Wanna-Junta

A quick post today on the wannabe Junta running the Canadian ship of state these days. Stephen Harper and his Conservative party are extreme rightists in the Maple Leaf tradition of narrowness, sloth, and intolerance. And, like their good buddies to the South, they dress it up (to the extent that it's possible) in a sort of mainstream drag costume.

Exhibit A is on the front page of today's Globe and Mail: Climate draft allows spike in oil-sands emissions. The Conservatives are playing their standard bait-and-switch, seeming to push a popular environmental policy while actually rolling back regulations on polluters.

And that means, in particular, Alberta oil sands production. Only a few years in existence, the oil sands have made Canada the largest source of foreign oil for the US. Yes, America imports more oil from Canada than from Saudi Arabia.

But the price is high for Canadians; turning oil sands into crude is a messy business. Vast swathes of Alberta are turning into a moonscape. And the worst part is the water - it takes tons and tons of water to process the sands into oil. That water becomes toxic as hell. What do you do with it? Originally, they just dumped it back into the rivers. Now they're making dirty ponds, with flamethrowers (yes, flamethrowers) at the edges to keep birds from landing in it.

And, of course, oil pigs like Darth Cheney want more of the stuff. The US reportedly has asked Canada to increase production fivefold. Quintuple it.

In order to do that, the hippy environmentalist Gore-lovers will have to be shut up. If Alberta looks like the vacation spot on Pluto right now, imagine what it will be like after a few years of quintupled production.

So, how does a Conservative play ball with his reptilian buddies in Washington, and still maintain a minority government and not seem like what he really is - a dump-and-burn development wingnut? Easy.

Lie.

Maybe that's just too easy, but "too easy" turns into "really really hard" when translated into the international language of conservatives. They just don't do anything the right way if there''s any work in it at all.

For example, it would be hard to find a way to do oil sands more cleanly. A leader with a conscience might insist that the process get five times cleaner before it gets five times bigger. But that would be hard, and might involve science. Or math.

Easier, then, is to publish a worthless and toothless environmental policy that hands Alberta a shovel and a purchase order. Just keep on diggin' fellas.

The two things that give power to conservatives are lies and money. The more they tell lies, the more they can get political power. The more they get political power, the more they can help their rich friends despoil the world - and give conservatives more power.

And these Conservatives are working this with a minority government. Just wait until they get a majority and we hear their big, Class A lies. The Inuit have WMD? Really?