "lying low" waiting for Harper to shoot himself in the foot. So far that hasn't happened except for a couple of miscues earlier in the week which were buried with the GST reduction promise. The proposed GST cut has secured lots of media coverage. Numerous economists have been trotted out to condemn it as poor public policy. But even those criticizing the proposal describe it as good politics likely to attract votes. It's been funny watching the Liberals trying to denounce it but doing so cautiously, not wanting to remind voters of the Liberal flip flop following the 1993 election. Sheila Copps who was a key player during that period and who resigned her seat and won it back because of the broken promise has an interesting piece on how the caucus forced the inclusion of the promise in the Red Book and how Martin worked afterward to undercut it.

I think Tom Kent, old war horse of the Liberal party, was very insightful when he described Martin thus:

He wishes he could be more optimistic about Mr. Martin, but says it’s not possible because the prime minister — despite his “floating interest” in a range of public policy issues — has not shown any disciplined central purpose or sense of priority.

“The essential problem is that Martin desperately wanted to be prime minister, as did his father before him. But the junior Martin has come to it without any firm ideas about what he wants to do as prime minister. I think that becomes clearer, unfortunately, all the time.

“He has vague good intentions and great ideas — transformative change and all these things drip from him — but there has been no substance at all. He’s been dominated by the desire to be, instead of the desire to do.”

The Canadian Election: Day Four

Healthcare was the main issue at the forefront of today's campaign. Stephen Harper again seized the iniative by promising that a Conservative government would ensure shorter, guaranteed waits for health care.Harper also committed that a Conservative government would ensure that reduced waiting times for health-care services are enforced. Harper also moved to outflank his critics by addressing the issue of two-tier healthcare. "There will be no private, parallel system," Harper promised. Harper gave tangible examples of acceptable wait times.

The leaders of the other parties were again caught reacted to Harper's initiative with Martin and Layton stating they didn't believe the Conservatives would protect healthcare. Duceppe intervened to stress provincial autonomy.

The other major development of the day was the qualified endorsement of the Liberals by Buzz Hargrove, President of the Canadian Automotive Workers Union, which has traditionally supported the NDP. Hargrove encouraged his members to vote Liberal in ridings where it appeared the NDP didmn't have a chance. He also had words of praise for Martin's Liberal minority government. This came a day after Jack Layton campaigned in auto industry country in southern Ontario. Layton had promised help to strengthen the Canadian auto industry in the face of closures by GM. Hargrove swung his 2 by 4 after Layton was on the Prairies campaigning to win seats in ridings where the Conservatives and the NDP are running neck and neck. With friends like Hargrove, Layton doesn't need any enemies. Both in southern Ontario and in Saskatchewan, Layton stressed that in close seats a vote for the Liberals is in effect a vote for the Conservatives.

A new Strategic Counsel poll shows the Liberals leading the Conservatives 35% to 30%, unchanged from their poll earlier in the week. More interesting, however, was that part of the poll which showed that, in the early days of the campaign, voters found Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's messages more credible than those of Prime Minister Paul Martin.

66 per cent of respondents said they found Harper's message that the election is about the need for change "very" or "somewhat" believable.That contrasted with 44 per cent who found Martin's message about the strength of the Canadian economy "very" or "somewhat" believable.

Overall the Consrvatives have had a good first week, with Harper setting the agenda. Martin, on the other hand,seems to have blown his hand by announcing all the pre-election goodies which were widely perceived as an attempt to buy voters.For the most part he was caught reacting to Harper's daily announcements while praising the Liberal economic record.

Layton has yet to find his footing and seize the intiative. The Hargrove announcement today is more of a symbolic blow than one with real impact.

The Canadian Election: Day Three

The big story today was Harper's announcement that the Conservatives would reduce the GST by from 7% to 5% over the next five years, with an immediate drop to 6%. While economists have always argued that a personal income tax cut is better policy, Harper's GST announcement is the first major policy initiative of any party in the campaign so far.Whatever the economic arguments about the pros and cons of various tax alternatives, Harper has seized the initiative. All day the other party leaders were reacting to Harper. And the average voter can only see it as positive.

It was a bad day for Martin. His previously arranged schedule took him to Cornwall the day after Domtar announced the closure of its 100+ year old plant, eliminating a thousand direct jobs plus the indirect impact. Martin's response was smoke and mirrors, words which promised nothing. This plus his feeble response to Harper's GST announcement left him looking less than Prime Ministerial.

Jack Layton has made little impact so far in terms of capturing the attention of the national media. I hope he has some solid policy pronouncements up his sleeve. One positive note is that healthcare continues to rank as the number one issue on the minds of Canadians. Layton has to put his case as defender of Tommy Douglas'legacy.

As for the Bloc Quebecois, Gilles Duceppe put forward an idiotic-sounding idea about hockey and Team Quebec. But he continues his march too victory in Quebec. Barring a major blunder, the polls indicate that the BQ could end up with as many as 65 seats. That's 10-15 seats the Liberals can't afford to lose given their minority status going into the election.

The Canadian Election: Day Two

The Ottawa Citizen front page today covered the Ipsos-Reid poll showing the Liberals and Conservatives tied at 31% each. There was some media coverage of Harper's gay marriage statement of yesterday. The majority view was that it would be forgotten as the campaign progressed.

Harper struck today at the ethics issue by promising the establishment of an office of public prosecutions. A Conservative government would institute an independent office of public prosecutions responsible for investigating criminal activity on Parliament Hill.

Harper told a campaign rally in Quebec City that such an office would ensure nothing like the sponsorship scandal happens again without the politicians or public servants involved being punished. Details at CBC website

The other major story is the rocky start for the candidacy of Michael Ignatieff in Etobicoke. Rumoured to be a future contender for the Liberal leadership, Ignatieff was parachuted into Etobicoke after nearly 30 years living outside Canada and after the last minute resignation of Liberal MP Jean Augustine.Bourque has been having fun with this one giving all the gory details of who did what to whom.

Helping to keep the sponsorship issue at the forefront, former PM Jean Chretien launched his court case against Gomery today, alleging bias and that Gomery's conclusions do not correspond with the testimony before the Commission.

The Canadian Election: Day One

It's now official. The writ has been dropped. We will vote on January 23rd. And already the parties are staking out their positions. Martin calls Harper a neocon who made an alliance with the devil(The Bloc Quebecois).Harper emphasized the need for "change" repeatedly in his remarks. Jack Layton talked about electing more NDP MPs to "get results".

An Ipsos-Reid poll for CanWest shows the Liberals and Conservatives neck and neck at 31 % each as the campaign starts.That's a significant drop for the Liberals!

The CBC tonight reported the results of a survey on the top 10 issues as identified by Canadians. Healthcare remains the number one issue with trust identified as number two.You can expect Layton to position the NDP as the defender of Medicare. Harper will undoubtedly go for the jugular on the trust/integrity/corruption issue.

Stay tuned.

Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions increase 24%

Canada is hosting a major international meeting on climate change in Montreal, presided over by Enviroment Minister Stephane Dion. Canada has been a major supporter of the Kyoto Protocol unlike the USA and Australia which have refused to ratify it .

It was therefore embarrassing to see the statistics on greenhouse gas emissions issued by the UN this week.

Among the countries judged to be good are Germany and Britain. They're undisputed leaders in showing the way for countries to curb their releases of planet-warming gases. Canada, on the other hand, is among the worst performers.

Canada had committed to cut its emissions by 6 per cent from its 1990 level over the period from 2008 to 2012, but its emissions by the end of 2003 were up 24 per cent.

The UN figures indicate that the industrialized world has made considerable progress in fighting global warming. By the end of 2003, emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases fell an average of 5.9 per cent below their 1990 levels. That is more than Kyoto's requirement for an average cut of 5.2 per cent.



But this is due primarily to a huge, one-time greenhouse gas reduction which occurred after the economic collapse of the former Communist Bloc countries.
Excluding the former East Bloc, emissions among industrialized countries actually rose 9.2 per cent between 1990 and 2003.


One major embarrassment is that Canada's emission record is far worse than even the United States, where the Bush administration has refused to ratify Kyoto.

The following table tells the story.

Changes in greenhouse gas emissions from developed countries, 1990-2003.

Over all among these countries there was a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions of 5.9 per cent, from 18.4 billion tonnes CO² equivalent in 1990 to 17.3 billion tonnes CO² equivalent in 2003.

Country Per cent
Spain +41.7
Monaco +37.8
Portugal +36.7
Greece +25.8
Ireland +25.6
Canada +24.2
Australia +23.3
New Zealand +22.5
Finland +21.5
Austria +16.5
United States +13.3
Japan +12.8
Italy +11.5
Norway +9.3
Denmark +6.8
Liechtenstein +5.3
Netherlands +1.5
Belgium +1.3
Switzerland -0.4
European Union -1.4
Slovenia -1.9
France -1.9
Sweden -2.3
Croatia -6.0
Iceland -8.2
Britain -13.0
Luxembourg -16.1
Germany -18.2
Czech Republic -24.2
Slovakia -28.3
Hungary -31.9
Poland -34.4
Russian Federation -38.5
Belarus -44.4
Romania -46.1
Ukraine -46.2
Bulgaria -50.0
Estonia -50.8
Latvia -58.5
Lithuania -66.2

SOURCE: UNITED NATIONS

The Election:Early Predictions

So now it's official. The Martin government has fallen and off to the races we go.What happens next is in our hands.

Bloggers are already hard at work on election predictions. I nearly fell off my chair when I read Cherniak's blog and read that he saw a Liberal majority as a possibility.(Jason, you must be smoking something stronger than pot to see a Liberal majority as a possibility:-))

A Liberal or a Conservative minority seems much more likely.The NDP will probably gain 10 to 15 seats (assuming that Liberal scare-mongering will not work to the same extent as last election). The BQ will probably gain some seats. It makes sense that the Conservatives will gain some seats. Why would they end up with fewer seats than last time? This adds up to fewer seats for the Liberals. The key question is how many. Therein lies the answer of whether it's a Liberal or Conservative minority. I think the best the Liberals can expect is a reduced Liberal minority. The best the Conservatives can expect is a small Conservative minority. A small Conservative minority will spell the end for Martin as Liberal leader. A reduced Liberal minority will probably precipitate in due course the departure of both Martin and Harper. Since this outcome would be good for the country and for the rejuvenation of both the Liberals and Conservatives, I would find it palatable. A case can be made, however, that a small Conservative minority would better shake up the big red machine and tell the Liberals to clean up their act.

Chocolate goes upscale

I am a self-confessed chocolate addict. I've reformed and now will only consume dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa. According to an article in the washington Post I'm part of a growing trend.Chocolate has gone upscale.

Once, it was enough just to unwrap a bar of chocolate and eat it. Now, you must understand it.

Note the glossy shine that indicates the strong bond between the cocoa butter and the cocoa mass, instruct the makers of Vosges Haut Chocolat on the packaging of their Barcelona Bars. Release its complex aromas by rubbing your thumb across the top, and savor the smell. Only then should you finally taste it, feeling the chocolate melt around your tongue.

Like coffee before it, chocolate is going complex and upscale. This holiday season, look for Tasmanian honey wrapped in dark chocolate from Godiva and custom-made boxes tied with double-faced satin ribbon at exclusive Manhattan specialty store Bergdorf Goodman. Christmas is the peak time for premium chocolate sales, and big candy companies and small chocolatiers alike are rolling out some of their most high-end products to date.

"Chocolate is not always about eating," said Laure de Montebello, co-owner and chef of Sans Souci Gourmet Confections, an independent chocolate shop in New York that fills those custom-made boxes at Bergdorf's with peppermint truffles. "Chocolate is a 'feel' business."

That may be why readers of December's Vogue opened the magazine to find a gorgeous model giving a come-hither look -- to a piece of Godiva chocolate. Godiva wants customers to feel like divas, a play on the company's name and the focus of an advertising campaign that began last year targeting women ages 25 to 40. That demographic is the most likely to buy chocolate, consuming roughly eight servings each month, according to a report on premium chocolate by consumer-research firm Mintel.

And this doesn't even mention the studies which show the many medical benefits of eating dark chocolate. For more details go to the Washington Post article

Brown's New Job: Readiness Consultant

I'm still laughing. Michael D. Brown of FEMA fame is starting a disaster-preparedness consulting firm to help clients avoid the sort of errors that cost him his job.

"If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses -- because that goes straight to the bottom line -- then I hope I can help the country in some way," Brown told the Rocky Mountain News.

Brown said officials need to "take inventory" of what is going on in a disaster to be able to answer questions and to avoid appearing unaware of how serious a situation is.

In the aftermath of Katrina, critics complained about Brown's lack of formal emergency management experience and cited e-mails that later surfaced showing him as out of touch with the extent of the devastation.

The lawyer conceded that, while he was head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, mistakes were made in the response to Katrina. He also repeated that he had been planning to resign before the hurricane hit.

"Hurricane Katrina showed how bad disasters can be, and there's an incredible need for individuals and businesses to understand how important preparedness is," he said.

Aspartame Causes Cancer in Rats at Levels Currently Approved for Humans

When you are thirsty do you knock back a Diet Coke or similar soft drink? If you do you want to think twice before opening that next can. A major medical study has now shown that aspartame causes cancer in rats at levels currently approved for humans.

A statistically significant increase in the incidence of malignant tumors, lymphomas and leukemias in rats exposed to varying doses of aspartame appears to link the artificial sweetener to a high carcinogenicity rate, according to a study accepted for publication today by the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP). The authors of the study, the first to demonstrate multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered to rats in feed, called for an "urgent reevaluation" of the current guidelines for the use and consumption of this compound.

"Our study has shown that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic compound whose carcinogenic effects are also evident at a daily dose of 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg), notably less than the current acceptable daily intake for humans," the authors write. Currently, the acceptable daily intake for humans is set at 50 mg/kg in the United States and 40 mg/kg in Europe.

Aspartame is the second most widely used artificial sweetener in the world. It is found in more than 6,000 products including carbonated and powdered soft drinks, hot chocolate, chewing gum, candy, desserts, yogurt, and tabletop sweeteners, as well as some pharmaceutical products like vitamins and sugar-free cough drops. More than 200 million people worldwide consume it. The sweetener has been used for more than 30 years, having first been approved by the FDA in 1974. Studies of the carcinogenicity of aspartame performed by its producers have been negative.

Researchers administered aspartame to Sprague-Dawley rats by adding it to a standard diet. They began studying the rats at 8 weeks of age and continued until the spontaneous death of each rat. Treatment groups received feed that contained concentrations of aspartame at dosages simulating human daily intakes of 5,000, 2,500, 500, 100, 20, and 4 mg/kg body weight. Groups consisted of 100 males and 100 females at each of the three highest dosages and 150 males and 150 females at all lower dosages and controls.

The experiment ended after the death of the last animal at 159 weeks. At spontaneous death, each animal underwent examination for microscopic changes in all organs and tissues, a process different from the aspartame studies conducted 30 years ago and one that was designed to allow aspartame to fully express any carcinogenic potential.

The treated animals showed extensive evidence of malignant cancers including lymphomas, leukemias, and tumors at multiple organ sites in both males and females. The authors speculate the increase in lymphomas and leukemias may be related to one of the metabolites in aspartame, namely methanol, which is metabolized in both rats and humans to formaldehyde. Both methanol and formaldehyde have shown links to lymphomas and leukemias in other long-term experiments by the same authors.

The current study included more animals over a longer period than earlier studies. "In our opinion, previous studies did not comply with today's basic requirements for testing the carcinogenic potential of a physical or chemical agent, in particular concerning the number of rodents for each experimental group (40-86, compared to 100-150 in the current study) and the termination of previous studies at only 110 weeks of age of the animals," the study authors wrote.

The authors of the study were Morando Soffritti, Fiorella Belpoggi, Davide Degli Esposti, Luca Lambertini, Eva Tibaldi, and Anna Rigano of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center, European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, Bologna, Italy. Funding for the research was provided by the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, Bologna, Italy. The article is available free of charge, click here.

EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. EHP EHP is an Open Access journal. More information is available online at http://www.ehponline.org.