Via CBC News, what a great irony for Climategate day:
Senate kills climate change bill
Last Updated: Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Canadian Press
Senators have voted down an opposition bill to tackle climate change with just days to go before another round of United Nations talks in Mexico.
NDP Leader Jack Layton, whose party introduced the bill, says it’s “outrageous” an unelected Senate can kill what he says is important legislation.
The bill — the Climate Change Accountability Act — has spent the last year or so bouncing between the full House of Commons and its environment committee. The vote was late Tuesday.
The legislation calls for greenhouse gases to be cut 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
That’s more stringent than the Harper government’s goal of a 17 per cent emissions cut from 2005 levels by 2020, which is in line with the Obama administration’s targets in the United States.
Delegates from nearly 200 countries will meet in the resort town of Cancun later this month and try to broker an international climate-change deal.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/11/17/senate-climate-bill.html#ixzz15Z4F3lHv
=======================================
h/t to a bunch of people who read WUWT, so many I couldn’t choose who to credit with a hat tip, soo I’ll hat tip you all.
Our Senate, an unelected body of political appointees, and a chamber of sober second thought, has done our nation proud today!
This Bill was a ruinous proposition that deserves to be relagated to the AGW trash heap!
Keep in mind the morons who sponsored this Bill . . . the NDP are the Canadian socialist party & big Believers in AGW
A 25% cut from 1990 levels would kill the Canadian economy.
Tale every vehicle off all the roads, stop every train, plane & boat, stop using all hydrocarbon powered farm vehicles and immediately stop all production of electricity from fossil fuels . . and we wouldn’t achieve the 25% cut.
We’d go back to a pre-industrial, hand to mouth agrarian existence . . .
Not too fast. Wait till our Canadian liberal media (that’s all the outlets but one) get all worked up with this. As a result, the government will cave in and back out, as usual.
Huzzah! The Senate has had a few glorious moments over its history, including a vote in 1919 that kept the control of Canadian fisheries science at arms length from government, a victory that was overturned in 1973 during the Trudopean smog.
I’d love to see Hansard to see if Climategate figured in this debate. It is indeed a proud day to be a Canadian.
Hope the British government comes to its senses soon!
Well I have been wondering where I could go to escape Mexifornia; back to Kiwiland was one option; but I do love BritishColumbia. Like the people up there too.
Well done, Canada!
Thank you Canadian Senate. (Falls on ground — kisses earth!)
The great irony is that the Conservatives tried so hard to bring in an elected Senate, which both the Liberals and the NDP shot down. Now the un-elected Senate shows themselves to be the ones with the rational and clear thought on the matter, while the elected Parliament is the body that is full of irrational agw global warming activists/politicians who are prepared to go along with the United nations IPCC and the agw fraud and destroy the worlds economies.
For the first time in my life, I will have to vote Conservative.
Ashamed of the lot of you! Rejoicing in Canada’s weakness, indeed!
NZ will march into Cancun with its head held high: After all, the 4 million people in NZ are continuing with the ETS to trade carbon (not sure who with now that Chicago has closed shop, but no doubt our lords and masters have that all that worked out) and single-handedly NZ will save the planet with our unilateral reduction of all things nasty.
You will be retracting your glee in a few years when the cooling effects of the NZ reductions begin to bite, just don’t come crying to me!
There is hope. I would fly up there and give a royal salute but I don’t relish the groping portion of the trip.
James Hansen needs to go up there and picket.
George E. Smith, we also grow kiwis in British-Columbia!!!
wws:
Who is going to volunteer to destry their economy?
Gt. Britain has already done so.
We dodged the bullet(s) on this one. Here’s the penalties, had it passed. Climategate helped defeat it I’m sure.
OFFENCES AND PENALTIES
INFRACTIONS ET PEINES
Offences
12. (1) Every person who contravenes a regulation made under this Act is guilty of an offence punishable by indictment or on summary conviction, as prescribed by the regulations, and liable to a fine or to imprisonment as prescribed by the regulations.
12. (1) Quiconque contrevient à un règlement d’application de la présente loi commet une infraction et encourt, sur déclaration de culpabilité, soit par mise en accusation, soit par procédure sommaire, selon ce qui est prévu au règlement, l’amende ou l’emprisonnement prévu par règlement.
Infractions
Subsequent offence
(2) If a person is convicted of an offence a subsequent time, the amount of the fine for the subsequent offence may be double the amount set out in the regulations.
(2) Le montant de l’amende visée au paragraphe (1) peut être doublé en cas de récidive.
Récidive
Continuing offence
(3) A person who commits or continues an offence on more than one day is liable to be convicted for a separate offence for each day on which the offence is committed or continued.
(3) Il est compté une infraction distincte pour chacun des jours au cours desquels se commet ou se continue l’infraction.
Infraction continue
Additional fine
(4) If a person is convicted of an offence and the court is satisfied that monetary benefits accrued to the person as a result of the commission of the offence, the court may order the person to pay an additional fine in an amount equal to the court’s estimation of the amount of the monetary benefits, which additional fine may exceed the maximum amount of any fine that may otherwise be imposed under the regulations.
(4) Le tribunal peut, s’il constate que le contrevenant a tiré des avantages financiers de la perpétration de l’infraction, lui infliger, en sus de l’amende maximale prévue par les règlements, une amende supplémentaire correspondant à son évaluation de ces avantages.
Amende supplémentaire
Officers, etc., of corporations
(5) If a corporation commits an offence, any officer, director, agent or mandatory of the corporation who directed, authorized, assented to, or acquiesced or participated in, the commission of the offence is a party to and guilty of the offence and is liable on conviction to the punishment provided for the offence, whether or not the corporation has been prosecuted or convicted.
(5) En cas de perpétration d’une infraction par une personne morale, ceux de ses dirigeants, administrateurs, agents ou mandataires qui l’ont ordonnée ou autorisée, ou qui y ont consenti ou participé, sont considérés comme des coauteurs de l’infraction et encourent, sur déclaration de culpabilité, la peine prévue, que la personne morale ait été ou non poursuivie ou déclarée coupable.
Dirigeants d’une personne morale
Offences by employees or agents
(6) In any prosecution for an offence, the accused may be convicted of the offence if it is established that it was committed by an employee, agent or mandatory of the accused, whether or not the employee, agent or mandatory has been prosecuted for the offence.
(6) Dans les poursuites pour infraction, il suffit, pour établir la culpabilité de l’accusé, de prouver que l’infraction a été commise par son employé, agent ou mandataire, que celui-ci ait ou non été poursuivi.
Infraction : agent ou mandataire
Excellent news.
A couple of notes to clear up a couple of mistaken perceptions from above comments and to educate non-Canadians: (1) Actually Canadian Senators are not elected Members of Parliament, (2) as they are appointed by the Prime Minister (well, by the Governor General aka the Queen (sigh) at the request of the Prime Minister actually).
“The Senate of Canada (French: Le Sénat du Canada) is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the monarch (represented by the governor general) and the House of Commons. The Senate consists of 105 members appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the prime minister.[1] Seats are assigned on a regional basis, with each of the four major regions receiving 24 seats, and the remainder of the available seats being assigned to smaller regions. The four major regions are: Ontario, Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and the Western provinces. The seats for Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut are assigned apart from these regional divisions. Senators may serve until they reach the age of 75.
The Senate is the upper house of Parliament, and the House of Commons is the lower house. This does not, however, imply that the Senate is more powerful than the House of Commons, merely that its members and officers outrank the members and officers of the House of Commons in the order of precedence for the purposes of protocol. Indeed, as a matter of practice and custom, the Commons is by far the dominant chamber. Although the approval of both houses is necessary for legislation, the Senate rarely rejects bills passed by the directly elected Commons. Moreover, the government is responsible solely to the House of Commons; the Prime Minister of Canada and Cabinet stay in office only while they retain the confidence of the Commons. The Senate does not exercise any such control. Although legislation can normally be introduced in either house, the majority of government bills originate in the House of Commons. Under the Constitution, money bills must always originate in the House of Commons.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_of_Canada
There is a long and twisted history of Senate Reform in Canada which would see the Senators elected thus the rhetoric along those lines in the news stories on this defeat of the Climate Chains Bill.
In a rare case of sanity Prime Minister Harper and the Senate did the correct thing.
Until there is verifiable hard evidence that independent critics of the doomsday climate change claims (aka catastrophic AGW hypothesis) can verify no government has any right or basis to pass any prohibitive legislation on this topic.
In fact, CO2 is an essential nutrient for life. To be Anti-CO2 is to be Anti-Green-Life.
vigilantfish says:
November 17, 2010 at 11:43 am
“Hope the British government comes to its senses soon!”
So do I, but not much chance yet, get this mind numbing justification for £18 billion a year:-
“Exactly how fast carbon emissions are changing our climate – and exactly what that change will mean – may be unknown.
But uncertainty is no excuse for inaction.
And actually, the search for certainty is misguided.
Rather than being caught up in absolutes, we should prefer to think in terms of probability – and risk.”
Energy and Climate Change and Insurance Secretary’s speech to this year’s CBI Climate Summit
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/1898652/chris-huhne-cbi-speech
So, so pleased to see my country do something right on the “Climate Change” file.
Hurray! Some sanity in the Great White North! Of course, some warming here would lead to “awful” things like a longer growing season and reduced heating bills.
Mr. Harper needs to reapply for the cajones he used to have and quit following anything Obama sets as “guidelines”. Man made climate change is myth. Let’s get on to more important issues within government!
>>wws says:
>>November 17, 2010 at 10:19 am
>>So who’s going to volunteer to destroy their economies and give up all their jobs in order to benefit these countries which are thumbing their noses at the rest of them?
>>No one, that’s who.
Unfortunately, down under remains the home of green stupidity. Carbon taxes are alive and kicking in NZ and soon in Australia.
What have we accomplished so far?
The big one is the destruction of the world carbon(CO2) tax. The trillion dollar a year market the globalists were planning. We did this without the help of the main stream media. We went over your heads as we are going to do again and again.
The alternative media hammered the likes of ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, and the Huffington Post on the issue of cap and tax. With very little help from FOX on the issue for which we are grateful, the vast majority of the heavy lifting on the issue was done by us. We rode ClimateGate for all it was worth. It helps that real science was on our side.
In the past few weeks, the CCX carbon trading market trading on the Chicago Exchange had to file for bankruptcy. This was a trillion dollar a year market we almost single handedly put to death ourselves. We accomplished this with the blogosphere with sites like Watts Up With That, Climate Depot, Climate Audit, InfoWars, and Prison Planet among others.
At least the climate conference is in a great place to drink your troubles away. I hope they all get a huge hangover! Some of this money they are spending has to be mine, why the heck should I have to pay for any of it? I know I don’t want to.
It wouldn’t matter if the UK government changed – they are all in the pay of Greenpeace and will do as their Greenpeace/Fiends of the Earth Rent-a-mob dictate. The UK’s Climate Change Act will remain on the statute books until the last light goes out, then they’ll sit around the CO2 emitting campfires and ask what went wrong …
Mr. Watts,
I remember being ticked off with my government passing this bill in the House hoping beyond hope that the rest of the world would kill the CO2 issue such that our law would wither on the vine. Whoda thunk that a weird twist of fate would allow us to deliver the fatal wound to the legislation ourselves.
For those of you who do not know Canadian political structure, the Senate is appointed for life and is mostly populated by ex liberal MPs and statesmen. They almost never defeat a bill passed by the House of Commons.
Truly truly a rare and remarkable day today.
I’d love to hear remarks by Timothy Ball.
PW
@ur momisugly John A:
What can you do about your Parliament? Well, a couple of hundred years ago a few guys over there got together and hatched a plan that failed and they got executed for, but tends to get commemorated every year (at least it does in NZ) on 5 Nov by setting off lots of fireworks …
Disclaimer:
This is meant as a humerous remark, and not a real suggestion. 😉
nz uk and california can all just shut their economies down
the rest of the US just needs to de-fund the EPA war on carbon