ethanol plan by Ralph & Dion

[SASKFARMER3]

Well Ralph thinks the Fed Govt should mandate 10% by 2010. This is coming from the same liberals who's main vision of Ag on the prairies was to have 15000 less farmers and plant trees for the future.
Come on Guys you couldn't do any thing in 13 years now some how you have all the answers. So with this type of blend we will be net importers of ethanol because the plants in place and on the board will not come close to producing that amount.
Liberal never change, make it sound so good in the media then do nothing.
Wont be fooled again Ralph.
Let the smoke and mirror show begin!!!!!!!!!!!

[wd9]

OK fingers on your buzzers, a mandate without tax parity for the production of renewable fuels in Canada is called what?

[parsley]

The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
January 16, 2007

Deputy premier backs Dion's ethanol target

REGINA -- Deputy premier Clay Serby praised federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's target of 10 per cent ethanol content in gasoline by 2010 -- double what the federal Conservative government has promised.

But Gerry Ritz, Conservative MP for Battlefords-Lloydminster and newly appointed secretary of state for small business and tourism, said Dion failed to consult with industry before making the promise.

Dion, accompanied by Regina-Wascana MP Ralph Goodale and Liberal MP Ken Dryden, was in Regina on Saturday to meet with Saskatchewan farmers to discuss agricultural issues, including the Liberals' biofuels strategy.

"(Dion's) ethanol piece very much lines up with not only Saskatchewan's position, but a Canadian provincial ministers' position (which) is that we could easily attain a 10 per cent blend by 2010," Serby said Monday.

Serby said the Saskatchewan Ethanol Development Council has also been pushing for 10 per cent ethanol blend by 2010.

Serby said the Saskatchewan ethanol industry is concerned the five per cent mandate doesn't provide enough incentive for companies and producers to build ethanol plants.

"If you set the bar too low, you're going to have one region of the country gobbling up all the production and there will be no room for producer participation," Serby said.

One industry analyst said Ontario alone has two billion litres of ethanol production capacity, either in operation, under construction or on the drawing board. Two billion litres would be sufficient to supply enough ethanol to meet a five per cent renewable fuels standard across Canada.

"Even if you can't obtain the (10 per cent) mandate by 2010, what you'll see is significant build-out by proponents who are building to that mandate," Serby said. "We want production to be built to that capacity, as opposed to limiting what people will build to."

But Ritz said Dion should have done more to advance the renewable fuels industry in Canada when the Liberals were in office.

"If 10 per cent (ethanol content) is doable, then why wasn't it done?" Ritz said.

He said the five per cent mandate is based on advice received from the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association and other industry and producer groups.

He said there is a risk that ethanol will have to be imported from the U.S., "if you try to go too far, too fast. . . . I think we have the right mix."


Clay Serby should know that Sask Power Corp is designated as the third largest polltion spewer in Canada.

Parsley

[cottonpicken]

Who cares about pollution?
Coal plants dont hurt the environment.
Dontshu know.

[ivbinconned]

Liberal crisis junkies
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN

I always look forward to having the Liberal Party of Canada tell me what this year's big crisis is.

This year, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion tells me it's global warming.

Last year, then Liberal PM Paul Martin told me it was medical wait times.

More on that in a bit, but first, back to global warming.

While the Tory government is doing nothing about it now, the Liberals did, uh, nothing, about it for 12 years.

But I know global warming is important because Dion named his dog "Kyoto" and gave out green scarves at the Liberal leadership convention.

I also know Tory MP Rona Ambrose is a terrible environment minister, who should be fired because she has done nothing about reducing greenhouse gas emissions in her 10 months on the job.

That's as opposed to Dion, who was a great environment minister because he did, uh, nothing, about reducing greenhouse gas emissions during his 17 months on the job, before the Grits were tossed out last January.

Oh, but wait. The Liberals, and even some environmentalists, say the difference is that Dion was about to do something, even though the Grits signed the Kyoto accord in 1998, ratified it in 2002 and then forgot about it.

But hey, the Liberals were about to act. Honest.

Sure, greenhouse gas emissions skyrocketed while they were in power -- at almost double the growth rate of the U.S. which, unlike Canada, never signed Kyoto.

But I know, because it says on Dion's web site that "as environment minister (he) prepared Canada for the challenges of a sustainable economy." That he "played a key role in developing the greenest budget since Confederation." And that "at the follow-up to the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change in Montreal in December 2005, he won international agreement to extend the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012."

I guess we'll never know when all this stuff (the Liberals said they had set aside $10 billion to reduce greenhouse gases) was actually going to, uh, reduce them.

But rest assured, it would have happened if the Liberals had only won the last election. Because, seriously, when have they ever misled us?

Which brings us back to wait times, a problem the Liberals say Prime Minister Stephen Harper isn't doing anything about, even though it was one of his five key election promises. True.

But you may recall, Martin, as finance minister, contributing to wait times in the early 1990s, by reducing health care transfers to the provinces.

Then Martin promised as PM to "fix health care for a generation" in 2004, when he pledged an extra $41 billion to the provinces over 10 years, including $4.5 billion over six years to reduce wait times for MRI and CT scans, cancer treatment, hip and knee replacement, cardiac care and cataract surgery.

Unfortunately, two years later, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled it was unconstitutional for the federal and provincial governments to require Quebecers (and by implication, Canadians) to obtain medically necessary services through medicare, and then deny them timely treatment. It said governments had to provide timely care, or allow people to purchase treatment privately, through such things as medical insurance.

Ever since, until they were tossed out, the federal Grits and the provinces assured us that they were making progress on wait times.

Then the Ontario auditor general reported earlier this month that Ontario's method of reporting wait times was a bit, uh, "misleading" and should be taken with, uh, "a grain of salt."

Advertising Standards Canada dinged Ontario for, uh, inaccurately reporting on wait times in its tax-funded television ads.

Then again, wait times are so last year's crisis.

Global warming is this year's crisis.

I can't wait for the Liberals to tell us what next year's crisis is. Can you?

[wilagro]

IMHO the Kyoto Accord is a total failure and Canada should abandon it. We have a cold climate and our emissions are bound to reflect this fact.

This whole mumbo jumbo BS about emission credits and debits is total crap designed by idiots who don't live in the real world.

IF we want to reduce emissions of the gasses responsible for "global warming', then a "made in Canada" plan would be my choice in this matter, with liason with other countries to effect proper solutions..

Others make disagree...and they probably will do so.

[cropduster]

Looks like there`s problems with all this global warming in California today...stock up on your salad bar goodies....

[cakadu]

Probably good advice cropduster. Only problem is that you can only get so much ahead before it starts becoming some sort of science experiment. ;-)

The one thing that I would really like to see the Conservatives do is to not sit there and "crow" about what hasn't been done. Enough of that already - tell me what you're going to do and how you're going to achieve it. Anyone can point out what someone else hasn't done and this new Conservative government wasn't going to do that, remember? Pointing fingers never accomplishes anything constructive.

Wilagro, you are quite right, we need to do something as it is becoming ever more apparent and evident that things are a changing out there.

[ivbinconned]

Some how I doubt that my Grand parents sat around during the dirty dusty thirties with their friends wringing their hands in alarm about global warming and then went on to move the discussion to "climate change"!! When the weather changed!!

The climate has always bin a changing...the only difference today is that the media has given a stage to the modern day "ecochondriacs"!! And "the west" loves to be scared.

Actually cakado if you would read the Western Standard you might have noticed (oh darn...missed another good "copy and paste") an article about the (our conservative) government and the USA exploring some regulation changes in the protectionist trucking industry that could result in a much reduced demand and un-productive consumption of fuel.

But don't expect to read about this in MacLean’s.

The way the world works now a Canadian trucking firm hauling freight to a US destination (say Phoenix) is required to haul his NEXT load back to a Canadian destination. However his only load back may be from L.A... Meaning he has to drive empty to L.A. to get a load that will bring him close to home, or close to where his next load might be...IN CANADA!!

These regulations apply to both countries. US firm unloads in Calgary...goes empty and picks up load in Edmonton...heads back to Denver. Makes no sense.

If this change is welcomed by the trucking industry and becomes law and a calculable impact would be made on exhaust emissions...you will not hear about it from the liberals the greens or the NDP or the left press...unless of course they want to claim credit.

[cakadu]

The backhanded comment in your post is not really justified Ivbin and I should think that as adults we are past that. Same with the name calling and stereotyping. I have said it many times - healthy debate is a good thing and most of us welcome it. Let's keep it at a respectable level for all to enjoy.

I would really appreciate it if you could get my name right - after all this time and the number of times I have pointed it out - it is cakadu. Thanks.

Remember mom's old (and very true) adage. If you can't say anything nice...

[cowman]

I haven't read the "Clean Air Act" but I thought that was supposed to be the response from the Conservatives, to Kyoto?
I fail to one lick of sense in promoting the Kyoto Accord...if you have absolutely no intention of implementing it?
Mr. Dion makes some pretty bold statements about what he intends to do if elected primeminister? Will he carry through? The past would say no, the future would say he will devastate the country!

[ivbinconned]

cakadu, no one has missused a handle on here more than willagrow has mine!
I do not remember you lecturing him about getting my name right!! But I don't realy care

But your point is well taken.

[ivbinconned]

Cakadu...what backhanded comment?

[wilagro]

ivbinconned: While we are straghtening things out...my handle is wilagro and not wilagrow.

Further more...relax a little and don't be too anxious about taking offence. A little give and take is part of discourse. Sometimes though, WE all show our fallabilty and lose our tempers and post things that we may regret later.

Regards...

[cakadu]

The one about the cutting & pasting.

I have pointed out on several occasions we should all be playing nice.

It is harder when one is posting like this because 93% of communication is non-verbal and without those cues, it makes it more difficult to sometimes get the true intent of a person's words.