Panglossian Notes

Poor baby Okalik, dreaming of being a strong man?

You wonder sometimes about this leader from Nunavut, Okalik and his frustrations.

He told a group of ambassadors at a conference in Whitehorse about his difficult life. Seems his biggest problem may be that someone might ask a question. From the CBC report, he indicated that:

"Using the consensus style of government, with no political parties, means during budget debate all 18 MLAs can ask as many questions as they want, ... ."

For some reason he thinks that this does not happen in a party style parliamentary system.

"It can be frustrating at times," said Okalik [when people ask questions I presume]. "Those days you wish you had party politics."

Blogger's comment in square brackets.

He is supposedly a lawyer, at least he seems to have passed the bar examine in Canada's newest territory Nunavut.

I wonder if he has practiced law? I think he was made the leader of this territory the day he also got called to the bar so maybe that's his excuse for being frustrated, poor baby, no time for any real world experience.

The reason I raised this is that his statements at times seem to make little or no sense and indicated a marked lack of understanding of any parliamentary system whether it be the political party variety or the consensus type.

I would have thought that a graduate of any Canadian law school might know the basics of the Canadian governing system.

Oh well, I guess it's not required if you are, Okalik.

I wonder what party he might dream about forming when he is out on the golf links.

I wonder if he might think that actually developing policy and really leading a party could maybe be just a bit, as he'd clearly think based on his comments to the ambassadors, frustrating.

Why?

Well, of course, because someone might ask a question.

Glad what an idiot. Maybe he needs an internship in a failed foreign state where no one asks questions.

I'd say that stringing this so-called territorial leader's comments together indicates one of the serious problems facing this new territory and it isn't the housing, education or general social issues normally trotted out as dilemmas in this part of the Arctic.

It is that the territory seems to have a completely immature and badly functioning political system and this is underlined and highlighted by the Leader Okalik.

Technorati Tags: Canada, CBC, Democracy, Nunavut, Politicans, Stupidity

I wonder how we ensure our claim?

It seems that some Canadian bloggers maybe waking up to the oil & natural gas (O&G) potential in the high arctic.

The article in the To Star referenced at the cathiefromcanada blog doesn't really go into to many details about the rather large O&G potential in the north. Nor for that matter some of the other interesting things that have been happening while the government of Canada's view was almost solely focused south of 60º.

The Star article makes a guess that PM Harper's comments in the Common's foyer regarding the US ambassador's statement about sovereignty in the north are likely just good PR bluster.

I guess I tend to agree.

I'll bet most Canadians haven't heard of: Pat Broe from Denver. But they might in the future, eh. He's the guy that bought the old Hudson Bay port facility in Churchhill Manitoba for $7 in 1997. Wonder whether he paid for it with USD or CAD.

With natural gas prices seeming to be ever on the rise (even through there are day to day drops in price the trend is up), high arctic projects are starting to look better and better. CERI has updated its report on the Melville Island's Drake Point and Hecla natural gas fields for example.

I think PetroCan has the main interest in these fields. Discovered in the hay day of northern O&G exploration and likely heavily subsidized by Canadian taxpayers either through "super depletion" or the famous Petroleum Incentive Program (PIP) which itself was part of the Alberta hated NEP.

To give a view of what things look like from the to of the world have a peek at this map. It helps to put some things into focus, I hope. PM Harpers is talking about putting a military style harbour facility in Iqaluit - which is a 100 or so miles down the Frobisher Bay from the Davis Strait.

Iqaluit likely made some sense during WWII and part of the "cold war", the former as an airport in ferrying planes to Britain and the latter as a fuel station and radar center, put now who knows. Its the capital of Nunavut but really there is very little economic activity with the city other than government or birth right organization supported.

The US has 2 coast guard icebreakers which are stationed, I think, in Seattle.

If the arctic file heats up, want to bet that they will be stationed closer to the action.

What is that famous Northwest Passage anyways.

It of course has been a number of things but again, thanks to Athropolis, here is a map showing the concept over time.

Notice that until the permanent sea ice actually does melt the passage cuts south of Victoria Island and goes right pass Cambridge Bay - very close to Gjoa Haven also (I think Amundsen ship is still there in the harbour just sunk). Now if you are close to Cambridge bay you are close to Bathurst Inlet which is a natural deep sea harbour.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Nunavut, Politics

Follow up from else where

Just a couple of pictures of ice breakers in the spring in Iqaluit.

Never sure what Harper maybe about with his "armed breakers".

If the ice doesn't go out of Iqaluit by the end of June the breakers are always there. Sea lift starts in July after all, eh.

Then the beautifies, of course, are needed to re-supply Grise, Nanasivik for fuel no more, eh.

We do have a presents in the Arctic. It is the Inuit.

The Rangers are there - ever wonder why so many Inuit can be full/active members of the Legion and don't need to dig up some poor rotted ancestor to have the prevelge of drinking in the Arctic

Because the Inuit do active service all the time with the Rangers.

Whatever, eh, just a couple of pictures to prove the red hulled ships are in Iqaluit in the spring (you try to define spring in the arctic). I think the pictures are from late June 2003 or so. The middle picture is just one of those accidents that ends up looking quite nice, though it is also a great shot of the Iqaluit garbage dump burning - the old days, eh for you Northerners.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Nunavut

ANWR, oh ANWR!

So the axe hasn't fallen yet - Senate Blocks Arctic Drilling. Notice that I haven't said that I was wrong in my last post, I thought the Demo's could not get anything together to block the Defence Bill.

So guess I'm wrong at times. I'm great at apologizes. But

I still think ANWR is ultimately going to be drilled.

And I think maybe the Inuit and Inuvialuit unfortunately have to face this.

So how to control the effects, it's their land and ultimately their culture which will take the big hit if the caribou's migrations and birthings are disrupted.

I don't want anyone to surrender but - what is your fallback situation. At time I don't think the charmers from outside ever consider this for the locals. Strong support until a complete defeat but the Inuvialuit and Inuit do live there. So what to do when you may have lost a battle, eh?

Got to admit the the House of Representatives and Senate politics is a bit more interesting than our HoC. This could be because I simply don't know enough, yet, about it and the various procedural games to be played.

I'm definitely a new boy as I'm still struggling to find my way around both the Houses websites. Great winter entertainment, hmm, need to what?

Technorati Tags: Canada, Economics, First Nation, Nunavut, Resource Revenue

ANWR

So the HR have opened up drilling in ANWR if the Senate approves. This was predicted as I recall.

Least these guys sit late.

"The ANWR provision was attached to a major defense bill, forcing many opponents of oil and gas exploration in the barren northern Alaska range to vote for it. The bill, passed 308-106, also included money for hurricane relief and bird flu preventive measures."

Here's the first news report I read. Many more links.

Everyone should know for sure whether drilling will be opened up by Wednesday. Since Bush has been handed so many slights recently I suspected he'll get a pass on this from the Senate.

The authority to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil exploration — long sought by President Bush, energy companies and Republican leaders — will be attached to a separate fiscal 2006 defense-spending bill that has widespread support in both parties because of its funding for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rushing to get out of town for the holidays, the House moved toward early-morning votes on both bills.

The Senate could act today on the budget bill and as early as Wednesday on defense spending.

Washington Post

Interesting link to the House Resource Committee re: ANWR

Technorati Tags: Canada, Nunavut, Politics

More strangeness in the Arctic

Strange and a bit unsettling item from the Wall Street Journal.

Seems that US scientists have started to find drowned polar bears off Alaska. Who would have thought that polar bears could drowned? Sounds dumb on my part, I know , since the bears swim around the Arctic so it would only seem probable that some might drowned.

But I've only ever heard of their great swimming ability - you know typical story of bear sightings hundreds of miles from shore - and never of them drowning.

Last year the government of Nunavut increased the quote of bears Inuit in that territory would be allowed to kill because they said that based on traditional aboriginal knowledge the bear population had increased.

The increase was called into question particularly the traditional knowledge component. This component is usually respected by both Canadian and US officials if it can be substantiated.

However if rapid changes are occurring in the Arctic knowledge acquired by observing usual weather and animal patterns over a number of years may be seriously flawed.

There should be an interesting cultural clash if this goes on for any length of time.

Hey speak of the devil, the clash may have already begun.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Nunavut

ANWR

Will's article, Our Fake Drilling Debate, provides a strong indication why I think the US congress will approve drilling in ANWR.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Resource Revenue

Generally just distrubing

So the gulf stream (original Nature article) is starting to show signs of change.

This is really just pretty upsetting.

Questions:

Can the effects be slowed down or stopped at the present level?

Has the melting of the GreenLand glaciers gone past the no return point?

More than anything else the Conference at Montreal on Kyoto likely should be trying to at least struggle with questions of what to do if we are past the no return point.

Could someone at least start to think about it?

From what I can gather the Montreal meeting's main objective will be less urgent and then again maybe I'm being chicken-little by thinking Kyoto is really an anachronism.

From the conference documents the objectives maybe noble, in effect to consider how legally to get everyone to agree to the:

"... stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."

But if things aren't now stabilized, should we be considering how to deal with the instability?

Technorati Tags: Global Warming, News and Politic, Politics

Another fine mess

What's to say. The week didn't start well.

The 3 stooges had their little meeting on Sunday and by the end all 3 had clearly worked themselves into an ecstasy of moral outrage. Moral outrage bores me and usually makes me suspicious. It's up there with patriotic furor as far as scondrelism goes.

I've waited awhile to see if any real outcomes would happen either yesterday or today but Curly, Larry and Moe in the good vaudevillian style I, at least, have come to expect of them don't seem to know quite what their stage directions are.

So, today natter, natter, natter. More moral outrage. More likely tomorrow.

Generally quite a disappointing week so far.

Ralph Goodale, the Finance Minister, delivered the economic update and more importantly the very long awaited plan on Canada's future - A Plan for Growth and Prosperity.

The Finance Minister said today on T.V., no sorry it was on the local CBC this morning, he had been working on this document for 7 or 8 months. Well nothing to write home about Ralph.

At this point all I can do is pick holes in it. Just as an example in the executive summary under the heading increasing government productivity the initiatives that are listed are really nothing more than measures to tighten up accountability likely because of the sponsorship mess. Also, how is productivity actually measured in the civil service. As I remember, it was a struggle to develop any real productivity measures in service sector industries [clearly I need to check this as the world may have moved way past what I remember.]. More, the document indicates that the feds maybe back at trying to harmonize consumptions taxes across the country. I note they didn't mention their consumption tax is the GST nor the really old promise now to get rid of it which was in the Red Book.

With friends like these characters down South thumbing their noses at free trade you really have to start considering other options and this is not addressed in the xx pages of platitudes and feel good bromides included in this document.

Also a Red Book wish to have a better dispute resolution mechanism. Oops, should I be mentioning that. It might have been better to focus on the dispute mechanism rather than scrapping the GST.

The latter got us the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) large bribes, in effect, for Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick along with another Quebec irritant - Quebec had sensibly and for good policy and political reasons (their administer both the GST and the QST within the province) harmonized their provincial sales tax with the GST prior to the Red Book promise so they got nothing.

The issue won't go away so I wonder why "Growth and Prosperity" is raising the mess again.

Ah history.

But just for some light amusement, Arctic politicians of Inuit organizations really take the cake for retreated ideas.

Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated is reopening discussion on the issue of a single time zone for the territory of Nunavut. The land claim organization debated the matter yesterday at its board meeting in Cambridge Bay. Six years ago Nunavut experimented with one time zone, but many people were opposed to it.

Six months after Nunavut was born, its government created a single time zone. But instead of unifying people, it created disharmony. Parents complained their children were leaving school in darkness. Hunters did not like hunting at odd hours. The territorial government went back to three major time zones. But Nunavut Tunngavik President Paul Kaludjak wants to revisit the idea. He says it would be easier to coordinate activities in the three regions.

“We can do it the right way. It was done the wrong way before. Because it was done by some government staff that didn’t understand Nunavut at all. And now we’ve learned from that, we can try it again. I think it is doable.”

CBC
News North
November 15, 2005

But who knows maybe this one's time has come even though first time around it had a bit of trouble.

Wonder what government staff didn't understand about Nunavut. That maybe it includes 4 time zones Atlantic, Eastern, Central and Mountain but only uses the last 3.

Oh, I know they didn't know how to turn back or move forward the hands of a clock. Worse, they couldn't remember or lost the instruction booklets for their electronic clocks and watches.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Economics, Finance, Nunavut, Politics, Stupidity

Let the drilling commence?

The US Senate approved today budget legislation (S 1932) that includes a provision opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil & gas exploration.

A group of Democratic Senators had proposed an amendment to strike the section of S 1932 that included the provision to drill in the ANWR. It wasn't successful.

Stéphane Dion has indicated that we will keep lobbying the US House of Representatives which now has to consider whether it agrees to the amendments made by the Senate. (Both the Senate and the House have to agree on a Bill and any amendments either chamber makes before it's sent to the President to consider.) But most think it unlikely that the House won't agree with the provision.

An interesting aside is the new blog coming out of the US Embassy in Ottawa called "no stone unturned".

I suspect the point is to encourage some debate. The paragraph below was quoted by the CBC talking head to Henry Champ in Washington. Henry's response was critical and a bit defensive but it was simply read to him over the wire. I think it was taken out of context and unfortunately the CBC news item may have conveyed the wrong impression. Talking heads, eh.

Based on the impression left by the CBC story I hope the poor guy writing the blog doesn't get numbers of nasty e-mails.

The paragraph in question:

What has got the Canadian Government so upset about possible drilling in ANWR? Is it really about the caribou? Or is this simply another issue that resonates with Canadians in election season? Objectively, proposals to do exploratory drilling on one small section of a 19 million acre wildlife refuge wouldn't seem to merit this level of attention.

Blog from the
Embassy of the USA
Ottawa

The saber rattling has already started in the North.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Nunavut, Politics, Resource Revenue