Is anyone buying this?

Peter Kent says Canada is being maligned by ecologists who like to point out that Canada clearly couldn't give a rat's ass about contributing to the protection of the natural environment. I think evidence suggests that, since Stephen Harper became our tin-pot dictator, Canada's position is that we're all for helping out with the environment, as long as it means we don't have to do anything. We'll sign any agreement that binds any country but us. That's how being committed works, right? But apparently pointing out the obvious is now considered "misinformation."

Kent goes on to say that the environment is important, only in so far as it can be used to create jobs. So I was curious. How many jobs do the tar sands create? Turns out that less than 2% of Canada's workers were employed in "Forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, oil and gas" in 2011.  Admittedly, if every single one of those jobs was lost, that would be a disaster for the Canadian economy. But the idea that slipping laws which eliminated any kind of environmental oversight on tar sands projects into the Federal Budget is going to magically put Canada into full-employment scenario, well, I think that's what I might call "misinformation."

I call bullsh*t

How would you feel if your cell phone and home internet bills doubled next year without any improvement to your service? If you said you wouldn't like that very much, then Vic Toews has a name for you: child pornographer. That's right, anyone who opposes the new mandatory spying bill for any reason is a child pornographer. He actually said this, in parliament, no less.

We are proposing to bring measures to bring our laws into the 21st century and to provide police with the lawful tools that they need.
He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.

So if these lawful tools are needed to fight child pornography, then it must be impossible to arrest child pornographers without them, right? No, eh? And I'm definitely not the first to point this out. You can read more about it from Michael Geist.

So anyway, while I'm not thrilled by the idea of paying twice as much for internet access, the thing that scares me is this: if the government is willing to call another MP a child pornographer to his face in open parliament, what are they going to do to me when they can get my address and phone number from my ISP after reading this blog post? What are they going to you when you post something anti-Conservative on Facebook?

I suppose it could have been worse, Toews could have called Scarpaleggia a pot grower.