One of the times in my life when I was a graduate student, the school I attended in Montreal used to have visiting lecturers every other Friday. They came on Fridays because there were no regular classes that day, it being a tenet of the school that long weekends encouraged good study habits, not to mention providing faculty with three days off to think weighty thoughts. Sometimes I’d attend these lectures because there was an interesting topic being kicked around, sometimes I’d go out of bored curiosity; but usually I’d go because there was a free lunch and the word “free”, especially coupled with the word for any meal, was as Pavlovian to a debt-ridden graduate student as powder is to a skier.
On one Friday there was a learned professor of organizational behaviour from Romania whose talk was titled “Management by Dracula.” Imagine, if you will, the combined pull of that title, a dreary February Friday in Montreal, free sandwiches and a warm place to kill a few hours waiting for the grad student union to open its doors and start pouring 90 cent beers. Of course I went.
The man himself was quite ghoulish looking. Short, with bad teeth, mottled complexion and dandruff that made him look as if he’d just walked in from a snowstorm — which he had — he could have been the offspring of a bizarre coupling between Roman Polanski and Bela Lugosi. He dressed fashionably in pre-Goth black and spoke in a thickly accented, comic-book Nazi voice.
The kickoff to his lecture was a story about a 17th century landowner who was having no end of problems with his peasant farmers. They cheated him out of his rents, stole the best crops for themselves, poached game from his lands and generally dissed him like he was one of them and not the lord of the manor. His threats and reprisals went unheeded as he tried first one then another scheme to bring them into line.
Finally, despairing of ever prevailing through the use of threats or bribes, he held a party for all his peasants. On a promising spring day, a banquet was prepared. Barrels of wine were toted up from his cellar; lambs were slaughtered, delicacies brought in for the occasion. The food was piled high on groaning boards inside a large barn to protect it in case the weather turned inclement.
When the peasantry was well on its way to feeling no pain, the dinner bell was rung and all rushed expectantly into the barn to gorge themselves on their master’s largesse. Once they were all inside, the doors to the barn were bolted and the barn torched and burnt to the ground with everyone inside. Except, of course, the master, who had already arranged to import new peasants from nearby lands to replace those just lost.
Neat. Efficient. Bloodthirsty… but neat.
In business, in life, in society in general, the way people deal with their problems says a lot about how far they’ve evolved from the primordial ooze of single-cell life. As the world toddles into its third millennium, we’re still stuck in the make-it-go-away phase of problem solving. Some of the methods are spectacularly advanced, but many are just a step away from burning the peasants in the barn.
Little Stevie Hapless may well be planning a big party and feast for the members of the National Round Table on the Environment. No doubt his neutered handmaiden Stephie Dion will bring the gasoline. Diamond Jack Layton will provide the spark.
Back in November of 2006, then Environment Minister Dish Ambrose convened the Round Table. She asked it to come up with ideas on how Canada could meet the very serious targets the Conservative government had set for reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas by 2050. Like all such governmental initiatives, the Round Table was urged to seriously consider its mandate and take all the time it needed to prepare its report, perhaps even until 2045.
This was well after the Conservatives issued the only truly honest statement they’ve ever uttered about the environment — that there was no way in hell Canada would ever even come close to meeting its Kyoto commitments. Their solution wasn’t to redouble the country’s efforts. Such grand notions are generally saved for really important initiatives… like increasing production of oil and gas.
Instead, they “promised” to reduce Canada’s emissions to between 45 and 65 per cent of 2003 levels by the year 2050 and tried to divert the country’s attention from the massive volume of GHG it pumps out to something called intensity targets, doing more with less pollution per unit… but doing it with way more units. In other words, the old rabbit in the hat trick.
Why between 45 and 65 per cent? Why not? Why 2050? Because no one in the current Conservative government will be alive by then. This is probably a good time to remember the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that politicians can lie with impunity, that politicians lie all the time, and that no one in their right mind has any business taking anything politicians say at face value, suckers.
So imagine the surprise, imagine the shock, imagine the outrage when the National Round Table actually had the temerity to issue a report barely a year later. And not a report that said turning down our collective thermostat and buying squiggly lightbulbs was going to save the planet from the ravages of climate change but a report that said if we want to get serious about this issue we’re going to have to consider a carbon tax, a cap and trade arrangement or both.
Stevie says, “No way.” Ditto Stephie and Diamond Jack. Only the Greenies cheered the proposal… which means it’s doomed to obscurity.
Canada showed its true colours at Bali. Second only to the U.S., Canada stood alone as a barrier to any serious action on climate change. At this point, Stevie might just as well borrow a page from down under. Fire John Baird as environment minister and replace him with Ra McGuire.
Who’s Ra McGuire? Shame on you. Songwriter and front man for long-the-tooth Canadian rock band, Trooper, Ra penned what is clearly the Conservatives organizing principle when it comes to the environment: We're Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time).
Hey, I can live with that… even if your children can’t.
