New Liberal Leader - First Green PM?
Posted by Stoneleigh on December 3, 2006 - 2:19pm in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: environment, green politics, kyoto [list all tags]
In a stunning victory, Stephane Dion is the new Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and has a good chance of being the next Prime Minister of Canada.
Todays Liberal Leadership Convension was truly something to behold. Not only was it full of odd twists and drama, it produced a result that I don't think anyone could have predicted. I believe what has happened here is the Political Establishment has been turned on its head, and in todays modern, mature, western Democracies, that is truly something to behold. I think this also signals a major shift to the Green side of the spectrum for the Liberal Party of Canada.
What appears to have happened, is that a sort of grass-roots, young, progressive force has taken over the Convention in Montreal. Both Gerard Kennedy and Stephane Dion claimed large numbers of young delegates, and after Kennedy dropped off the 3rd ballot and declared his support for Dion, it propelled Dion to victory over the other two more experienced and far-better-funded teams.
Normally this would be nothing more than a changing of the guard... and we could anticipate more of the same old stay-at-home politics. But with Dion, I expect something different. He is the first leader of the Liberal Party that will make the Environment as important in issue as it is to say, the NDP, or even the Green Party. If his speeches and past record as Environment Minister are anything to go by, Stephane Dion brings a level of young exuberance and political forward thinking that issues like Sustainability, Environmental Stewardship and Peak Oil need to really get the attention they deserve.
There will be one major issue that Mr. Dion will have to address when he trumpets his environmental record and that is Canada's inability to curb its CO2 emissions in the first years after ratifying Kyoto. However, if he can point to the concrete conservation plans (like the Millenium Plan) and other more ambitious plans that he hopefully has up his sleeve, then he should be able to deflect it very easily (especially coming from the Conservatives).
Basically though, what makes me excited is not the grand plans or the good words... ok it is... but really what it is is the possibility of change. The possibility that there will be an Official Opposition in the House of Commons who's first priority is the environment and sustainability. The possibility that the political party will have at it's head someone who understands the truly revolutionary times that are about to overtake this generation of voters.
Up until this day, I thought I'd have to continue to vote for a party that could only get it's way in a minority environment... or worse, a party who still had to wait for a complete change of the democratic system in order to even have a whiff at the halls of power. Today, there is the possibility that Canadians will have a real choice.
Today, the Liberal Party led by Stephane Dion has, hopefully, taken a step away from the Big Business, Big Establishment past towards a Down-To-Earth, Practical and Independant future. I only hope his actions live up to his words.
My first priority tomorrow will be to draft a letter to the new Leader of the Liberal Party to ask him his position on Peak Oil and Oil Depletion.
He will have a problem because of Kyoto and the tar sands, of course. However, if he is able to present a credible position and plan to the world, everyone's relief over not having Rona Ambrose holding the wheel over hard right may cut him some slack. He has some difficult battles ahead if he proposes to cap or cut tar sands production, but if he plays his cards right he will be able to get public opinion running in his favour.
At least now we have a chance. Harper had better start looking over his shoulder - the majority government he was counting on in the spring may no longer be assured.
I loved Rick Mercer's comments in the Globe and Mail today:
Said differently, is he an important enough figure after this election to impact oil and gas companies planning?
How does the process to become Prime Minister work?
Canada has a parliamentary democracy, similar to the UK. This election (an internal affair open to party members only) made Dion the leader of the Liberal Party. That party currently holds 102 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, compared to 124 for the governing Conservative Party. Dion gets to lead the country only if the Liberals gain enough seats in the next election to surpass the Conservatives. The date of the next election is unknown, but is likely to be relatively soon, since the Conservatives have only a minority government. That means they have less than an absolute majority of the seats in parliament, possible because we have 4 parties with seats in the House.
After the next election, if the Liberals win more seats than any other party they will form the government, and their leader becomes the Prime Minister. If they win at least 155 seats they will have a majority government, which can govern for up to 5 years. Less than that, and they will form a minority government, which can govern as long as they are not defeated by an ad hoc coalition of opposition parties in what is called a vote of non-confidence.
As for next elections, a good number of analyst predict that before the next budget, there could be a trigering of election.
Support for Dion is still unkown in the general population but he is sharp.
He knows about Peak Oil
Here is why :
He came this summer in our city and the journalist told him about me and my report about peak oil. He told the journalist (and then me thereafter) that he read the following books : Twilight, Beyond Oil, The Party is over and many other reports.
I personaly sent him a copy of the french report I made and he told me it was one of the few french document available in Canada at this time.
So I think he will steer the party and the politics toward the talking of this problem, which is yet to be done here in Canada, especialy in Quebec.
He his the kind of Chef I would run for office with (I'm thinking about it)
Have a good night!
As for running for election, if next election can wait 1 or 2 years, there is much chance that I will take the plunge. Before that I would need local support from opinion leaders, I'm getting there but it is much work.
I have to put forward our local currency first (more like purchase coupon) and then is I can a business incubator within the Chamber of commerce. Those two thing will enable me to get large local support.
I Stoneleigh want it, I can talk about the business incubator more thoroughly, it is planed with all kind of energy economy and new building principles. It's getting support within the local here.
However If I would need to do a quick decision, I'm involved in so much organisation here that I'm already known by many people.
...and then is I can a business...
should be
... and then if I can start a business incubator...
I would love to see your report Wolfric. (I can read french better than I can type it :) ).
Very encouraging information indeed.
Merci.
If I had know that Stephan Dion had read the three books I have, I might have stayed with the Liberal and helped him with his leadership campaign.
The likelihood of a business as usually candidate such as Ignatieff or Rae, was just turning me off.
anywho point is.. we "recognize the limits to growth argument"
and if your argument against us is that we dont see it as our number one concern.. well i dont believe we need a #1 concern, thats like having a car about to hit you at the same time as being in the path of a train. guess what i dont care which one i should be MORE worried about, there both about to kill me!
My number one concern is that people are too scared to take a chance, and elect a party with some real progressive policy!
Go ahead, vote Dion, because he did sooo much as the Liberals environment minister!
You keep your eye on the second and you will mis the first.
Global Warming is now, our actions in the next 10 years have a huge impact on the climate of the planet in the subsequent 100.
There is a wealth of scientific evidence that CO2 concentrations are rising faster than we thought, and that the effects of this (Greenland Ice Sheet melting, acidification of the oceans, release of methane from permafrost) is greater than our models indicated. There is a growing alarm amongst the scientific community that we are crossing a number of natural 'tipping points' where CO2 accumulation will become unstoppable, or at the very least the necessary abatement of our emissions will become unfeasible.
Moreover the choices we make now determine our CO2 output 20 to 50 years from now: a coal or nuclear fired plant built now, will still be running in 2050. A car bought now lasts for 14 years, a commercial vehicle potentially much longer. So there are enormous lead times to 'turn the supertanker'.
The Greens are absolutely right on this one.
(where I think they are wrong is on the question of nuclear power. Ontario, for example, would be one of the worst CO2 emitters in North America if it didn't have 12,000MW of nuclear power).
Peak Oil is a hypothesis, which remains unproven. We have one, unambiguous, signal about PO: the price of oil. The price of oil is the point at which
supply +/- changes in inventory = demand
That is tautologically true.
Right now the price of oil is saying there is demand for oil, and it is being met, at a price. It is not saying that there is an impending shortage of oil.
(It is trivially true that oil will run out, ie Peak, this is the definition of an exhaustible resource. The question is when?)
All data on oil reserves and future oil production is suspect to a greater or lesser extent: the key players, the large state-owned oil companies, do not submit themselves to outside audit.
I would be the first to argue that a current commodity price, nor a futures oil price, set by financial markets, is not an exact unbiased forecast of the future price of oil.
But it is the best piece of data we have, and it is not saying we are running out (yet).
If we do hit Peak Oil (and in some ways, Peak Gas will be worse), then the outlook for Global Warming is even more gloomy than if we do not, because we will burn more coal and coal is one of the key roots of world CO2 emission (about half of world electricity production, and about 30% of world CO2 production, currently-- I'd have to check the exact number).
Peak and running out are definitely not the same thing, that is fundamental to understanding PO. You put far too much faith in pricing, it's production figures that will indicate the peak. Anyway, doesn't a 300% increase in price indicate something?
For practical planning purposes both PO and GW are issues that need addressing now, as you put it.
You write lots of words, under your ironic "ValueThinker" tag, but still you seem completely clueless about the basics.
Valuethink means I like low PE stocks which I think are undervalued -- nothing more, nothing less.
You attack me personally, and in that, entirely devalue any criticism you make of the content my arguments.
Let's put this another way: you are a grade A plonker (or behaving like one, it may not be innate) who doesn't know how to structure an argument.
I shall treat your 'arguments' with a similar level of courtesy and attention to the principles of rhetoric ;-).
This will help. But the rate of energy descent will be outstripping the rate of ingenious technical fixes.
There seems to be need of a social rearrangement. If Elizabeth were to sell the need to accept a significant reduction in material conveniences, then I would be convinced that the Greens understood the limits to growth.
We need a revolution, not a violent one of course, but a revolution in thinking. I like the way Thomas Homer-Dixon describes it. We need to build resilience into our societies not stretching out further on a limb.
I think that the difference between the Greens and the Liberals could be that the Greens emphasize that building resilience is central to all other institutions where as Liberals (quoting Dion) wants to do a balancing act. A balancing act won't prevent a crash since everything is so out of balance. The analogy is going off a cliff. Either you crash, or you have prepared and you glide to a landing(possibly rough).
Minority governments typically last less than a full term, which means that there could be a federal election at any point in the next couple of years. If Harper were to win a majority he would get a full term. Alternatively, either he or the Liberals under Dion could win a minority, which would mean continued uncertainty.
For Dion to implement strong environmental policies, he would need either a majority, or the support of other parties in a minority situation. As the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Bloc Quebecois are both left-leaning, he would probably have the support to push through legislation even if he were leading a minority government.
Dion will be hamstrung to some degree by Alberta politics, however even in Alberta there is growing awareness of climate change and environmental issues.
This weekend another election saw the far-right candidate to replace Alberta premier Ralph Klein... defeated. Ted Moron would have been in lock-step with Stephen Harper on "provincial rights" and energy policy (in other words, "leave us alone" and "what climate change"), only he didn't win.
Its an interesting time in Canadian politics. I'm a Conservative hailing from the old federal Progressive Conservatives and have always had an environmental bent despite working in the oil patch (software / systems) for some time. I think Dion's win will be good for Canada, good for my party, which currently hasn't got a legitimate environmental bone in its body, and certainly good for the Liberals.
As for what does Dion do to deal with climate change - I think part of his plan will have to focus on shaming other parts of the country into moving forward, faster, thus ratcheting up the pressure on Alberta itself.
If I still lived in Canada, I would be a Liberal, now. (or a Green). My Orange Order grandfather would be rolling in his grave.
The Conservatives have drunk the American Koolaid of religious extremism: there have been endless revelations about the influence of right wing religious groups on Prime Minister Harper. Doubtless a belief in the Second Coming informs his views on Global Warming (that it is a myth).
Personally I think the Alberta economy is heading for a bust, as I discussed in my recent article on income trusts. No economic party lasts forever and generally the more extreme the festivities, the worse the resulting hangover. If a future federal Liberal government were to do anything which could be construed as making that worse, it could conceivably launch a western separatist movement.
The only thing that makes people gather around Alberta is it's tar sands and oil derricks. Other than that, Calgary and Edmonton are the same Canadian Multicultural Havens as Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal. Even more so now since the Boom. It's as easy to find a Sushi bar now in Calgary as it is in Vancouver.
No doubt there would be plenty of whining and griping from the usual suspects were an Energy Program enacted but in the end I think Albertans will always be Canadian.
Heck... if any oil-rich "province" is going to secede from it's mother nation, it'll be those wild Texans down south. And in that case, it's probably more likely that the Albertans try hook their wagon to that train instead of riding into the sunset alone. ;)
Grouping Ontario in 'the Rust Belt' certainly hurt Ontarian feelings (chic, sophisticated, 'world class city' that we consider Toronto to be ;-), but in light of the importance of the North American car industry (and its likely fate) was prescient.
At least Toyota and Honda are decent enough to assemble some cars there.
(Puerto Rico could do so, but it won't, the economic ties are too valuable)
If the NEP returned, then I think Albertan Separatism would have a whole second life. I could see Alberta and BC forming a nation of Western Canada.
I assume (but don't know) that under the shiny new Constitution, the Supreme Court would strike down a new NEP anyways.
The argument will be about Equalisation Payments and the Federal Contribution to Provincial Healthcare, etc.
Let me guess - you've never been to B.C. or Alberta, have you?
If you want to fantasize about new "nations" B.C. would be aligned with Washington state and Oregon, not Alberta.
Alan
however the culture of inland BC struck me much as much closer to Alberta than to that of East Vancouver.
I don't see BC joining the US of A, unless forced to by economic or political crisis. 'Cascadia' is a neat idea but: 1). no state can leave the Union (see 1865 and the US Constitution) 2). I don't think, given the differences between BC and the US as a whole that BC would want it.
Nor can I see Americans accepting a potentially more liberal state within their borders-- one or two more liberal senators etc.
however the Peak Oil argument is that 'this time, it's for real'. ie there will be no slump.
If we think Oil stays above $50/bl, then Alberta has a tar sands based boom locked in for at least the next 10 years (until costs rise to the point where new tar sands investment is no longer economic). New tar sands capacity is coming on stream at c. $40/bl cost, I believe.
Alberta's other problem is, of course, conventional oil and gas exhaustion. Which is proceeding apace.
There used to be a bumper sticker in the mid 80s slump in Alberta
'Please God, give me one more oil boom and I won't blow it this time'
which was nicer than the 1970s one
'Let those Eastern b*stards freeze in the dark'
I had a colleague, whose inheritance was invested by his family in an office building in Calgary in 1980. In 1991, that building was still unlet, sitting empty.
That said, due to the low taxes and a lot of lifestyle issues, a lot of large Canadian companies have relocated from Toronto/Montreal to Calgary, so hopefully the economy will be more stable in a future downturn.