Wednesday Morning Links

- The Cons have apparently unveiled version 2.0 of their dirty tricks manual, featuring such cooperative and productive steps as having the chair utterly ignore any rules that have ever existed in order to prevent elected officials from voting. Stay tuned for the next step, as I'm sure all Con chairs are training to shriek "LALALALALAICANTHEARYOU!!!" for the entire length of a meeting.

- Jeffrey Simpson is absolutely right in saying that the CRTC couldn't approve Corn Cob Kory's application for a massive subsidy of Fox News North without looking ridiculous in the process. But I'm not sure how one can comment on the topic without noting the risk that the final decision will be made at the political level, where any concerns about trampling on common sense and existing rules could easily be outweighed by the desire to fund the most biased right-wing media mouthpiece yet.

- Sure, it might seem ridiculous for Sask Party MLA Dan D'Autremont to declare that his constituents have to choose between highways and health care. But let's be fair to D'Autremont: when a government is consumed with taking constant orders from the corporate sector, there's an obvious reason why there's nothing left for mere citizens.

- Getting quoted in a major newspaper: good. Getting quoted in a major newspaper alongside Paul Wells: excellent. Getting quoted in a major newspaper alongside Kelly McParland: well, two out of three ain't bad.

Unclear on the concept

Shorter Dan D'Autremont:

The NDP opposition has some nerve actually opposing us. Somebody make them stop!

A power play

As Buckdog has already noted, the Saskatchewan Party is already in serious trouble over its continued antipathy for Crown corporations. But I have to wonder if they've also provided another issue that will result in some serious mileage for the NDP down the road - even if it largely escaped notice at the time.

I alluded briefly in this post to a discussion about SaskPower's options for new generating capacity. The article focuses mostly on SaskPower's decision to pursue natural gas, wind generation, waste heat recovery and biomass rather than clean coal to meet the province's capacity needs over the next five years. But here's what Dan D'Autremont - Sask Party's chosen spokesman on the subject, and not coincidentally the same MLA who let the party's mask slip when it came to the Crowns - had to say:

(D'Autremont) added the Calvert government has its "blinders on" when it comes to nuclear power and other options that could provide safe and secure energy for the future "We need to be looking at all of the technologies, including nuclear, to see what's economically viable."

Let's mostly leave aside the questions of whether nuclear power is either economically viable in the first place, or realistically capable of being constructed quickly enough to meet the demand discussed in the article. (Though in brief, the answer is "no" on both counts - even if there always seems to be some nuclear apologist willing to massage cost projections enough to try to pretend otherwise when it comes to the cost factor.)

What's particularly striking is that while D'Autremont attempts to paint the NDP as refusing to consider "all of the technologies", he doesn't seem able to name a single source other than nuclear that the Sask Party would see as a viable option. Which provides a strong hint that given the chance, the Sask Party would be looking for excuses to bring nuclear power into the picture regardless of the ready availability of a myriad of other sources.

Needless to say, that figures to be a political loser for Brad Wall and his troops if it becomes an issue. There's obviously little (if any) natural constituency which would be attracted to the Sask Party based on a desire to see nuclear power plants in Saskatchewan, particularly with the province's utility rates already the lowest in the country.

Meanwhile the NDP, which has already been working to burnish its environmental credentials (particularly over the last year), would surely welcome the chance to argue against the risks of both nuclear power generation and the resulting waste. And an imminent danger of nuclear power could make any frustration with the NDP's willingness to develop the uranium mining industry seem relatively inconsequential in comparison.

We'll see whether D'Autremont's comment will simply be ignored in the longer term, or whether a debate on the subject will actually materialize. But if the Sask Party continues to want to see nuclear energy put at the top of the list of options, then there's every reason to think that in addition to harboring a desire to attack the province's existing Crowns, Wall and company are also severely wanting in judgment as to what the province should look to build for itself in the future. And that can only help the NDP's effort to point out the similarities between Wall and the PC government he once assisted.