Hope man charged after counterfeit currency passed off at Hope gas station.

Cory Burger, a 34-year old man from Hope has been arrested and is facing charges after allegedly passing off counterfeit currency at a business in Hope.

On May 1, Hope RCMP were called to the Flying J gas station on Flood Hope Road when staff discovered the alleged fake U.S. $10 bill.  Cory Burger was arrested and charged with possession and uttering counterfeit currency.

Cpl. D.J. Rennie of the Hope RCMP says the arrest led police to the execution of a search warrant at a location where police allegedly found computers and counterfeit money.  Investigators also allegedly found evidence relating to the production of counterfeit cash.

Rennie says “the fake bills were US $10 bills with a serial number of IE70080723A.

Cpl. Rennie adds “I would like to thank the business community for their assistance and cooperation into this investigation”.  He says “the phony US $10 bills were passed throughout businesses in Hope and the Fraser Valley”.

So far, Buger has been charged with possession and uttering counterfeit currency, but the police investigation into the matter continues.

Charges against Cory Burger have not been proven in a court of law.

Senator Mike Duffy. Photo: Handout.

If the recent Senate expense scandals have taught Canadians anything, it’s that Parliament of Canada officials will take advantage of the rules to pad their pockets if they can.

Senator Mike Duffy has become the poster boy for Parliament of Canada abuse of expense guidelines but he’s hardly alone. Like Mike Duffy, former Conservative senators Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau are now sitting in disgrace as independents.

Will more senators join them before this mess is properly sorted?

And what about the misguided tweet from newbie Calgary Centre MP Joan Crockatt? Anyone who follows the former Calgary Herald editor, as I do, is familiar with Crockateer’s tenuous grasp of facts and logic. Like this whopper from Monday, in which she forgets there are three former Tory senators, not two, and bizarrely tries to spin the scandal enveloping the Red Chamber: ”Our govt has the highest ethical standards demonstrated by 3 resignations: 2 from Senate caucus & the PM chief of staff.”

Tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey. $2 will be donated to breast cancer research for every completed survey. 

Crockatt’s now infamous tweet has inspired columns by national political pundits, outrage on social media networks, and plenty of head shaking by ordinary Canadians. What it hasn’t inspired is any indication from the Harper Government that substantive reform of the Senate’s free spending ways is on the horizon.

Vacuums have a way of being filled, which is why I wasn’t surprised to find a release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in today’s inbox. Director Gregory Thomas is calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to introduce an Accountability Act 2.0, “to put an end to expense fraud by Senators and restore the confidence of Canadians in Parliament.”

The CTF proposal has five parts:

• Mandatory online reporting of office, travel, and hospitality expenses for all MPs and Senators (including receipts),
• Annual random audits of MPs and Senators by the auditor general
• Applying the Access to Information Act to MPs and Senators
• Scrapping pension entitlements for those convicted of stealing from taxpayers
• Ability to recall parliamentarians

“When the Conservatives were elected in 2006 they brought in the first Accountability Act in response to the sponsorship scandal, now it’s time for the Accountability Act 2.0 to clean up the senate expense scandal,” said Thomas, who points out that as of this past fall Alberta requires all elected officials, political staff and senior bureaucrats to post expenses and receipts online.

Beacon reporter Christopher Walsh wrote in a February news story that Alison Redford’s government brought in the new rules partly because of lavish spending on the part of Alberta Health Services, which was using public money to buy Calgary Flames tickets, for instance.

Government, it seems, has become big business, but without the spending controls that usually accompany successul private enterprises. Thomas and the CTF say it’s time for the Canadian government to emulate the Prime Minister’s home province.

“Had these rules been in place for the Parliament of Canada two years ago, Senator Duffy’s receipts would have shown that he wasn’t spending much time in PEI while claiming a housing allowance,” said Thomas.

Thomas says Senators and MPs convicted of filing fraudulent expense claims should lose their generous pension entitlements, much like the law recently passed in Nova Scotia by the NDP government.

“There needs to be a cost associated with ripping off taxpayers,” said Thomas. “Otherwise this is never going to stop.”

Indeed.

And given the precedent of at least one province requiring online reporting of expenses, which demonstrates that it can be done without a lot of muss and fuss, the Canadian government should implement this program immediately for all Members of Parliament, senators, and deputy ministers.

Prime Minister Harper says he’s a fiscal conservative, let him behave like one.

Tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey. $2 will be donated to breast cancer research for every completed survey. 

Don’t blame pollsters for the BC Election 2013 results, says the University of Calgary’s Jean-Sébastien Rioux.

By Jean-Sébastien Rioux

Another election; another “shockwave” and another round of mea culpas. The May 14 election in British Columbia caused consternation among the punditry and, coming just a year after a similar surprise in the Alberta election results, led to another round of calls for pollsters to explain themselves and to account for their (alleged) incompetence. Not just pollsters, but political scientists and pundits too: all these talking heads who predicted an NDP government led by Adrian Dix should be ashamed of themselves, right?

I am a political scientist – and a political junkie. I confess that I never went on television to speak about the election in my neighbouring province. Moreover, a good friend of mine is a pollster and I would regularly ask him how things are going in BC – he never personally conducted any polls there, but he is a guy I turn to for these things. But Twitter and Television were calling for “our” heads last night.

To all, I say this: I am taking a stand, and the pollsters are not to blame, for their job is not to elect the politicians. Instead, why not congratulate the thousands of BC Liberal Party volunteers who worked on getting out the vote (GOTV)? Why not acknowledge that Christy Clark travelled more and impressed the voters (and editorial boards) more than Dix did? And why not acknowledge that somewhere around four or five percent of the voters simple decided, in the last days, that economic stability was more important than “throwing the bums out”, the baby and the bathwater as well?

Employment for women – new opportunities on Canadian oil rigs. Read it today!

I say again: the pollsters were not the ones electing the candidates. Yet, pundits in the media profession seem to interpret polls that way. Polls are a snapshot of citizens’ attitudes and mood at a given time; and not all citizens either: online polls don’t sample older folks as well as they should, given their voting behaviour; land line phone surveys don’t capture all the under-35s who don’t and never have had a land line at home; and we all hate robo-surveys and we might not be giving the right information when the robots call.

Pundits and political scientists are not entirely to blame, either. Media need to fill 24 hours of news chatter each and every day, and they ask these folks to comment on the horse race – and many if not most political scientists have never been to the racetrack, so to speak. I don’t know many university professors who have run for public office, who have worked the phone banks, or who have door-knocked or “main-streeted” with politicians (although Yours Truly and a few others such as my colleague Dr. Ted Morton actually do). They usually don’t know much about political operations and war rooms on a personal level. They read the polls; infer what they can, and try to satisfy the Media Beast’s hunger for on-air punditry.

I will be a minority holding the opinion I do about polling, pollsters and the political pundits: most journalists and citizens will demand answers, better methodologies and mea culpas. These analyses won’t hurt, and improving polling models and methodologies will contribute to better social science. But Economists get GDP predictions wrong all the time; meteorologists get tomorrow’s weather wrong as often as not; sports experts predict the wrong winner of various NHL playoff series on a regular basis; and what to say about today’s Horoscope – should I buy that lotto ticket or not? So why pick solely on the pollsters? The other night, the voters elected the politicians, and the voters got it right.

Adrian Dix and BC NDP must rethink the party after humiliating defeat to BC Liberals last week. Photo: BC NDP/Facebook.

By Dermod Travis  

The great thing about political punditry is the ability to be right and wrong at the same time and get away with it, which is why the pundits who were no better at predicting the outcome of the BC election shouldn’t be expected to be any better at interpreting the results.

It’s quite simple: the BC Liberal party set out to win at all costs and did. They ran the better campaign, got their vote out and won. They were even willing to throw a candidate or two under the bus to do it, as witnessed by two full page ads in Victoria’s Times Colonist extolling the virtues of Green party leader Jane Sterk paid for by none other than the BC Liberal party.

Fault them for their tactics, but not even the huffing and puffing of political observers over those tactics seems to resonate long with the voters who ultimately decide elections.

What should be of concern though is the emergence of an almost constant pool of voters in BC and an equivalent block of non-voters.

Employment for women – new opportunities on Canadian oil rigs. Read it today!

In 2009, 1.65 million voters cast a ballot. In the 2011 HST referendum, 1.61 million mailed-in their vote. And last week, 1.63 million made the trek to the polls, although that number will rise slightly when absentee ballots are tallied.

Looked at another way: close to half of the province’s eligible voters continue to turn their back on the ballot box. That’s not a good thing.

And what lurks beneath these numbers should worry BC NDP operatives.

In 1979 at the crest of its support, Dave Barrett and the BC NDP won 46 per cent of the popular vote or 646,188 votes out of 1.4 million cast. They still lost the election. Last week, Adrian Dix and the BC NDP won 39.5 per cent of the vote or 643,399 votes out of 1.63 million cast.

Over 35 years, the BC NDP has seen its share of the popular vote steadily decline and its actual vote stall, despite an electorate that has nearly doubled in size over the same period.

Parties that don’t grow their base lose and risk withering away.

While the Liberals grew their vote marginally over their 1979 Socred brethren, they don’t have too much to boast about either. In 1979, the Social Credit party won 677,607 votes. The B.C. Liberals pulled in 723,618 votes.

BC voters are opting for “anything but” BC NDP

So who was the real winner in the voter sweepstakes last Tuesday? Anything but. In 1979, 81,282 voters opted for anything but the Socreds or the BC NDP. Last week that number more than tripled to 262,405.

As a share of the popular vote, the percentage choosing “anything but” grew from 5.6 per cent of the popular vote to 16.1 per cent.

But it’s not just the province-wide numbers that are telling. As the Liberals showed on election night: “it’s the ridings that count stupid.”

Twenty-five of B.C.’s 85 ridings had a turnout of less than 50 per cent and 19 of those were in the Lower Mainland. The award for most apathetic riding: Richmond-Centre at 38.9 per cent.

Only seven ridings saw a turnout of over 60 per cent and of those the top three had one thing in common: races that engaged voters.

In Oak Bay-Gordon Head, the Green party won its first ever seat in the legislature; in Delta South, Vicki Huntington was re-elected – the first independent to be so in B.C.’s history; and in Saanich North and the Islands, the BC NDP may very well have eked out a victory in the province’s tightest three-way race.

Of course, there were the Wednesday morning quarterbacks who tried to bend the votes of other parties so far out of shape as to claim that such-and-such a party cost such-and-such a party the election.

It may provide comfort to the defeated, but it’s an argument based more on wishful thinking than political acumen. Vote tallies can easily be moved from column-to-column after the fact, voters aren’t so easily moved before the fact.

But the message for the BC NDP in all these numbers is ominous and it’s not just about Adrian Dix.

The BC NDP has been nothing if not short of leaders. In the last 9 elections, no less than seven have been put to the electoral test.

It may have more to do with the brand. Something isn’t connecting with the voters that the BC NDP needs in order to win. And that soul-searching is going to be far harder on the party faithful than a leadership race ever will be.

Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC.

B.C. residents, tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey. $2 will be donated to breast cancer research for every completed survey. 

The Team Canada Mens U16 soccer team. Photo: Soccer Canada.

The Team Canada Soccer U16 Men’s team has arrived back in the Great White North after a successful outing in the 2013 Torneo delle Nazioni in Austria and Italy.

The 2013 Torneo delle Nazioni featured mainly teams from Europe and South America.

“Overall if was a tremendous learning experience for the boys playing against three top-quality European sides and a very difficult South American team,” said team Canada head coach Rob Gale to Canada Soccer.

“But the real victory here is the experience the players will have enjoyed over the course of the tournament: adapting to different travel conditions and playing against teams with contrasting styles.”

Employment for women – new opportunities on Canadian oil rigs. Read it today!

Team Canada Soccer began the tournament with cold feet, losing a 3-0 game to Croatia May 1.

Though his team improved as the game wore on, Gale feels early mistakes cost it against a crafty Croatian team.

“We made two big mistakes within the opening eight minutes against Croatia – and as will happen at this level of international football – we got punished,” he said.

Team Canada Soccer bounced back the next day with a 2-1 victory over Norway, a game that put a smile on Gale’s face.

“I was very pleased with the way we responded in our second game against Norway – who played with a very direct style. It was a much better performance and we defended well and took our chances,” said Gale.

In their only other loss of the tournament, Team Canada Soccer fell to Montenegro 2-0.

Team Canada Soccer closed out the tournament in style, dominating Chile and winning a 4-1 game.

“To close out the tournament with a 4-1 win over Chile was a fantastic way to end the camp,” said Gale.

“To score four goals against Chile and to close-out the tournament with that type of performance was fantastic,” said Gale.

The tournament was used for Canada Soccer to get a closer look at their 1996 born players exclusively. It is a part of their four-year development program for the 2017 CONCACAF and FIFA U20 competition cycle.

BC Soccer director of soccer development Michael Findlay. Photo: teambc.org.

BC Soccer has announced phase two rosters for the Provincial Development Program.

“We are very pleased and excited for the players and program as we move into phase second of the 2013 Provincial Development Program. Additional scouting and recommendations for the program has yielded a 36-percent player turnover from Phase One to Phase Two,” said BC Soccer director of Soccer Development Michael Findlay in a release.

Phase two will see 160 boys and girls from across B.C. take part in high performance training, including on and off field training and game play.

Employment for women – new opportunities on Canadian oil rigs. Read it today!

The camp will take place May 14 and will lead up to teams taking part in the Portland Timbers Cup on May 24-26 for U13-U16 age divisions.

“We have been able to expand the rosters to twenty (20) players in the first two phases to provide an even more in depth talent identification of potential high performance players,” said Findlay.

With the EA Sports BC Soccer Premier League being the main source of players to the program, phase one saw players from all over the province take part in the high performance training.

“We are also very encouraged to see every EA Sports BC Soccer Premier League Club represented within these phase one selections along with players from regions outside the lower mainland such as Vancouver Island, the North region and the Thompson Okanagan,” said Findlay.

“The program will once again provide these players with the opportunity to train and participate within an advanced high performance environment with the goal of developing themselves for the next level of play through our development partners the Vancouver Whitecaps FC and our Canadian National Youth Teams Programming.”

Development partner Vancouver Whitecaps will keep close tabs on the Provincial Development Program.

Whitecaps head of high performance Stuart Neely says the relationship between the two sides is paramount to the Whitecaps development program.

“The Vancouver Whitecaps programming would not be as effective in the identification of players in the province if it was not for the partnership between the Vancouver Whitecaps FC, EA Sports BC Soccer Premier League and BC Soccer’s Provincial Development Program. We remain committed to improving our process of scouting, screening and selecting the top talents from such a strong breeding ground,” said Neely in a release.

The main objective of phase two is to continue to educate the young players on the expectations and playing standards of competing at a high level.

Phase three will be the final phase of the program and will run July 1-28 for U13 and U14 male and females, and July 1-21 for U15 and U16 male and females.

In the final phase, 18 players from every age group will be selected to play at the National Championships.

B.C. residents, tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey. $2 will be donated to breast cancer research for every completed survey. 

By Ben Eisen and Romy Yourex  

Over the past century, there has been a slight increase in average global temperatures.

Many scientists think this change is caused primarily by the actions of human beings, specifically the emission of GHG into the atmosphere. Further, some scientists warn that computer models suggest that if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, this warming trend may accelerate and cause major environmental and economic disruptions.

There are scientists who are skeptical of this opinion and suggest that the sensitivity of the climate to greenhouse gasses is not alarmingly high. According to this camp, only modest warming (or the suppression of cyclical cooling trends) should be expected in the decades ahead.

Employment for women – new opportunities on Canadian oil rigs. Read it today!

Without wading into this highly politicized debate, it is sufficient for the purposes of this report to state that, given the fact that many scientists predict serious negative effects from increased greenhouse gas emissions, we can assert that rising global GHG emissions should be recognized as posing environmental risks and that reducing Canada’s emissions would help mitigate these risks.

Certain environmentalist groups and critics of the current government’s environmental performance frequently excoriate Canada’s record in this area. These criticisms usually rely on the following two arguments:

1)    Canada’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are among the highest in the world, and

2)    Canada’s total emissions have increased over the past 20 years while many other affluent countries have achieved reductions.

However, a careful look at the relevant data show that the narrative of Canada as a laggard in this area is something of an oversimplification. In fact, once economic and population growth are accounted for, Canada’s performance compares favourably with many peer countries. This section will put Canada’s recent record on greenhouse gas emissions in context.

Critics of this record frequently point out that Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions have increased since 1990 (the year the Kyoto Protocol was signed), while many comparably affluent countries have achieved significant reductions. And it is true, as Chart 5 shows, that Canada’s emissions have grown over the past two decades. While total emissions began to decline over the past few years, total national greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 were 17 per cent higher than was the case in 1990. By way of comparison, total annual emissions for the EU-15 countries have decreased by approximately 13 per cent over the same period.

Although critics of Canada’s record frequently cite this national emissions growth, it is a crude measure of environmental progress that does not account for the impact of economic growth or even different rates of increase in population among countries.

All else being equal, an increase in a country’s population will lead to an increase in national fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. To conduct a meaningful evaluation of emissions reductions, it is necessary to control for these differences, since it is much harder for a rapidly growing country to achieve absolute emissions reductions compared with a country that is experiencing little or no growth.

Canada has experienced much more rapid population growth than most other affluent countries in recent decades. For example, between 1990 and 2009, Canada’s population increased by 22 per cent compared with just 9 per cent in the EU-15.

Canadian Oil Sands – The 21st Century Belongs to Canada. Read it today!

Since the economic activity of human beings creates a portion of greenhouse gas emissions, population growth is a major driver of national emissions growth. Examining greenhouse gas emissions growth per capita helps account for this important variable. When population growth is considered, we see that Canada’s per capita emissions actually went down by 5 per cent between 1990 and 2010. Although there has been an increase in Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions since 1990, this increase is primarily a function of population growth, as per capita emissions have been reduced.

Population growth has been highly correlated with higher rates of greenhouse gas emissions growth in affluent countries over the past two decades. The same is true of economic growth. Economic activity often includes the consumption of fossil fuels. All else being equal, higher levels of economic activity lead to higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

Therefore, countries with booming economies generally find it much harder to control greenhouse gas emissions than do countries with slowly growing economies. Canada has enjoyed relatively strong economic growth over the past 20 years, and this is a major factor in its inability to achieve the absolute emissions reductions that have occurred in countries where the economies have not grown as quickly.

The effect of economic growth can be taken into account for evaluating Canada’s performance by examining greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP. This indicator measures the GHG emission intensity of economic activity by comparing the total amount of activity that takes place in a year with the total amount of GHG emitted. This is a useful statistic because it helps measure GHG emission trends in a way that does not punish economic growth.

Canada has made significant strides in reducing its GHG intensity in recent years. GHG emission intensity per unit of economic activity (adjusted for inflation) dropped by 27 per cent between 1990 and 2010. Chart 6 shows this progress. This statistic means that substantially more goods were produced and more economic activity occurred per unit of GHG emitted in 2010 compared with 1990.

Despite this improvement, Canada’s emission intensity is still relatively high when compared with most of its peers in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Some explanations for this discrepancy include Canada’s cold weather, its large geographic size and the type of natural resources that are located in different countries.

However, the fact that Canada’s per capita emissions and its GHG emission intensity have dropped significantly since 1990 shows that the notion that Canada has not made progress in this area is misleading.

Throughout much of the past 20 years, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise before starting to drop during the past several years. Although some countries have managed to achieve more-impressive reductions, Canada’s record in this area is not unusually poor compared with peer countries that have experienced comparable levels of economic and population growth.

Some critics frequently excoriate Canada’s environmental record and imply that it is becoming more polluted and less environmentally healthy. But a new report from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy doesn’t support that conclusion: Canada’s natural environment, in fact, is becoming cleaner and greener. The report was written by Senior Policy Analyst Ben Eisen and intern Romy Yourex. Today: a look at greenhouse gas emissions.

Tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey. $2 will be donated to breast cancer research for every completed survey. 

Frontier Centre for Public Policy’s Environmental State of Canada: 2013 Update shows vast improvement in Canada’s natural environment over the years.

By Ben Eisen and Romy Yourex  

Canadians care deeply about their natural environment and view the prevention of environmental pollution as one of the most important functions of their governments.

Multiple polls taken over the years have shown that large numbers of Canadians view the preservation of the natural environment as a public policy priority.

In 2009, the Frontier Centre undertook an examination of the long-term trends surrounding the health and vitality of the Canadian environment across a wide range of indicators. Our objective was to provide an overview of Canada’s environmental performance and to help citizens gain a better understanding of the condition of Canada’s natural environment.

Our study concluded that while some areas required further improvement, the dominant theme that emerged from examining the relevant data was that Canada’s natural environment had become considerably cleaner and greener over the previous 30 years. We wrote:

Canadians have a great deal to celebrate when it concerns their environment. Over the past 30 years, Canada has cleaned up its air and water, preserved ecosystems and timberlands and protected the soils that feed not only its people but also many others worldwide.

Employment for women – new opportunities on Canadian oil rigs. Read it today!

Our research showed that Canada made significant strides toward sustainability across a number of dimensions of environmental health. With a few exceptions, the data showed that Canada had a strong medium-term record of progress toward environmental sustainability.

This report is a follow-up and an update to the 2009 paper. It presents data that have become available since 2009 and re-examines Canada’s medium-term environmental performance in light of the most recent information.

Largely, the newly-available data confirm the conclusions of our 2009 paper. While some environmental advocacy groups and commentators insist that environmental pollution is getting worse and that Canada’s track record in this area should be a source of national shame, an objective examination of the data across a broad range of indicators tells a very different story.

Over the past four decades, Canada has made impressive environmental progress. The health and vitality of the country’s natural environment have improved steadily. This has made Canada a healthier place for its inhabitants, while also helping to ensure that future generations will enjoy a healthy natural environment and benefit from Canada’s tremendous natural resource endowment.

To measure Canada’s progress, we examined a number of indicators across several dimensions of environmental sustainability. Specifically, we examined urban air pollution, GHG emissions, freshwater withdrawals, freshwater quality, agricultural soil quality and forestry.

In assessing Canada’s environmental performance, we will detail its great achievements in protecting its environment. However, we will also show where Canada as a whole and some provinces can improve.

Conventional air pollutants

The quality of the air we breathe significantly influences our health. Extensive research has demonstrated that prolonged exposure to high levels of air pollution can cause poor health and, specifically, serious respiratory problems. For this reason, reducing air pollution in urban centres has long been identified as one of the government’s highest priorities in environmental policy.

Happily, urban air quality has improved dramatically in recent decades. Despite rapid population growth and strong economic growth, the recent past saw remarkable declines in the ambient levels of many air pollutants in Canada’s cities and towns.

In our 2009 report, we showed that there was a multi-decade trend toward cleaner air in Canadian cities. For example, one indicator that showed progress was the level of ambient sulphur dioxide in the cities and towns. Sulphur dioxide is a pollutant with significant negative health effects for humans and is linked to increased instances of respiratory disease. In 1977, more than 40 per cent of air quality monitoring stations across Canada collected readings with one-hour averages above the government’s maximum level. By 2001, this number dropped to just 15 per cent. Using the less stringent maximum acceptable standard, only 5 per cent of stations in 2001 failed to meet the standard compared with 20 per cent in 1977. We observed similar trends when we examined data for several other pollutants including nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and VOC levels.

Clearly, there is a long-term trend toward cleaner air in Canada’s urban centres. The most recent data from the government of Canada suggest that this trend is in large measure continuing. Environment Canada tracks ambient levels of five different types of air pollution for its Environmental Indicators series, which monitors environmental performance in Canada. These pollutants are fine particulate matter, ground-level ozone, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and VOC. All five pollutants can cause serious health problems if concentrations exceed dangerous levels in urban centres.

For three out of the five pollutants, the most recent data show a significant medium-term trend toward cleaner air. As the charts below show, there was a statistically significant reduction in ambient levels of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and VOC between 1990 and 2010. These data sets are based on the annual average of daily concentrations recorded at stations across Canada. (For some measures, stations are weighted differently depending on their proximity to major population centres.)

The Environment Canada data show:

• Average ambient concentrations of sulphur dioxide dropped from 4.2 parts per billion (ppb) in 1996 to 1.8 ppb in 2010. This is a reduction of 57 per cent.

• Average ambient concentrations of nitrogen dioxide dropped from 17.7 ppb in 1996 to 10.8 ppb in 2010. This is a reduction of 39 per cent.

• Average ambient concentrations of VOC dropped from 138 ppb in 1996 to 57.5 ppb in 2010. This is a reduction of 58 per cent.

There is some variation between regions of the country in terms of precisely how much progress has been made toward a reduction in ambient levels of these air pollutants, but all regions have made significant progress. The following charts illustrate the progress made in controlling the ambient levels of these three important pollutants.

The picture is somewhat more complicated for the two remaining pollutants reported upon by Environment Canada. For fine particulate matter, Environment Canada notes that there was no statistically significant change in average ambient levels between 2000 and 2010. 2010 saw a significant uptick in fine particulate matter levels compared with 2009, thanks largely to forest fires in several regions of the country and a warmer, dryer year in most of Canada.

Canadian Oil Sands – The 21st Century Belongs to Canada. Read it today!

Even with the higher 2010 levels, however, no statistically significant trend in either direction existed over the past decade. Canada has not had as much success in reducing fine particulate matter levels as it has in cutting some other pollutants.

Similarly, ground-level ozone levels have remained stubborn in recent years. In fact, there has been a mild but statistically significant increase in ambient levels of ground-level ozone over the past 20 years in Canada’s towns and cities. The following chart shows population-weighted, warm season average, ambient ozone concentrations between 1990 and 2010.

Ground-level ozone can harm human health by creating and aggravating respiratory disease and by reducing lung function. However, it is noteworthy that the increase in ground-level ozone has been very small relative to the large reductions that were achieved for other types of air pollution.

Overall, the data for these five indicators show that the air Canadians breathe is significantly cleaner and healthier than it was just three decades ago.

This dramatic improvement in Canadian air quality seems even more impressive in light of the population growth in the cities in recent decades. Canadian towns and cities have grown quickly over the past 30 years due to natural population growth, immigration and the significant urbanization of the population. In addition to increasing populations, cities and towns have experienced significant per person economic growth. Together, these trends mean the urban centres have larger populations and are more economically productive than they were in the 1970s.

As urbanization and economic growth unfold, there is a simultaneous improvement in urban air quality. This should be seen as significant evidence of environmental progress.

Some critics frequently excoriate Canada’s environmental record and imply that it is becoming more polluted and less environmentally healthy. But a new report from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy doesn’t support that conclusion: Canada’s natural environment, in fact, is becoming cleaner and greener. The report was written by Senior Policy Analyst Ben Eisen and intern Romy Yourex. Today: a look at conventional air pollutants.

Tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey. $2 will be donated to breast cancer research for every completed survey. 

The image of Barb Tarbox dying appears on cigarette packages.

Ten years after she died of lung cancer, Barb Tarbox is still helping Albertans kick the nicotine habit, thanks to a new campaign launched by Alberta Health Services.

Albertans are encouraged to share their stories of quitting or never starting tobacco use to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Barb Tarbox, one of Canada’s foremost anti-tobacco activists.

AHS is now accepting these stories, in the form of written word, original poems, artwork, video clips or songs, via mail or email. Detailed submission instructions can be found online. Deadline for submissions is Sept. 16.

“Barb’s support of the Alberta Tobacco Reduction Strategy, and its goal of preventing young Albertans from starting to use tobacco, was unwavering and inspirational,” said Dr. Brent Friesen, AHS Medical Officer of Health, Safe and Healthy Environments.

Employment for women – new opportunities on Canadian oil rigs. Read it today!

“In remembrance of this inspirational presence, the Barb Tarbox Legacy Story Campaign will continue what Barb started, encouraging Albertans to inspire others by sharing what has driven them to live a tobacco-free life.”

Barb Tarbox, a lifelong smoker who died in May 2003 from lung and brain cancer, spent her final months travelling the country, speaking to more than 50,000 Canadian youth about the dangers of tobacco. The Edmonton resident also contributed enormously to the tobacco reduction movement in Alberta.

Select submissions to the Barb Tarbox Legacy Story Campaign will be profiled at the annual Barb Tarbox Awards of Excellence in Tobacco Reduction this fall, and 100 other participants will be selected to receive copies of either the book, Barb’s Miracle: How Barb Tarbox Transformed Her Deadly Cancer into a Lifesaving Crusade, or DVD, Barb Tarbox: A Life Cut Short by Tobacco.

Barb’s daughter Mackenzie Tarbox, also an anti-tobacco activist, says she is grateful this story campaign carries on her mother’s work and legacy. She says the pain and suffering her mother experienced is something that she hopes no one else will experience.

“You can save yourself a lot of heartache in the future by never starting to smoke. My mom said it a million times: cigarettes just aren’t worth it,” says Tarbox. “You have to ask: what are you willing to lose by starting, and what are you willing to gain by quitting? You’re never too young, or too old, to quit. The help is there. You just need to take that first step.”

Tobacco use is the leading cause of disease, disability and premature death in Alberta. More than 3,000 Albertans die every year as a result of tobacco use, and many more suffer from tobacco-related illnesses.

AHS, as well as most primary care networks and family care clinics, offer a variety of programs and services to help Albertans quit tobacco, from group cessation programs to one-on-one counselling. Online supports and resources are also available online, free of charge, to Albertans.

To learn more about the supports available to help Albertans double their chances of quitting, call 1-866-710-7848 (QUIT).

Alberta residents, tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey. 

Senator Mike Duffy. Photo: Handout.

Surely the wrong man has quit! Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, resigned yesterday in the imbroglio that followed the revelation he gave disgraced Senator Mike Duffy $90,172 to pay back the Parliamentary expenses the supposed representative for Prince Edward Island in the Upper House had improperly claimed.

The purpose of the controversial payment, obviously, was to make the political problem created by the discovery of Senator Duffy’s unethical behavior disappear.

But the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, surely, requires that the prime minister himself must go.

Calm down, people! Your blogger recognizes this is not very likely. Mr. Harper, his cabinet, and significant portions of his Reform Party caucus, which does business under the name of the Conservative Party of Canada, hold Parliament, Parliamentary tradition, Parliamentary conventions, and Parliamentary democracy itself in contempt. This has been well understood since 2011.

Employment for women – new opportunities on Canadian oil rigs. Read it today!

Nevertheless, the doctrine of ministerial responsibility itself is quite clear.

“According to the doctrine,” says my favourite Canadian politics textbook, “the minister who heads each department must be accountable to the House of Commons for the conduct of each and every civil servantworking in that department.”

“On the most basic level, this means that ministers may be asked in the House to investigate allegations of incompetence or impropriety in their departments and take appropriate measures,” explain authors Patrick Malcolmson and Richard Meyers in The Canadian Regime.

“If the incompetence or impropriety is substantial and may be attributed to poor management, however, the stakes become much higher,” they write. “Under the doctrine of ministerial responsibility the minister must take personal responsibility for major problems of mismanagement.

“In more serious cases of mismanagement, this means the minister must resign.” (In every case, the italics were added by me.)

Now, there can be no doubt that Mr. Harper is the minister responsible for the Prime Minister’s Office.

It is true that the employees of the modern institutionalized Canadian PMO are partisan political appointees outside the rules of the Public Service of Canada. Nevertheless, they are public employees paid by the taxpayers of Canada through the budget of the Privy Council Office, the prime minister’s government department. So it can be persuasively argued that under the ministerial responsibility doctrine their behaviour is the clear responsibility of the PM.

Moreover, the mismanagement in the case of Mr. Wright’s outrageous payment to Senator Mike Duffy is of the most egregious kind, carried out by the prime minister’s closest aide.

So the prime minister’s alleged lack of knowledge, much emphasized by Conservative Party spokespeople and the media, is no excuse.

As the Wikipedia’s excellent and accurate entry on ministerial responsibility explains, “the minister is responsible even if the minister had no knowledge of the actions.”

Canadian Oil Sands – The 21st Century Belongs to Canada. Read it today!

In other words, it changes nothing if we take Prime Minister Harper at his word that he knew nothing of the actions planned and perpetrated by his closest advisor.

Mr. Wright may “accept sole responsibility” if he wishes, but under the doctrines of our Parliamentary democracy and the practicalities of real political life, the responsibility is not his alone, whether or not he or his erstwhile boss like it.

Nor is the prime minister’s statement that “I accept that Nigel believed he was acting in the public interest, but I understand the decision he has taken to resign” good enough, notwithstanding his fatuous addition of the standard Conservative Party talking points that “securing jobs and economic growth for Canada … is the focus of all our efforts and attention.”

Well, obviously not! Unless, of course, we are talking about jobs and economic growth for Tory insiders.

“A minister is ultimately responsible for all actions by a ministry because, even without knowledge of an infraction by subordinates, the minister approved the hiring and continued employment of those civil servants,” states the Wikipedia’s entry. Well, this is most certainly true in the case of Mr. Harper, who personally chose and hired Mr. Wright as his chief of staff.

Even if we accept the view that the most senior civil servants may be called before Parliament, bypassing their minister, Mr. Wright is simply too high in the food chain for such treatment.

Yet so far, unsurprisingly, not only has Mr. Harper refused to take personal responsibility in this case, he appears to be denying that he has any responsibility at all.

Nevertheless, his public acceptance of Mr. Wright’s resignation, ipso facto, acknowledges the responsibility is his.

Ergo, it is the prime minister that should resign.

Don’t hold your breath.

Tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey. $2 will be donated to breast cancer research for every completed survey.