Harper kills off Wizard of Kyoto

Why is it that it's always the English speaking peoples that have to do the heavy lifting for the rest of the world - militarily, morally and financially? What have France, Germany, Italy or even Brazil done to contribute to world peace, prosperity and moral righteousness in the last fifty years?

After years of a leftist, 'European' government in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper does a 'John Howard' by calling things as they are and killing off Canada's ongoing involvement in the Kyoto Protocol.

Ding-dong the Kyoto witch is dead, killed off by Canadian politicians -- Conservative and Liberal -- who never believed in it anyway.

The messy coup de grace was delivered Thursday by Environment Minister John Baird, standing in for the nation's leading, although now undercover, global warming sceptic, Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Meanwhile, the predictable festival of indignation marking Kyoto's demise was led by Stephane Dion, leader of the Liberals -- collectively the biggest bunch of hypocrites on Kyoto to ever darken a doorway in Ottawa.

Bad enough Harper now pretends to take global warming seriously. The Liberals pretended to do so for almost a decade after they signed Kyoto in 1998, then did nothing to implement it until they were tossed from power last year.

To know how dead Kyoto is, you only had to listen to the reaction of the special interest groups on Thursday, after Baird announced the Tories' "Kyoto-lite" plan, which is actually tougher on pollution than greenhouse gases.

Spokespeople for Alberta's oil sands, the auto sector and other big industrial emitters said the regulations were tough, but they could live with them. (Translation? They're relieved.)

As for those groups that believe in Kyoto, let's call them "the Suzuki nation," they were really ticked off.

Harper is gambling we Canadians talk a better game on Kyoto than they're willing to play, or, more important, pay.

He read the polls showing that while we support implementing Kyoto by a margin of two-to-one, we also, by the same margin, don't want to pay significantly more for fossil fuels to do it.

Thus we've been handed "Kyoto-lite" -- which will cost the average family a few hundred dollars a year once it's up and running, rather than a few thousand.

Since the Conservatives will introduce their reforms by regulation, not legislation, they won't become an issue on which they could fall through a non-confidence vote.

Still, the next election will come soon enough. Then, Kyoto supporters will be able to punish the Conservatives by voting Liberal, NDP, Bloc or Green.

But even if they do, make no mistake. In Canada, Kyoto's dead. Born 1998, died 2007. RIP. And good riddance.

Well done, Canada, and welcome back to the real world. Hopefully, our cousins in New Zealand will work out that the half a billion dollars they've already pissed up against the wall by ratifying Kyoto has achieved nothing and, in conjunction with a weakening economy, will see them soon join Canada, Australia and the United States as climate change realists. It'll take a change of government, of course, but that might not be more than one election away.