Ottawa

Save the Planet, Destroy the Country

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Harper played the separatism card today, warning that the Green Shift plan will threaten national unity. Not because it will annoy Albertans and stir up memories of the NEP. No — it will create tensions with Quebec. Here’s the Prime Minister’s remarkable chain of reasoning.

NB: Harper is the Prime Minister. Of Canada.

“The Liberals will use the money from the carbon tax to create programs, like the Millennium Scholarship. They will once again interfere in the jurisdiction of the provinces and then the old federal-provincial bickering will return.”
Elaborating later on his remarks, Harper told reporters: “In Quebec, the specific concern — and obviously a concern we share as a Conservative government — is that the ultimate purpose of a carbon tax is to get more money and power into Ottawa. We’ve gone out of our way in the last few years to get the federal government respecting . . . provincial jurisdictions. So I think this would be a step in the wrong direction.”

I’ll be spending the next while picking up the pieces of my jaw that are rolling around the office.

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