LPC won’t accredit bloggers at convention

I’ve learned the news today that the Liberal Party of Canada will host the first modern political convention that doesn’t accredit bloggers. Our friend Dr. Roy received a letter from the party rejecting his request for accreditation. I’ve shared it with his permission below,

I don’t think this is the right thing to do. I was invited by the Liberal Party in 2006 to blog about their leadership convention and I had a blast doing it. The Blogging Tories produced a lot of video and blogs regarding the convention.

The Liberal Party is rebuilding. It needs to engage with new media and those that have influence on the various platforms with respect to Canadian politics.

I suspect that the Liberal decision is related to delegate fees; Liberal bloggers will likely pay the delegate fee anyway. Other bloggers are faced with paying an >$1000 observer fee.

I took to twitter this morning to express disappointment with the Liberal Party decision.

UPDATE: Success? The Liberal Party looks to have reversed its decision regarding bloggers and will may now allow them to register for media credentials. However, do they mean that bloggers and freelancers need not be sponsored by a mainstream media news outlet? I will try to register as media for this convention and report back the results.

@liberal_party: Bloggers welcome at #LPC convention! through media accred or observer status. Contact [email protected]

CBC fights the culture war

What’s this? A CBC story about huge guns, a baby, and Santa?

From Scottsdale Arizona? What is the relevance?

Oh, those Americans and their guns. “Is it appropriate?”, CBC asks.

Well, no. But, for a different reason. The long-gun registry vote is in the news as the Conservatives uphold a long-standing promise to their base to eliminate the registration of legal rifles and shotguns. Amendments were voted upon this week and the final vote is upcoming. What better time for the CBC to remind Canadians what’s at stake?

Every gun featured in the Christmas card photo is prohibited in Canada.

Yesterday, the NDP had to walk back an attack ad on the Conservatives that featured a gun that is restricted in Canada and is thus would have to be registered anyway despite the scrapping of the long-gun registry.

This isn’t the first time the CBC has played politics in the long-gun registry debate. On the eve of Candice Hoeppner’s Private Member’s Bill defeat, the CBC ran this conspiracy theory disguised as an investigative report into links between the Conservative government, it’s activists and the Gun-lovin’ American NRA. CBC provided a 10 year old clue that the NRA once produced a commercial that aired in the US and was available to Canadians! Also, they helped fun a pamphlet for a Canadian long-gun advocate, also 10 years ago.

We consider Americans and their huge military-grade machine-guns.

We also consider the Canadian debate about the registration of long-guns.

If one were against the dismantling of the long-gun registry, one would be irresponsible to suggest that Americans are not only trying to influence the debate but it would also be irresponsible to create a scarecrow argument against guns which are already illegal in Canada. How much of this debate is honest? And what element of dishonesty is being driven by the CBC?

Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol

Was Canada ever even in? The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 in the city of the same name in Japan. The United States was the only holdout at the time, with Congress refusing to ratify the agreement under President Bill Clinton.

Canada’s Liberal government led by Jean Chretien bound Canada to the international accord at the time, promising to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 6% of 1990 levels by 2012. The protocol has come under heavy criticism since as it provides exemptions for many emerging economies, namely India, China and Brazil. Further, the 1990 level was so pegged to satiate Russia’s demands to use the Soviet Union as the reference point to mark Russia’s future emissions against the Soviet era, pre-industrial and economic collapse.

Other criticisms of the protocol include carbon trading that were dismissed by our current Prime Minister as a socialist scheme, exchanging ‘pollutability’ for cash. Again, much of it to the Russian Federation.

The Protocol expires in 2012 and has largely been a symbolic icon of the progressive movements in Canada, the US, and Europe. Carbon emissions under Chretien (and Dion as his environment minister) actually increased. Again, the emissions under the next Liberal administration increased. In fact, between 1990 and 2005, Canada’s GHGs increased 25%. We should have spent money fashioning a statue of Gaia in our own image. Our vanity would have been satisfied, it would have been as effective, and it would have costed much less. As far as symbols go, it’s pedestal ‘footprint’ would have less of an environmental impact than that caused by sending our jobs and capital to emerging exempt economies.

It’s been reported today that Canada will not “renew” its “commitment” to the Kyoto Protocol. To do so would be foolish, as Canada is nowhere near meeting 1990 targets anytime soon. Further, a cap on industrial production would be foolish at a time of global economic fragility (not to mention coercive at any time).

The utility — either environmental or economic — of signing onto such an agreement has not been established. If humans face any challenge, global bureaucracy is certainly the most unagile method of addressing it. Kyoto seemed to be focused on special interests and side-deals rather than some superordinate goal.

Oh, was it mentioned that it’s a socialist scheme?