Time to get tough on polluting summertime tools and toys: A 70-horsepower outboard engine in one hour emits same pollution as a new car driving 8,000 km
PARLIAMENT HILL–Our environment receives a surprising measure of pollution from our summertime tools and toyslawnmowers, chainsaws, outboard motors and jet-skis powered by two-stroke gasoline engines. The federal government is well aware of the toll. Environment Canada several years ago estimated that a single 70- horsepower two-stroke outboard engine in one hour emits the same hydrocarbon […]
Policy on the Internal Disclosure of Information Concerning Wrongdoing in the Workplace
Effective: Nov. 30, 2001 Definition of wrongdoing in the Internal Disclosure Policy is defined as an act concerning: *a violation of any law or regulation, *misuse of public funds or assets, *gross mismanagement, or *a substantial and specific danger to the life, health and safety of Canadians or the environment. The policy provides employees with […]
Federal leadership on alternate fuels: fighting poisonous air with hot air: Twice as many North Americans die every year from air pollution than by traffic accidents
PARLIAMENT HILL–North American deaths caused by air pollution each year now equal deaths resulting from breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. We Canadians, of course, are justifiably terrified of breast and prostate cancer. We don’t seem to be nearly as terrified of pollution. If we were, Canada’s politicians would be paying a lot more attention […]
The 36,000 disappeared
Let’s not tell Americans they don’t have to worry about the 36,000 individuals who have been ordered deported from Canada who are nowhere to be found. Tell them instead they should worry first about the more than 300,000 individuals who have been ordered deported from the U.S. who are nowhere to be found. They have […]
Morphing Ottawa from a political mud-wrestling pit into a national shrine
Last week an 82-year old Albertan arrived in Ottawa only to encounter what is a rare thing in these parts this year — a beautiful spring day. Blue sky, brilliant sunshine, new green emerging everywhere with splashes of red, yellow and purple in the flower beds, the air scented with freshly-mown grass and warming wet […]
Lobbyist handlers extraordinaire
On a sunny Wednesday in March, at Toronto’s Rosewater Supper Club, a richly-furnished three-tiered restaurant which advertises itself as “pleasure palace,” about 100 select guests paid $1,000 each to munch on mini lamb chops, sip good wine and get the ear of Prime-Minister-in-waiting, Paul Martin. According to lobbyist Paul Pellegrini, who organized the event, it […]
New York Times folly
TORONTO–Jayson Blair is not the first journalist to be exposed as a fake. But the former New York Times reporter could be the first to keep his scam going for so long and for such a prominentsome argue the most prominent — newspaper. Blair, of course, is the 27-year-old reporter who resigned last week in […]
Nuclear subsidies should end now
I’d like to commend NDP MP Joe Comartin’s column for calling a debate on Canada’s nuclear energy policy, “Time for nuclear debate,” (The Hill Times, May 5). It’s amazing that after 50 years and $17.5-billion in subsidies to AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited), we have never had a national democratic debate about continuing to […]
Europe is so passe
It’s not etiquette, normally, to return the favour of an agreeable dinner by being disagreeable to your host. Yes, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. Along with three other pundit-type journalists, I dined this week in Ottawa with a crowd of Canadian ambassadors back from their posts in Europe and then […]
Can’t wait for Martin to be leader
Regarding “You call this a leadership race?” by Richard Gwyn (The Hill Times, May 12). The fact that the “leadership race” has become a foregone conclusion doesn’t make it boring — however, tedious the process may be, especially for those of us who can’t wait for Paul Martin to become the official Prime Minister as […]
