From Stockwell Day’s blog on December 1st:
“Hey who knows, maybe Al Gore is right. Maybe all my constituents living high up on the West Bench, or Lakeview Heights, or the hills of Logan Lake will soon be sitting on lakeside property as one of the many benefits of global warming. All I know is last weekend when I got home from Ottawa there was more snow in my driveway than we usually get in a year. And I was begging for Big Al’s Glacial Melt when the mercury hit -24°. Do not despair, my fellow dwellers of the Okanagan and Nicola Valleys. If misery loves company then we had lots of it around our Province. Matter of fact, at one point in the week some 22 towns and cities had broken ALL-time records for paralyzing frigid temperatures.”
When I first read about Stockwell Day’s comments reported here, they seemed to me typical remarks of a Stephen Harper cabinet minister on the issue of global warming which is arguably among Canadian’s highest priorities.
The Harper game plan has so far been clear; the job of being serious-faced about doing nothing was assigned to the environment minister, and the job of making jokes about it, delegated to the Public Safety minister. Why stop there? Perhaps the Minister would like to joke about a See-Doo Day of fun-and-frolic on former Antarctic ice shelf, Larsen B.
The implied message being that until an event occurs inside Mr. Day’s riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla, the event hasn’t really happened or doesn’t need to be taken seriously. Wonder if the Minister for Public Safety thinks similarly about the Dawson College shootings? Those events must be bunk too until they happen within Mr. Day’s own constituency.
Personal note to Mr. Day, Mr. Harper et al, the part Al Gore has right is click here “If an issue is not on the tips of their constituents’ tongues, it’s easy for them to ignore it … to say, well, we’ll deal with that tomorrow.”
Simply because “tomorrow” will occur on or before May 2007, in which Mr. Harper will, in an about-face, introduce the environmental plan for which he kicked Garth Turner out of caucus for trying to give the PM the heads-up on July 30, August 28, August 29, September 27, September 28, October 10, October 11, October 13, and October 17, and that Rona should have been permitted to introduce, the Hail Mary effort surely to-come will be woefully insufficient penance for gambling a chance on Canada’s environmental future.
Mr. Harper, for not listening, it may be your turn for the penalty box.
_______________________
17-DEC-2006 update @ 12:15 hrs: A close and wise person has furthered: “Mr. Day needs a lesson on the difference between Meteorology and Climatology.“