Weekly Bulletin #11

The big news recently is Harper's decision to Prorogue parliament. I personally don't support this as the reasons for doing this seem kind of flimsy, but it is not something I get too worked up over. After all, parliament wasn't suppose to return until January 25th, so we are only talking about one month and the actual scheduled sitting days was around 15, so there will be plenty of opportunities for the opposition to hold the government to account and even bring them down if they feel they no longer have the confidence. In addition, this does not mean MPs won't be working. Constituency work is just as if not more important than the work done in Ottawa. MPs should already be back at work and hopefully will continue to work through February. The Liberals are right to be upset about parliament being prorogued, but going back to Ottawa when the house is closed seems counter-productive. Instead each Liberal MP should have their constituency office open and be at work there and also hold at least one town hall meeting a week. At the end of the day though, politicians will continue to do this as long as the public lets them get away with it and when the public doesn't then they will stop.

This past week, Haiti was struck by a strong earthquake. We don't know the total casualties, but it will likely be bad. Our government should help evacuate all Canadians stranded there as well as offer direct assistance to Haiti. I generally am reluctant to support foreign aid since too often it ends up in the hands of foreign dictators, but since this was a natural disaster and one they don't have the money to help themselves, I believe we should help out here. Also, in the re-building phase, hopefully we can work with the locals on making sure structures are better able to withstand both earthquakes and hurricanes so as when the next disaster strikes, the death toll is not as bad since this likely won't be the last natural disaster they ever experience.

On the international front, Portugal has legalized same sex marriage which is quite significant since it is a Catholic and socially conservative country. Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, and Norway are all fairly socially liberal so same-sex marriage was not too controversial in any of those and likewise even Spain, despite being heavily Catholic, is very secular and also quite heavily urbanized too. By contrast, Portugal is probably the most socially conservative country to date to legalize same sex marriage and more socially conservative than many European countries such as Germany, Britain, and France which still haven't legalized it thus why this is so significant. In Western Europe, only Greece, Italy, and Ireland are as socially conservative as Portugal.

The first half of January has been unusually cold in some parts of the world. Be it severe frost and snow in Northern Florida, Snow cover for 2-4 weeks in Britain (where anything more than a couple of days is unusual) or extreme cold and heavy snow in Northern China, some will ask if global warming is really happening. I believe global warming is occurring but at a much slower pace than many of the alarmist predict. I don't buy the idea one bit that the earth will be 6 degrees celcius warmer in one century since we only warmed up 0.7 degrees in the past 100 years so I have no idea where they get the six degrees from. After all, our population probably won't grow as much as some think since most developed countries already have birth rates below replacement level and it only reasons that as developing countries standards of living rise, their birth rates will fall. In fact most demographers predict the Earth's population will max out at 2050 and then begin to decline. In addition, the world's climate has always been changing and always will be. During medieval times, Europe was about 3 degrees warmer than today while in the 1600s which was the middle of the Little Ice Age, Europe was about 2 degrees colder. The Thames River frequently froze over, the Canals in Netherlands were frozen for several weeks not just a few days, the Canals in Venice often froze over and snow as far south as Portugal was not unheard of. By contrast during the Middle Ages, wine grapes could grow in Britain, temperatures in Scandinavia were mild enough to grow many crops that no longer grow there. In fact, it is believed the milder weather is why the Vikings reached Newfoundland and the cooling that caused them to abandon their settlements. So while I believe we should take action on global warming, we should not get too hysterical. Likewise one abnormally cold winter doesn't disprove global warming nor does one unusually warm year prove it. I accept the science behind it, but believe many ignore other factors that influence climate as GHG's are not the only thing that influence climate, wind directions, ocean currents have just as big an impact if not more so.