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At Issue
On the Stupid Meter, This is Off the Chart
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
I'm not a gun nut. But like many rural Canadians I learned to shoot a pellet gun as a child. In retrospect there was probably nothing right about that, but that's the way it was. I remember very clearly lining up the target on the henhouse. Bang, bang, bang, I thought there was nothing to it. No fox was ever going to eat our chickens.That was a long time ago, but I'm sure you know where I'm going. Last week, Sheila Fraser, Canada's auditor general came down with her annual report. Her biggest target was the Liberal gun registry, started in 1995 with a projected net cost of $2 million. Fraser gave up in disgust counting the real cost of the gun registry. At last count, it cost $860 million, a
500 times over run. On the stupid meter, it's off the chart.
Whatever happened to that pellet gun, I don't know. I'm not a gun owner, but I have many friends and family who are. Almost to a man, the gun registry for them is an assault on their way of life. When it was first proposed pre 1995, many of these folks decried what the cost might be. So when Sheila Fraser blue the whistle on the costs this past week, many gun owning Canadians were saying, I told you so. At the end of the day, the bad guys still have the bad guns and $1 billion which could have gone to health care has been eaten by the bureaucracy.
The Liberal government has responded to this mess with more of the same. Alan Rock, Anne McLellan and present Justice Minister Martin Cauchon haven't missed a beat. They are playing on the passive attitudes among our urban population. Gun control among urban people who don't own guns is as natural as breathing your next breath. Even if it cost a billion dollars most of these people would likely forgive the government as long as they
perceive guns to be off the streets. That's one reason why there is no culpability in any of this. Liberal ministers say they will do a better job. With no credible opposition and a passive public the gun registry, regardless of its worth, passes most Liberal politician's litmus test. It's a no brainer in urban central Canada.
Unfortunately, it doesn't instill confidence in the same political constituency. Everybody understands the notion of budgeting for $2 when the real cost is $1000. It simply doesn't happen in real life. But in the never, never land of government spending, it happens more often than one would like. Hopefully that will not be the case when the implications of the Kyoto accord come home to roost. If it resembles anything like the gun
registry, we'd might as well head for the hills now.
The Kyoto protocol was moved toward ratification last Monday by a vote of 133-92.. This took place after the Liberal government invoked closure on debate. The Liberals seemed hell bent to get the protocol ratified. It is a bit of a mystery to know why, although I think it had a lot to do with the ego of Prime Minister Chretien. He pushed for ratification even though opposition in Alberta's energy sector was strong. On top of this, complying
with Kyoto is vague at best and some people even think it is science gone mad. Our Republican American friends are in the latter camp.
This could cause some real problems when it comes to the competitiveness differences between our economies. George W. Bush thinks of Kyoto as an environmental virus, caught by the clean air-niks of the world. He's said the cost of Kyoto ratification to the American economy is just too high. But bombing Iraq is cheaper? Hmmmmm. Big oil wins every time.
Kyoto is a puzzle for everyone. Everybody is for clean air, but not everybody is playing the same game to get there. Major greenhouse gas emitters in developing counties like India and China, have no commitment to cut their emissions in the near term. They might never ratify. This will partly guarantee that global greenhouse gas emissions will rise even with Kyoto. What we do in Canada, in effect, will really not matter.
Regardless of that, the Liberals are set to make Canadians conform to Kyoto. With the gun registry fresh in our memory, that should make us just a bit jittery. At least with the gun registry, there were guns to count. With Kyoto, we're talking about hot air. That's something our federal government never seems to get enough of.
Philip Shaw, farms 830 acres near Dresden, Ontario. He holds a Masters of Agricultural Economics and Business Degree from the University of Guelph and is a well-known commentator on agricultural issues in print, on radio and over satellite in Canada and the United States. In the Chatham-Kent Times, Phil will use his frank and forthright writing style to address political and economic issues from the local to the international stage. He is a keen observer of political life at all levels, reads widely and has travelled the world to gather fodder for his column. See what's At Issue this week.
