Currents

Canada ranks fourth-worst in a study of countries’ climate change performance.

Having recently researched the topic of climate change impact in the Vancouver area for a magazine piece, the numbers aren’t all that surprising. Canada does have a lot of work to do (though some municalities like Vancouver and Toronto are in fact leading the way in terms of climate change planning).

It is odd, though, that China would not be ranking right up there, considering it is overall the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. And how does Indonesia get off scot-free? Meanwhile, India gets ranked in the top five on the survey, despite the country’s rapid deforestation and coal-fired energy plants?

Of course it’s not fair that newly developing countries should have to share the burden of cutting carbon output to fight global warming. But fair or not, it’s necessary, or we’re all in trouble.

Here’s an interesting juxtaposition of headlines about Vancouver’s immigration trends released virtually simultaneously (and making use of the exact same Statscan 2006 data):

Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver hometowns of choice for immigrants

Vancouver no longer the same immigrant magnet

Spin it up, yo.

Will an entire nation voluntarily hand over the reigns of their country to a demagogic ex-military thug today?

Presuming that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez doesn’t just rig today’s referendum on abolishing term limits and rewriting the constitution, the result is still up in the air.

Acclaimed BC author and journalist Terry Glavin has already blogged extensively about Chavez’ oil-fuelled jackboot craziness and conspiracy-mongering. Most people probably share Glavin’s sentiments. Sad to see there are actually Canadians right here on the west coast who have bought into Chavez’ cheap propaganda.

Giving Chavez the finger does not put one into the camp of George Bush Jr. As our own sitting Prime Minister recently put it, “Too often some in the hemisphere are led to believe that their only choices … are to return to the syndrome of economic nationalism, political authoritarianism and class warfare, or to become ‘just like the United States. This is, of course, utter nonsense. Canada’s very existence demonstrates that the choice is a false one.”

Quite right.

UPDATE: The Chavistas took one on the chin tonight. The Mucho Macho Thug-In-Chief lost by 2 per cent (51/49). Presumably he can still try to implement 21st century socialism in his remaining mandate. Hopefully, enough people will be emboldened by the result this evening to prevent him.

Intent for a Nation author and erudite Vancouverite Michael Byers got a nice gift the other day from journalist Am Johal.

Speaking about the concept of the “Responsibility to Protect” in the 2005 UN World Summit Declaration, Byers condemns the Canadian government for taking the “substance out of the concept and agreed that it would act merely as a guideline for U.N. Security Council action. That’s not leadership; it was a move designed to impress domestic audiences and nothing else.”

But almost in the very same breath, Byers has the audacity to smack Canada again for not signing the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples that he helped draft, reasoning that the document had no binding force. Byers: “Canada should have supported the declaration because the vast majority of countries were comfortable ratifying it and did not view it as a threat.”

Isn’t Byers suggesting that signing the declaration would have been a move “designed to impress domestic audiences and nothing else”?

For some inexplicable reason, Johal refrains from pouncing on the helpless mark.

But presumably, at some point a Canadian journalist will have to take this highly regarded academic, who simultaneously affirms the Responsibility to Protect and condemns Canada’s actual efforts to protect, to task.

Cultural relativism, good. Moral relativism, bad.

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and swords and beating drums, burned pictures of a British teacher Friday and demanded her execution for insulting Islam by letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Many in the protesting crowd shouted “Kill her! Kill her by firing squad!” (Associated Press)

Of course, Sudan is the same country where the Darfur genocide has been going on for years.

Land mines, shmand shmines. When is Canada going to take the lead on a global issue like this?