I spoke to a friend's

I spoke to a friend's father, who voted for Lunn. His explanation: "He's friends with my neighbour. That's good enough for me."

Remember how ridiculous everyone thought it was when a racecar driver said on the national news that George W. Bush's ownership of a hobby farm was "good enough for me?"

When people are hopelessly disengaged from political reality, and their candidates successfully distance themselves from their own policies, you can't expect much better than a clown like Gary Lunn.

Besides, nobody on the Saanich Penninsula takes up a cause until someone on their street contravenes the neighbourhood code and paints their house the wrong colour. Oil slicks? "Outta sight, outta mind. Hand me that 4 wood, would ya?"

The vast majority of the

The vast majority of the voters have no idea of the issues and vote by tradition, on slogans, promises, or in the case of the Reform fossils, both at the federal and provincial levels, "because they are business friendly and create jobs".

The vast majority have never heard of what NAFTA the SPP etc. really stand for many openly admit that they like "benevolent dictatorship" as it frees them from thinking.

I've been canvassing people I meet all my adult life and the degree of their ignorance, even of highly educated people, is staggering.

Democracy is not thrown over by barbarians, but as it happened to democracies from ancient times, and is happening now all over the world with phoney "free trade" treaties, they self destruct through laziness and ignorance.

How could a solid line of Reform candidates
have been elected in mill/union towns, as here in the Cariboo, time after time, when the party's policy declaration clearly stated and still states, right to work legislation and now the free movement of labour under the SPP ?

I spent 3 postwar years in Austria and Germany and know that if there had been
elections with the nazis and Hitler still running, they would have won by a landslide, by starving, legless voters creeping out from under the ruins, on crutches.

All they could talk about were the wonderful times they had under Hitler before the war.

The same is happening here, with Harper having a good chance for a majority, so he can sell off Canada.

Ed Deak.

Clean Fuel

Many countries have used nuclear power successfully for decades, Sweden derives around half its energy needs from nuclear and France is up to around 75%. Nuclear is clean and preferable to burning gas if environmental considerations are important. If Gary Lunn is indeed for the nuclear option that can only be good. Clean energy and a pipeline for exports will earn substantial benefits for all Canadians.

There are now around 38,000 oil tankers plying the seas. As an article in the current edition of the authoritative and highly respected Foreign Affairs Magazine says, "Those who worry about the vulnerability of the world's oil shipping lanes should calm down."

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501facomments86302/dennis-blair-kenneth-lieberthal/smooth-sailing-the-world-s-shipping-lanes-are-safe.html

Asian Markets will be needed more now.

Quebec is moving ahead with a billion-dollar LNG port project and will consequently be less reliant on western natural gas. The gas will come from Russia and Algeria. Big news this week:
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/230158

Can't see the forest for the trees?

A Conservative or a Provincial Liberal looks at a forest and sees something that can be quickly converted to cash to be given to his friends.

A Federal Liberal looks at a forest and sees anything that he thinks the voters want him to see and then once elected, he sees something that can be quickly converted to cash to be given to his friends.

A Green looks at a forest and sees something that must never be touched and that must be preserved forever.

An NDPer looks at a forest and sees something that is owned by all of us, that must be managed on behalf of the commonwealth, and that may be harvested carefully and sustainably so that it may provide jobs and pay for things like education, public health care and a social safety net.

...and a Super Green

or Enviro-extremist sees a forest and says we should all sit down and think about what to do and anyone with money should pay us so we find a nearby cave to watch the tree and do studies.

Green Party should Fold

After the clear and genuine conversion of both the [ federal] Liberal and NDP parties in recent years to sincere forces for environmental responsibility, I for one wrote to Elizabeth May earlier this year and suggested that she resign, and that the most effective move now for the Green Party would be to fold.

I have been a supported of the Greens. I have also been a full-time environmental activist for nearly two decades - and to me it is obvious now that the Greens have become one of Harper's most important assets.

Formerly, the Green Party was an important entity in Canada in terms of helping to publicize environmental issues, thank you very much.

That need is minimal now, and those whose allegiance is truly to a healthier environment can do a lot more good by helping to 'green' the larger parties than allowing their egos and momentum to continue to split the vote and effectively support the pretend-environmentalism of Harper and the Conservatives.

Lunn's fairy tale

Lunn has tried to make a big deal out of burning natural gas to extract oil from tar. He claims that if we use nuclear we’ll reduce pollution. It’s green-wash BS. Why use nuclear to produce more oil – one of the dirtiest energy sources – and jack up the rate of pollution?

The reality is that if we look closely at natural gas supplies in Alberta we’ll find that there isn’t enough gas to meet projected growth demands of the tar sands.

And what's worse, the demand for nuclear isn’t driven by Canadians.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/17/oil-sands.html

Any Canadian politician that tries to limit the flow of Alberta oil to the U$A will be painted, in the corporate media, as a threat to economic development, growth, and ultimately, public well-being. As it gets closer to voting time watch the media for a proliferation of green-wash hype supporting the pronuclear agenda.

Logging can be done in a

Logging can be done in a totally sustainable and environmentally acceptable ways. The same goes for lumber mills, but not under the present overcapitalized destruction for profits to be taken out of the country.

We have a number of people around here who have the highest environmental classification for their logging operations on Crown owned woodlots.

Years ago we had hundreds of small, energy and labour efficient mills ll over the Interior, but for all practical purposes they were destroyed by government/corporation collusion.

We still have a few, including one next door, where I'm buying my lumber at lumberyard prices. The difference is that there are no middlemen skinning both the producer and the buyer.

Get rid of the overcapitalized monster corporations and the problem will be solved.

Ed Deak.

Lunn is pro-asbestos

Lunn sent a couple of his staffers (or whatever they were) to Europe to attend a meeting with other countries on banning exports of asbestos. Canada was expected to finally agree to the ban, as most other englightened nations have.

The staffers were late, rude, ignorant of the science and pathology of asbestos - in other words, a complete embarrassment. The study group was surprised and horrified.

Their behaviour became the subject of news reports in Europe and here.

Later, Lunn insisted that asbestos was completely "safe". That's why it's banned in Canada, I guess. But it's a lucrative export, so let all those third world countries get cancer.

I keep thinking that it's impossible to loathe this crew any more than I already do, but then they go and do something else.

Just like Harper's "daily announcements" during the campaign, he now does daily pronouncements, each more hateful than the one before.

How the hell did we ever get into this situation?

how`d we get here?

James Laxer

full: http://www.rabble.ca/politics.shtml?x=60290

Lunn is a disaster

Notwithstanding the fact, nothing much will change until progressives in this country start pressuring the political elites - whether Liberal, NDP or Green - to get their stupid act together.
There is nothing undemocratic about finding ways to get Harper and Lunn and the neocon apparatchiks out of power. In fact, given the percentage of the actual electorate that really 'wants' a Conservative government - the fact we have one at all is the most pathetic thing about democracy just now. In fact, given the threatened future of the country and the interests of the vast majority of Canadians – not to mention the environment – it ought to be our first priority. And it certainly should be in ridings like Lunn’s.
But we can't reform the electoral system on our own.
What can be done is to form a progressive coalition, adopt a platform that a broad range of progressive voters can identify with, and stop taking cues from party hacks.
What's undemocratic is a party structure that appoints and 'elects' its candidates using cliques and ethnic block voting and then pretends to represent the views of the whole electorate while it is in fact ignoring the wishes of the people.
'Samosa' politics, as the CBC called it last night in an excellent feature on the National. Even when these tactics don't involve manipulative ethnic voting blocks, the idea that the Liberals, Greens and NDP can't understand what's necessary to defeat Harper is insulting to the intelligence of the average Canadian.
Time to smarten up!

You keep tellin' them, OrganicCanadian! Lead on!

OrganicCanadian,

I really loved what you said about the Greens and the important part they could play in the next election if they really do care about the environment.

You've made it crystal clear why I'm an environmentalist but couldn't abide Green political campaigns or Green leaders.

Why in the world don't they slip into the passenger seat alongside the NDP, give the Liberals a free pass, and drive that bus straight on through the NeoCons in the next election!

You keep tellin' them, OrganicCanadian! And thanks!

QA quick look around the

QA quick look around the riding shows NDP support on parts of Saltspring but Green support as well. The monied folk some with hosues for sale at more than 15 millions could care less about anyone else. They are right wing and vote for Lunn even if he does nothing at all. The NDP and the Greens and now the Liberals will beat up on each other, and the most least sharp candidate will once more end up in Ottawa. People are really dumb but heck, they get to vote.

This article is far from exemplary journalism

This isn't news, it's opinion, more like a letter to the editor. Minister Lunn's birth certificate doesn't include Nuclear or Dirty in his name. Resulting to name calling doesn't make an argument the right one.

Tough choices are going to have to made. The oil sands will continue to be here, if we can find methods to produce oil with minimum CO2 emissions then these should be explored.

Oilsands upgrading is a 24/7 process, and requires 24/7 energy such as nuclear. Wind power won't provide it, Burning oil to get it isn't the best idea. And sequestration is unproven.

JP

The term 'dirty' is in quotes.

You might want to consider what that means.

As to your point relative to the Tar Sands development, you might want to consult the elected municipal governments whose jurisdiction(s) include the area around Fort McMurray before you decide that full-speed ahead development (however fired) is what the actual people who live there want.

Alberta's unelected Energy Board would disagree with me of course but then, this column is about the pitfalls and pratfalls of politics.

The only person who has done any name calling here is flattax and, last time I looked, he was 'supporting' Lunn.

Funny that!

RM!

I live in Lunn's riding - and I happen to have a backyard that is "doin' nuthin'" (except holding up a few Garry Oaks). Maybe Our Lunn would be wanting to bury his spent nu-cu-lar fuel here in my yard......my price would be quite reasonable.

And a bonus! Burying the spent fuel here means he would NEVER again show up in this riding..............not that he does anyhow......

Let's Clean up our Act

There are presently 435 nuclear power facilities in 31 countries. Let's clean up our act right here in Canada and get with the programme. What's the big deal? We can't just go on spewing pollutants into the atmosphere. We must think of our children.

As has been reported, "most major forms of energy production cause deaths. In their comparison, deaths per TWy of electricity produced are 885 for hydropower, 342 for coal, 85 for natural gas, and 8 for nuclear.[31] Air pollution from fossil fuels is argued to cause tens of thousands of additional deaths each year in the US alone".

We should do the right thing, go nuclear.

nuclear if necessary

But not necessarily nuclear. Moreover, never just as a way to process more oil from the tar sands which amounts to little more than an effort to further link our economy to the American economic disaster - which is what Lunn, in his narrow view of things, supports.

The people of Alberta are increasingly critical of what's happening to their provincial economy as it becomes more and more dominated by Petro dollars.

Give notice, withdraw from NAFTA and become a country that does not pander to either our American friends or our colonial ancestors.

Time to grow up and start to act responsibly before it's too late.

We should do the right thing - tell the Americans, Stephen Harper and Gary Lunn - NO THANKS.

Vote-splitting and nuclear discourse

Here's an idea for the potential splitting of the Sanaach "green vote." Get a group of Greens, NDPers and Liberal VOTERS (since the hacks would never do this) to organise a high profile agreement on how to decide upon one candidate to endorse. For example, agree on a survey methodology, and at a certain point in the campaign, conduct a voter survey and whoever comes out ahead, that's who gets endorsed.

Regarding nuclear power, there are many signs the Liberals would be as favorable toward it as the Conservatives; however, Penn making it a campaign issue could make her an instigator of real debate within the Liberal party if she were successful. Perhaps she could give a voice to the poor Foreign Affairs diplomats who lamely watch the erosion of barriers to nuclear weapons proliferation, with very little understanding or discourse among parliamentarians or the public.

Glowing about nukes

If you are a true environmentalist rather than one who uses scare tactics to harbour a left wing political view you will support the building of nuclear power plants. Current technologoy is safe an will drastically reduce emissions. France and Japan (hardly right wing countries) generate most of their power with nuclear plants.

The simple fact is that no other alternative can provide the scale of power of nuclear plants. For all the talk about windmills and geothermal, they cannot be used on a large scale in the US and Canada. And the left should realize that average people are not going to give up their lifestyles, ride bicycles, live in communes, grow their own vegetables and all of those other fairy tales they want to impose on us.

Instead, a buildout of nuclear power plants will achieve our energy and environmental objectives. Heck, even Patrick Watson of Greenpeace recanted and supports nuclear power.

Choices??

Well, we've come to a sorry pass - not only in Saanich and the Islands, but throughout the entire electoral process, as a review of the comments above - all with valid points to make - will reveal.

The problem, of course, is that regardless of the promises made in seeking my vote, it's almost accidental if the successful candidate and his/her Party fulfills them. All have debts to people other than myself who will have priority.

And so it is with Rick in PG's eloquent bit of verbiage re the NDP's green-ness.

Great stuff !! Until, that is, it comes to a choice between union jobs or green advocacy, such as back in the late 70-80s when the IWA partnered with COFI in the virulently anti-environmental SHARE groups, and later in the late 90s when Glen Clark, under prompting from the IWA, began to sewer Harcourt's Forest Practices Code.

I haven't the faintest idea of how we can avoid this dilemma of constantly having to pick the least worst of an overall bad lot, and I'm far from alone in seeing it that way.

Lunn glowing about nukes

Gary Lunn has been parading to G8 meetings, UN conferences and elsewhere on our behalf. He has been relentlessly promoting the expansion of nuclear power and fossil fuel industries, contributing to two of the most perilous problems of our time - climate change and nuclear proliferation.

Nuclear power is one thumb up (climate change), and two thumbs down (nuclear waste and nuclear weapons proliferation). To make a significant impact on climate change, researchers have considered scenareos with a 10-fold expansion of the nuclear industry.

Even at that scale, it would only be a small part of a solution to climate change... with some noteworthy side-effects. First, at that scale the industry would require one "Yucca mountain" per year (Yucca mountain is expected to be the first major nuclear dump site in the world, and it is taking decades to happen). Second, at that scale you would also need over 600 large uranium enrichment plants (like what Iran is making), each of which would have the capacity to create the key material for several 100's of nuclear bombs per year. The international system for monitoring whether nuclear materials and technologies are being diverted to weapons programs is already severely ineffective. The black market of nuclear materials is growing.

Actually, when the alternatives are considered, maybe riding a bike, growing vegitables, and sharing a few fairy tales around a solar powered heater isn't so radical after all -- although I guess you'd have to elect "the left" to force that upon citizens eh?

Ain't it amazing....

.....how those who push for nu-cu-lar, ALL take their NIMBY injections first?!
"Nu-cu-lar is good....but not here;"
"Coal power is good.....but not here;"
"Wind farms are good......but not here;"
The Little Red Hen Syndrome at work........

Who is going to guard the

Who is going to guard the worn out nuclear plants for millions of years ?

The more there are, the more the potential 3Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, not to mention the probably hundreds more and thousands of people already killed by accidents, covered up by the industry and governments.

Does anybody really believe that all accidents have been and are reported? One of the main jobs of bought and paid for governments is to cover up the results of "wealth creation".

Whenever there's a spill of chemicals, or other major dangerous industrial accidents, the official, industrial and government line is always "no danger to the public".

Do some fools really believe these lies ?

That's why we're carrying dozens of deadly poisons in our bodies and have a daily growing cancer epidemic, where cancers were few and far between, unheard of in children and no breast cancers in women, even 50 years ago.

Look at the list of chemicals in supermarket foods, boxes and cans people buy and ingest without question. We ran out of our own last year's carrots and bought some at a fruit stand on Thursday. Reeking of chemicals and will be thrown out, but hundreds of millions are eating that garbage all their lives. The benefits of forced urbanization.

Do we have to top up this insanity with more and more nuclear pollution and waste?

Ed Deak.

Those who support Gary Lunn

Those who support Gary Lunn's pandering to the virtues of nuclear power conveniently avoid the 'connection' between the way he wishes to use nuclear power and the petro-chemical industry.

If you want my support for Candu technology, first stop selling natural gas and oil to the Americans. Use our resources to meet our own needs - control our own contributions to greenhouse gas accumulations and create a decent place in this country more like the land it was 30 years ago and less like the cheap and tawdry imitation of another over lit American strip mall.

A place where the greedy and the selfish have used the system to polish their own image while the actual conditions on the ground and in the air have deteriorated.

Moreover, puhleeze, recall that the in the last 107 years there has been exactly 13 years of NDP administration in this province.

The mess we're in is NOT the fault of the NDP. In fact, quite the contrary. The Gordon Campbell 'kleptocracy' has done more harm in 6 years than any 25 years of other administrations (of whatever political stripe) combined.

Electricity & weapons

Actually, Bobby Peru, the links between nuclear electricity (both uranium and plutonium types) and nuclear weapons are well-documented and are the basis for numerous international institutions (e.g. IAEA, Zanger Committee).

The following January 1997 U.S. Department of Energy statement confirms a widely accepted understanding of that fact that nuclear electricity reactor-grade Pu can be used to make weapons: "The degree to which these obstacles [i.e. higher probability of detonation in some designs, and increased heating and radiation compared to weapons-grade Pu] can be overcome depends on the sophistication of the state or group attempting to produce a nuclear weapon. At the lowest level of sophistication, a potential proliferating state or sub national group using designs and technologies no more sophisticated than those used in first-generation nuclear weapons could build a nuclear weapon from reactor-grade Pu that would have an assured reliable yield of one or a few kilotons (a probable yield significantly higher than that). At the other end of the spectrum, advanced nuclear weapon states such as the U.S. and Russia, using modern designs, could produce weapons from reactor grade plutonium having reliable explosive yields, weight, and other characteristics generally comparable to those weapons made from weapons grade Pu…. Proliferating states of intermediate sophistication could produce with assured yields substantially higher than the kiloton range possible with a simple, first-generation nuclear device."

Regarding nuclear waste, Canada is actually ahead of the game globally, and our only plan is to buy out First Nations communities in Ontario (and presumably First Nations communities along all nuclear transportation routes), in order to store the waste in a deep holes within their territory and hope it doesn't seep into ground water over thousands of years. Sorry, but do political institutions even last that long? Where was Ontario a thousand years ago?

A number of years ago

A number of years ago Washington state was setting up a number of nucleur sites. Trogan was the most obvious as the highway heading south was a few blocks away.They even had a rst stop and playground for the kids. Looked really nice. Electricity was going to be so cheap, meters would be a waste of time and on and on. Living in the TriCities , you better be pro nuke. So where are most of ths sites now? Glad you asked. They are shut down well before thier life expectency. Where is all the waste loaded with radiation? A lot is under water in ponds and now and again a release has some of the water in the river. The energy source starts out looking green but ends up killing people. Find a safe way to store the waste for a few thousand years and come back and tell us how great it is Garry.

Political political contributions

At the time of the first unaccountable Liberal majority, there were plenty of analysts trying to explain how such a huge unparliamentary situation could occur with such a small minority of the eligible vote.

A suggestion was made that the Liberal party and/or prominent Liberals might have made large "contributions" to the Greens or other non-NDP democratic campaigns or candidates.

If true, it would have meant that the Liberals had virtually hired phony opposition parties to split their opposition votes in key ridings. I recall efforts to reconcile Green and NDP candidates to prevent this vote splitting reportedly fell oddly flat in the leadup to the election.

Afterward, when the questions were inevitably asked, though not by the mainstream press, the Liberals responded by declaring their finances classified, and the defeated vote splitters were quite hard to find.

Nobody ever actually showed their books, that I remember seeing in any reports, and I was watching for it. You would have thought that anyone on the up-and-up would have jumped at the chance to scotch such scurrilous rumors.

I find it interesting that Lunn is facing three irreconcilable green-spectrum opponents, after being elected by 37% last time in a similar situation. I would be interested in the financial transactions of Lunn, his offices and supporters, his party and the same transactions of all these opponents.

If the obvious implication that this is going on were true, that would be the place to look for evidence.

It does seem that it should be quite obvious to anyone that any second or third opponent in his riding is absolutely certain to ensure his re-election. So therefore not trying to defeat him.

I really would love to see the books.

First time strategic voter?

I live in the Saanich Peninsula and am a Green Party voter. I was hopeful for an Andrew Lewis win last time but the vote remained split amongst the Greens, NDP and Liberal and Lunn walked away with the seat. Briony Penn is a brilliant choice for the Liberals and I will most likely vote for her. She's got enviro-cred and I think she'll put Lunn in a corner. Hope so 'cause I can't stand him.

Canada Day Parade

And if crowd response is any indication....At the annual Canada Day Parade in Sidney today there was very little -- almost zip -- applause for Gary Lunn as he paraded past. Nor was there much applause for Murray Coell, the MLA. To be fair, it might have been because Lunn and Coell came after the veterans for whom there was sustained clapping and so people were just tired or something. I found the silence delightful.

D Cove

The significant results in this riding in the last election were as follows:
Lunn - 24,416 votes - 37.15% CPC
Burgis - 17 445 votes - 26.54% NDP
Orr - 17 144 votes - 26.09 % Liberal
Lewis - 6533 votes - 9.94%

There was another candidate who polled 183 votes and I've left him out of the mix.

Clearly the Greens are irrelevant - under no possible scenario can they win. If Lunn is to be beaten the winning combination has to have either an NDP or a Liberal banner.

The Liberals appear to be incapable of understanding what's necessary to return to power - with the exception of their alliance with Elizabeth May to try and defeat Peter McKay.

This riding has recently had an NDP sitting member so I'd suggest the opposition to Lunn should, strategically, coalesce behind the NDP candidate. In other ridings the choice should be to support a Liberal.

If the opposition can't get its act together to form a coalition then get ready for 4 more years of Gary Lunn and 4 more years of Stephen Harper.

Sorry, GWest

I cannot vote for the NDP while Layton is their leader. I haven't liked him since he began to haunt the halls of Parliament and inserted himself in scrums, etc. He looked silly. I also think he got snookered by Harper into forcing an election.

I'm going to wait and see what happens with Penn. My vote will go either to the Greens again or Penn, and only because it is Penn and not because of the Liberals. I've been reading her nature articles for a couple of years now and am impressed by her commitment and long history in the environmental movement. And, really, what BCer can pass up the opportunity to vote for Lady Godiva?

Sorry Gwest, I was thinking

Sorry Gwest, I was thinking of Patrick Moore, not Watson. Of course Moore's change of mind has upset alot of people- changes of opinion usually do, don't they? Don't focus on the bile, focus on the reasons Moore outlined for changing his view on the viability of nuclear power for saving the environment. There's too much propaganda and insults being flung around by the environmental groups over nuclear power obscuring some very compelling facts.

Just check out the safety records of large scale electricity generation operations in France and Japan- two developed countries who supply a large majority of power with nuclear plants. Stop the old, 'China Syndrome' arguments and get with the new technology. Stop the Chernobyl arguments because even superficial research would show you that Chernobyl technology was dangerous and backward.

Those who oppose nuclear power generation forget that current forms of fossil fuel power generation are far dirtier. Then offer a meaningful, practical solution that can be implemented in large scale to offer reliable electricity at a predictable cost. And spare me the talk about windmills and geothermal as they can't cut it and alot of people don't want a windmill farm in their backyard. And forget conservation efforts as the benefits are minor- look at the growing demand for electricity year on year. Forget about convincing any meaningful number of people to ride bicycles to work. It's just plain silly as so many people need cars in a modern economy. So unless you want us to return to the Dark Ages, we need a practical way to generate lots of electricity.

Bobby Peru

Are you familiar with the safety and reliability - not to mention cost per Kwh - record of Candu technology?

I'd suggest you're not - so not only are your musings about Patrick Moore's record as an apologist for industry (forest and nuclear) and your obvious prejudices against Greenpeace showing that ignorance, I'd suggest you do a little research into why I phrased my original comment the way I did.

You'll find nothing about bicycles in anything I've written here. But you will find lots on the dead end of Canada ruining the environment in this country to feed the Americans insatiable appetite for oil or the Chinese need for coal – which does not inure to the benfit of the 1.2 billion Chinese who are not benefiting whatsoever from the fury of the Asian tiger.. Look at what Gary Lunn is suggesting the electrical power from nuclear generation is meant to be used for. Look, and learn – if you’re serious about trying to understand what is really going on in the world economy.

It has nothing to do with meeting our current needs here in Canada. Moreover, while you're researching nuclear in Canada, don't forget to look at the Bruce and Pickering records. You might actually learn something and stop just spouting the party line.

Very little of your vaunted economic activity here is wise, or even cost effective, if one takes into the balance the environmental and sovereignty effects of continuing on our present course. To say nothing of the further destabilization of the polity.

Please, I know you're here to promote a particular point of view but if you have a point to make, do some research first and actually understand what you're talking about.

You're wasting my time.

MIT Report

Lots of reading here:

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/

Whoever said the CANDU system is the answer? There are others.

If the USA, or anyone else, wants to pay market value for our energy products, then why not? The idea that we should restrict our earnings and lower our wealth by not selling to them because we consider them to be profligate is a bit paternal, at the least.

Re: Coal to China; Note that Steven Harper did bring up human rights when in China.

Garry Lunn MP

At least you can combat Gary Lunn and his stance on some policies. He's right there in your sights. Not like some mealy-mouthed Liberal that says what you want to hear then does exactly the opposite in secret.