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THE OBSERVER | Saturday, December 06, 2008 COMMENT & OPINION | 15
»HARD TALK | RAFE MAIR
Coalition versus the Tories? A pox on all their houses
Wow! What larks!
Could the scene
in Ottawa happen
anywhere else? We
stand on the cusp of
a political miracle
which might see the
rejected and dejected
leader of the Liberal
party about to become
the prime minister of Canada.
The facts are not much in dispute. The
Conservatives, a minority government,
baited the opposition with a bill that
would take away the public funds they
get for election purposes. Yes, there it is
folks. We may have a situation where
voters will be asked to support a coalition
of Liberals, New Democrats and
separatists because these three parties
have had their taxpayer dollars for election
expenses taken away.
Can’t you see and hear voter indignation?
Stand up to those wicked Tories
who would take away from us good guys
taxpayer-funded lolly designed to help
us get elected! I can hear the cry rolling
across the nation … give the Liberals,
BQ, NDP and Greens their slush funds
back! Now if that isn’t an emotionpacked
issue, I don’t know what is.
I have to tell you up front. I don’t like
Stephen Harper or his government.
The problem is, I don’t like the others
much either. But if I were asked to vote
for a coalition put together by bringing
in the Bloc Quebecois, I just couldn’t do
it. Politics and cynicism are synonyms
but this would be too much. I have to
think that Jack Layton and Stéphane
Dion have thought of this and realize
that they could be forcing an election
»INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS | GWYNNE DYER
Four harsh truths about climate change
About two years
ago, I realized that
the military in
various countries
were starting to
do climate change
scenarios in-house
– scenarios that
started with the scientific
predictions
about rising temperatures, falling
crop yields, and other physical effects
– and examining what that would do
to politics and strategy.
The scenarios predicted failed states
proliferating because governments
couldn’t feed their people; waves of
climate refugees washing up against
the borders of more fortunate countries;
even wars between countries
that shared the same rivers. So I started
interviewing everybody I could get
access to: not only senior military
people, but scientists, diplomats and
politicians.
About 70 interviews, a dozen countries
and 18 months later, I have
reached four conclusions that I didn’t
even suspect when I began the process.
The first is simply this: the scientists
are really scared. Their observations
over the past two or three
years suggest that everything is happening
much faster than their climate
models predicted.
This creates a dilemma for them, because
for the past decade they have
been struggling against a well-funded
the public doesn’t want over a trivial
issue brought on because the Liberals
and New Democrats are cynical
enough, indeed unpatriotic enough, to
bring the Bloc Quebecois into the government.
The scent of power, even momentary
power, is very tempting. It does strange
things to otherwise quite normal people.
But I simply can’t believe that Dion
and Layton could be so dumb. If they
are, no wonder the public gave Harper
office instead of them.
Now we have the constitutional lawyers
prowling through dusty old manuscripts
to see what happens if Harper is
defeated in the House and pops across
the way to Governor General Michaëlle
Jean’s digs asking for an election writ.
Her Excellency will have been well
prepared with the precedent set in 1926
in what’s known as the King/Byng affair,
the only problem being no one can
agree on what precedent was set.
In 1925, then prime minister Mackenzie
King formed a minority Liberal
government. In 1926, he was defeated
on a confidence motion whereupon he
went to governor general Lord Byng
and sought dissolution of Parliament
and an election writ. Byng refused and
called upon Tory leader Arthur Meighen
to form a government, which he did.
It lasted a week, Meighen lost a confidence
motion and an election ensued
which was fought by King on the basis
that Lord Byng was wrong. King was
returned with a majority.
Before going on, two important constitutional
events took place after the
King/Byng dustup that may well affect
what interpretation one might infer
campaign that cast doubt on the phenomenon
of climate change. Now, finally,
people and even governments
are listening. Even in the United
States, the world headquarters of climate
change denial, 85 per cent of the
population now sees climate change
as a major issue, and both presidential
candidates in last month’s election
promised 80 per cent cuts in
American emissions of greenhouse
gases by 2050.
The scientists are understandably
reluctant at this point to announce
publicly that their predictions were
wrong; that it’s really much worse
and the targets will have to be revised.
Most of them are waiting for overwhelming
proof that climate change
really is moving faster, even though
they are already privately convinced
that it is. So governments, now awakened
to the danger at last, are still
working to the wrong emissions target.
The real requirement, if we are
to avoid runaway global warming, is
probably 80 per cent cuts by 2030, and
almost no burning whatever of fossil
fuels (coal, gas and oil) by 2050.
The second conclusion is that the
generals are right. Food is the key issue,
and world food supply is already
very tight: we have eaten up about
two-thirds of the world grain reserve
in the past five years, leaving only 50
days’ worth in store. Even a one degree
C (1.8 degrees F) rise in average
global temperature will take a major
from that crisis.
At the time of the crisis, the Governor-
General was seen not only as the King’s
representative in Canada but also seen
as representing Great Britain. In other
words, the GG not only was the king’s
Canadian representative, he also represented
the residual powers of the monarch
as king of the United Kingdom.
After the crisis and after King was
returned with a majority, the U.K.
government issued a declaration that
the role of Governor General was as
a representative of the sovereign in
Canada only. Known as the Balfour
Declaration, it acknowledged that the
Dominions were equal in status to the
United Kingdom, and that each Governor
General would henceforth function
solely as a representative of the Crown
in their respective Dominions, and not
as an agent of the British government.
Arcane, perhaps, but none the less important
for that.
Next came the 1931 Statute of Westminster,
which changed Canada from
being a “self governing Dominion” to
a full and equal member of the British
Commonwealth of Nations, later
simply the Commonwealth of Nations.
Here’s what section 2 (2) says:
“No law and no provision of any law
made after the commencement of this
Act by the Parliament of a Dominion
shall be void or inoperative on the
ground that it is repugnant to the law
of England, or to the provisions of any
existing or future Act of Parliament of
the United Kingdom, or to any order,
rule, or regulation made under any
such Act, and the powers of the Parliament
of a Dominion shall include
bite out of food production in almost
all the countries that are closer to the
equator than to the poles, and that
includes almost all of the planet’s
bread-baskets.
So the international grain market
will wither for lack of supplies. Countries
that can no longer feed their
people will not be able to buy their
way out of trouble by importing grain
from elsewhere, even if they have the
money. Starving refugees will flood
across borders, whole nations will
collapse into anarchy – and some
countries may make a grab for their
neighbours’ land or water.
These are scenarios that the Pentagon
and other military planning
staffs are examining now. They could
start to come true as little as 15 or
20 years down the road. If this kind
of breakdown becomes widespread,
there will be little chance of making
or keeping global agreements to curb
greenhouse gas emissions and avoid
further warming.
The third conclusion is that there is a
point of no return after which warming
becomes unstoppable – and we are
probably going to sail right through
it. It is the point at which anthropogenic
(human-caused) warming triggers
huge releases of carbon dioxide
from warming oceans, or similar
releases of both carbon dioxide and
methane from melting permafrost,
or both. Most climate scientists think
that point lies not far beyond two de-
the power to repeal or amend any such
Act, order, rule or regulation in so far
as the same is part of the law of the
Dominion.”
Thus we had a king and he was also
king of England but in Ottawa he was
the king of Canada with his prerogatives
limited by Canadian law and custom.
Judging from what I’m reading, modern,
which is to say since I left law
school in 1956, legal opinion seems to
be that if the Tories lose a confidence
vote, the Governor General may refuse
to give Mr. Harper his election writ
and can ask Dion to try to form a government.
I respectfully disagree. I believe
that since 1926, the Balfour Declaration
and the Statute of Westminster
in 1931, combined with our Constitution,
parliamentary custom is that if a
prime minister seeks dissolution and
an election writ, he shall have them. It
is a matter of custom in the absence of
specific constitutional fiat. The custom
in the U.K. has certainly changed to
where no monarch would dare refuse
a prime minister his election and I believe
that’s the custom now in Canada,
though I admit this is inferential not
stated.
Now that’s behind us, let me make
what I believe should be the final verdict.
In our House of Commons we
have an enclave of childish adults who,
rather than deal with the immediate
and soon to be upon us even worse financial
crisis, play with public affairs
as if they were the students’ council of
a small high school (with apologies to
students’ councils across the land.)
grees C hotter (3.6 degrees F).
Once that point is passed, the human
race loses control: cutting our own
emissions may not stop the warming.
But we are almost certainly going to
miss our deadline. We cannot get the
10 lost years back, and by the time a
new global agreement to replace the
Kyoto accord is negotiated and put
into effect, there will probably not be
enough time left to stop the warming
short of the point where we must not
go.
So – final conclusion – we will have
to cheat. In the past two years, various
scientists have suggested several
“geo-engineering” techniques for
holding the temperature down directly.
We might put a kind of temporary
chemical sunscreen in the stratosphere
by seeding it with sulphur
particles, for example, or we could artificially
thicken low-lying maritime
clouds to reflect more sunlight.
These are not permanent solutions;
merely ways of winning more time to
cut our emissions without triggering
runaway warming in the meanwhile.
But the situation is getting very
grave, and we are probably going to
see the first experiments with these
techniques within five years. There is
a way through this crisis, but it isn’t
easy and there is no guarantee of success.
As the Irishman said to the lost traveller:
If that’s where you want to go,
Sir, I wouldn’t start from here.