On Thursday of this week, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper introduced a motion of non-confidence in the government.

The motion was seconded by NDP Leader Jack Layton and will be voted on Monday or Tuesday of next week. The Conservatives and the NDP are expected to join with the Bloc Quebecois to support the motion and defeat the Government, leading to a Christmas election campaign with the actual election taking place in mid-January, most likely January 16th or January 23rd.

I find it offensive that a Canadian political party or in this case two political parties would be so determined to defeat the Government; they would sacrifice all principle and join with a separatist party to win the defeat.

Consider the evidence!

The primary objective of the Bloc Québécois, formed in 1991 is to separate Quebec from Canada. In some parts of the world, alliance with a party intent on destroying your country would constitute an act of treason. It appears that in Canada, such alliance is an expression of democracy.

Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Québécois claims his “sovereignist project” is legitimate because it was founded on democratic principles. The separatists want to create their own country so they can control the tools of economic, social and cultural development, even as they would seek to negotiate a new economic and monetary union with Canada.

The new Conservative Party is an amalgam of the old western Reform Party and the newer Alliance Party, both rooted in a form of western separatism so perhaps it’s understandable why they wouldn’t see the harm in partnering with a separatist party from Quebec but I suspect leaders of the old Conservative and the Progressive Conservative parties including Sir John A. MacDonald, John Diefenbaker and Brian Mulroney would role over in their political graves faced with such a notion.

I expected more of the NDP. Historically, it’s been a more progressive party committed to the health and well being of Canadians. How they can rationalize their role in this ‘unholy trinity’ is beyond me.

How do the leaders of two Canadian political parties and their elected members, who claim to own the post-Gomery moral high ground in this country, rationalize their partnership with a political party committed to the destruction of Canada as we know it?

How could anybody trust people who are so cavalier about the future of their country?

Why should we be concerned?

Consider! On October 25, 1993, the Bloc Québécois, headed by Lucien Bouchard won 54 seats over 70% of Québec’s seats in the House of Commons. With that election, the Bloc became the Official Opposition but the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien still won a majority of the seats in Ottawa.

In the next three federal elections (June 1997, November 2000 and June 2004), the Bloc Quebec won 44, 37 and 53 seats respectively. The difference being that in 2004, the increase in seats for the Bloc Quebecois prevented Canadians from forming a majority government.

In the spring of 2005, the Conservatives joined with those same Bloc Quebecois in an attempt to defeat the minority Liberal Government. The opposition tryst failed when Belinda Stronach joined the Liberals and the NDP supported them in a nail-biter confidence vote.

For further evidence of the Bloc’s intentions, rewind to September 1994, when the Parti Québécois, headed by Jacques Parizeau, won a majority of seats in the Quebec National Assembly and formed the government. To prepare for his 1995 referendum, Mr. Parrizeau and his Parti Québécois joined with the Bloc Québécois and Action démocratique to draw up an agreement on sovereignty and the negotiating rules for a partnership that Québec would propose to the rest of Canada if it won the referendum.

On October 30, 1995, Québec voted in referendum on the question "Do you agree that Québec should become sovereign…. within the scope of …. the agreement (Bloc and Action démocratiqu) signed on June 12, 1995?" Support for sovereignty was high. The YES side won 49.4% of the vote while the NO side obtained just 50.6%, barely enough to turn back the separatists.

The federal Government responded to the referendum result with the Clarity Act, an act to ensure a clear question in future referendum and an act to set the terms of constitutional amendment that would be required for Quebec to separate.

Assuming the Unholy Trinity survives this weekend and defeats the Government, I would advise the Prime Minister to call the election for April 10th. That would make good on his promise to call an election 30 days after delivery of the 2nd Gomery Report on February 1st Add 36 days for an election campaign and that would bring us to (the second Monday) April 10, 2006.

An April election would remove the grunge of a Christmas campaign which nobody wants except Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe. It would allow delivery and consideration of the second Gomery Report and it would expose the Unholy Trinity for what it is – unholy, opportunistic and without principle.

It would also allow time for the government to find accommodation with Quebec.

Maybe it’s time to acknowledge Quebec’s sovereignty in matters affecting language, culture, communications, health, education, social policy and justice in return for the Province’s acknowledgement that the Government of Canada has sovereign jurisdiction in matters affecting inter-provincial and international trade and transportation, defense, foreign relations, immigration, land-based natural resources, monetary policy, income tax and taxes on goods and services. Sound familiar?

In this spirit of acknowledgement, maybe the two governments could agree to share jurisdiction in matters of mutual interest such as tax policy, economic development, immigration and communicable diseases. Maybe such acknowledgements would remove the need for separatist parties like the Bloc Quebecois and the Alliance, oops the Conservatives.

An ancient legend holds that Nero, the Emperor of Rome in the year 0064 “fiddled while Rome burned”.

The legend has endured to define people who are indifferent to catastrophe. George Bush’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina might be one example.

In Canada, we have our own catastrophe in the making. Earlier this week, the Parti Québécois elected a new leader André Boisclair, a young, handsome, charismatic, gay, cocaine-using Harvard graduate, a man totally committed to the separation of Quebec from Canada. He’s a symbol of a new generation of separatists.

He brings new life to a cause that until recently was gathering dust on the shelves of his elders.

True, he’s not the Premier and he still has to get elected but the current Premier is fighting a losing battle against public support, looks tired and may not be Premier in another year or two.

Meanwhile, in Ottawa we have political parties and their leaders snorting about the Gomery report and salivating about an election that most likely will be fought on the matter of his revelations and conclusions.

We should be mindful of Allan Gregg’s point, (he’s a former pollster for Brian Mulroney and his Conservative Party) that the so-called Sponsorship program was actually conducted over a nine year period and the cost, not to be discounted because we’re talking about your money and mine, was actually very small and accounted for less than .0003 % of taxpayers’ dollars over that period.

This does not excuse the stupidity of a program that assumed that the minds and hearts of Quebecers could be won by displaying logos and signs at sport fishing and hunting trade shows or by handing out Government of Canada trinkets and flags at country fairs.

This is not to justify theft or misuse of public funds, nor does it exonerate the actions of a “rogue public servant who interpreted his political masters’ wishes as a mandate for which normal rules do not apply”.

However, the “hyperventilation” of both the opposition and the media takes our eyes off Quebec and the deteriorating relationship that province has with Canada.

Depending on whose poll you read, the Bloc Quebecois has the support of 50 to 55% of voters in Quebec. That’s enough to win a referendum. It’s also enough to win 50 or 60 seats in a federal election, a huge majority in that province that will surely deny the other parties a chance to win a majority government in Canada.

The Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP are fixated on the Gomery inquiry; each with a different agenda. All three want an election to be underway when the second Gomery report is released February 1, 2006.

Justice Gomery exonerated Mr. Martin in his report but Canadians appear not to believe him (G&M/CTV polls Nov 4 and 7). It’s hard to imagine that anything new will come out of the second report but the first has already undermined confidence in the integrity of government.

Reaction to Gomery, regardless of who forms the next government will almost certainly lead to new layers of government bureaucracy to ensure that process and procedure become more important than outcomes and benefits.

Stephen Harper’s has already jumped on the process wagon by promising safeguards against corruption such as whistleblower legislation to protect government informers; tougher audits, more powers for the auditor general, increased public access to information and the recruitment of “watchdogs with teeth”.

Very impressive coming from Mr. Harper because he is obviously a man of integrity and high principle as shown by his willingness to partner with anybody, including the separatist Bloc Quebecois to defeat the Canadian government.

Near loss of the 1995 referendum was frightening. Initial response from the federal government was shock and disorientation. The notion that flags and sponsorship signage could overwhelm the emotions of a people flirting with nationhood and separation was and is a joke.

Mr. Gomery’s report makes it clear that the sponsorship problems were confined to Quebec. The program was naively conceived. It was badly executed.

Mr. Martin’s first act as prime minister was to cancel the program. When the Auditor General jumped all over it, the PM reacted with high-profile dismissals of Chrétien-supporters and the calling of inquiries that have pillaged French Quebecers.

Voters in Quebec were irritated by the dismissals but enraged by revelations of the Gomery inquiry and the notion that someone was convinced their loyalty to Canada could be purchased with signs and graffiti. Justice Gomery’s report has reignited that rage.

Meanwhile, Canadians have allowed themselves to be stampeded by the moral indignation of a media community which chooses to amplify the bogus outrage of Stephen Harper, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe, three vultures who perpetuate and feed on the perception that an entire Liberal Government was complicit in the acts of a few misguided bureaucrats and Montreal ad executives.

Not one of these party leaders is credible on this issue. One of them is intent on the destruction of Canada even as he collects his salary and pension from the people of Canada.

In contrast to the opposition parties, the Prime Minister appears to have turned his attention to matters of productivity, tax-cutting, prosperity and international relationships, none of which seem to connect him to the everyday needs of Canadians. He needs to put a warmer face on his government, one that will appeal to Quebec. It’s the only way he can hope to unlock the support he needs to win a majority government.

The Conservatives and NDP have little or no support in that province. The Liberals continue to lose ground. They need to give themselves a shake. A Gomery-based election will fan the flames of separation in Quebec. The legend of Nero could strike again if our wannabe emperors insist on playing their Gomery fiddles.

Justice Gomery’s first Report on Sponsorship flipped the lead in national polls from Liberal to Conservative (Strategic Counsel – November 4-05 Globe & Mail / CTV).

Even though Prime Minister Martin was exonerated by the Sponsorship Report, the pollster said at the time “people didn’t believe Gomery’s major conclusions”.

Indeed, 60% of those polled didn’t believe that Martin was not involved in the sponsorship program. An even larger number (71%) felt “he must be held accountable” for the mess.

The kindness Martin received from Justice Gomery at the time was not enough to make people believe. By pushing the blame for Adscam on former Prime Minister Chrétien, Justice Gomery drove a wedge between Martin’s supporters and supporters of the former Prime Minister.

Voter skepticism was magnified by the media attention commanded by Mr. Chrétien when he challenged Justice Gomery’s conclusions.

Four days later, a second poll (Strategic Counsel – November 7-05 Globe & Mail / CTV) showed the Liberals reversing their flip and moving back into the lead with a 35% to 28% margin.

A parallel poll by Leger Marketing confirmed the reversal showing the Liberals at 34% and the Conservatives at 26%. So what’s going on?

One explanation is that blanket coverage of Gomery’s Report had faded by the time the second and third polls were completed and voter disgust had receded. Another possibility is that voters decided to accept Gomery’s conclusion that Martin was blameless. A third possibility is that voters got cold feet when they saw Stephen Harper chomping for an election.

Jack Layton’s tentative withdrawal of support for the Liberals created the possibility of an election in the next 90 to 120 days. Talk of an election sparks discussion about electoral reform.

Clearly, voters are fed up with the sponsorship inquiry. They want it to go away but they also want circumstances that created it to disappear. Stephen Harper’s idea of electoral reform was to present an “ethics” package to a joint session of the Empire and Canadian Clubs in Toronto. Residents of Prince Edward Island are considering a different response.

In two weeks, the Provincial Government will hold a plebiscite on the Island’s electoral future. The question posed to voters will be ‘should Prince Edward Island change its electoral system to the mixed member proportional scheme recommended by the Commission on Prince Edward Island’s Electoral Future’.

The Commission has proposed a two ballot system.

On the first ballot, people would vote for candidates by local district.

On the second ballot, people would vote for a political party’s list of provincial candidates.

Seventeen districts would elect 17 members to the provincial legislature and ten more would be elected from provincial lists. In advance of an election, each political party would present a list of its provincial candidates, ranked in preference from 1 through 10. List candidates would be allocated by popular vote. Example: 30% of the popular vote would elect the 3 most preferred candidates from a party’s list.

The formula is similar to formulae used in Germany and New Zealand where election outcomes permit parties with the smallest number of elected members to determine who governs their respective country. Picture a Canada with a government too weak to govern or make decisions.

Picture a Canada with the Green party, the NDP or the Bloc calling the shots. Umm, sound familiar!

The debate on PEI stirs the emotions of Islanders. The Government has set November 28th as plebiscite day, the second province in a year to call for such a vote. Even before the vote, folks are already accusing Premier Binns of trying to derail the outcome by reducing the number of polling stations open to voters.

A recent CBC poll found only two provincial MLAs supporting the reform proposal. The Island Commission wants its model adopted if it receives the support of 50% of voters. Premier Binns is suggesting 60% would be more appropriate while Opposition Leader Robert Ghiz says a 60% voter turnout with a 60% yes vote should be the measure for adoption.

The Government is not bound by the outcome because a plebiscite is merely an expression of public opinion but most governments would want to heed such an opinion, if it was expressed in unequivocal terms.

In May, British Columbians voted for proportional representation but the vote failed to attract the 60% support required for passage. Premier Gordon Campbell pledged a second vote for November 2008, after new riding boundaries are put in place. Scott Reid, Conservative MP has since called for a national citizens’ assembly on electoral reform to study the model used by British Columbia.

Arguments in favour of proportional representation begin with the fact that 33 of the 36 liberal democracies in the world, having populations of at least two million people use some form of proportional representation to elect their representative bodies. Their experience has shown that proportional representation elicits higher voter turnout and stronger representation of women, aboriginals and minorities. Some claim that proportionately represented government is actually more efficient because political parties have to cooperate to govern.

Arguments against proportional representation cite the haggling and compromise that often go with proportional representation. Those who argue in favour seem to prefer minority or coalition governments where smaller parties control the balance of power. They believe such governments are more responsive to the people.

That’s a debatable notion because smaller parties usually spring from ideology, ethnicity or regional interest. Sounds like Green, NDP, Alliance and Bloc to me! Maybe that’s why Canadians stepped back so quickly in the polls from the Conservative alliance. Maybe, they’re not ready for Stephen Harper’s western ideology of reform and ethics.

If residents of Prince Edward Island should vote themselves in favour of proportional representation, pressure could mount on the federal government to look at the idea.

Justice Gomery may have provided the impetus. PEI may provide the momentum.

A few weeks ago, Provincial Opposition Leader Shawn Graham promised to conduct a study into the feasibility of building a second Lepreau nuclear plant.

Predictably, the naysayers jumped all over him. Energy Minister Fitch dismissed the idea as “childish”, even though Premier Lord has publicly mused about the possibility of building a second Lepreau.

• A few days later, Mr. Fitch appeared to retract his statement when he said in a letter to the Telegraph Journal that “we have never said no to a second nuclear reactor” at Lepreau.
• James Lea, President of PEI’s Maritime Electric says it’s time to start thinking about a second nuclear plant.
• David Hay, President of NB Power says talk of a second reactor is premature. “We need to focus on what is in front of us now” he says.

Ray Frenette, former Premier of New Brunswick and recently retired Chairman of AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) has a different view of things. He would build two new nuclear plants, one at Lepreau and the other on the Acadian coast. His rationale is worthy of discussion.

First he sees nuclear generation of electricity as a replacement for oil-fired generation, not an addition. Second he points out the economic benefits that would flow to the two locations, starting with about 700 skilled and highly paid jobs to operate each plant. Third, he reminds us that oil, natural gas and coal-fired plants are polluters of the environment.

Let’s examine his thesis.

One of NB Power’s biggest operating expenses is the cost of fuel. Thermal fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) cost the company $366 million in fiscal 2004/05. Nuclear fuel (uranium) cost the utility $9 million during the same period.

Uranium fuel price advances over five year period.

To put this into perspective, you need to know that nuclear accounted for 30% of the electricity generated by NB Power last year.

The cost of generating electricity with oil/gas/coal was forty (40) times higher than the cost of generating electricity with uranium but the volume of electricity generated by oil/gas/coal was only one and a half times the volume of electricity generated by uranium.

Canada is rich in uranium. It’s a made in Canada fuel. It’s hugely less expensive than oil or gas or even coal.

• France produces 80% of its electricity from nuclear energy,
• Belgium 58%,
• Sweden 44% and,
• Switzerland 36%.
• In fact nuclear plants produce a third of Europe’s electricity and a third of Japan’s electricity, so we would be in good company with a Lepreau II and an Acadian III.
  

The economic impact of building nuclear plants in this province would be significant.

It’s estimated that each plant would cost about $2 billion to construct. If they replaced even 50% of our thermal power, fuel savings alone would be worth at least $180 million a year.

Indeed, fuel savings would pay for both plants in less than 25 years.

If they got us off oil completely, the plants would pay for themselves in half that time.

According to Mr. Frenette, the new plants would contribute $100 million a year to their local economies and that doesn’t include the five to seven years of construction work.

He believes the workers for Lepreau could be educated and trained at UNB Saint John and workers for the Acadian plant could be schooled at the Shippigan campus of the Université of Moncton and the l’Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, which has a nuclear program and offers a degree in nuclear physics.

Power plants fired by oil, gas and coal are major sources of carbon dioxide and deadly gas emissions that cause global warming. Anything that gets us off oil/gas/coal will reduce these emissions.

As an added bonus, the Kyoto accord will force operators of these plants to pay for their pollution. That should make nuclear power facilities even more competitive.

If nuclear plants are feasible, the biggest challenge may be in finding the money to build them. Where would it come from?

Clearly NB Power doesn’t have the funding capacity. The provincial government doesn’t have a $4 billion nest egg to toss at the project.

I suspect the funding would have to come from some combination of the federal and provincial governments and the private sector. AECL would be an obvious player.

The economic/environmental benefits would justify federal government participation. There could be room for Nova Scotia Power (Emera) in the project. There may even be opportunity to float a public share offering but these are matters for policy makers, financiers and regulators.

The bottom line, in my view is that we cannot afford to dismiss the idea of increasing our nuclear capacity. The cost of oil is not going down.

Our electricity rates continue to climb. We’re looking at another big increase in April. The only way we can grab control of these rates is to fix our costs.

Nuclear power with a twenty to thirty year price contract for Canadian uranium would bring stability and predictability to our electricity bills.

Shawn Graham is right to push for a study that would determine the feasibility of Lepreau II but the study should go beyond Lepreau to the feasibility of a second and perhaps a third uranium-fueled, electricity-generating plant.

The time for that study is now because the combination of planning and construction probably means we’re talking 10 to 15 years before the doors of those plants could be opened for business.

James Lovelock, renowned British scientist and promoter of green energy underlines the urgency of that study with this quote
“As a scientist, I consider the Earth and its environment to have reached a state that is profoundly dangerous to our civilization. We have made the Earth sick and it will not be cured by wind turbines and bio fuels alone. This is why I can recommend nuclear energy as part of the recovery treatment.”