Canada 19, USA 9

From CBC's Sunday night interview with Dion, after having to wax on about the 'nation' issue, Dion conveys exactly what the average family is thinking:

"But, what I want to say above all, is it’s sad that we have spent minutes about [the 'nation' question] when we have so few minutes to discuss about the real challenge Canada has to face.

Do you [know] in China there are 350,000 engineers more every year in China paid $14 per hour.
Do you know in Canada from any nation you want to choose who will want to be paid $14 per hour?

We need to compete with them, and if we want to make it a priority to count the number of nations in Canada to put in the constitution I will not be this leader."

He goes on to answer the question of Economy vs Environment:

"The truth is our economy is built on waste and we have enjoyed it for more than a century: a lot of natural resources, a lot of water, a lot of space to dump everything. And we have not been careful and up to now it didn’t hurt us too much. I think now it will hurt us. And we need to learn to be energy efficient. The Liberal government has been good under the circumstances.

Don’t forget that 19% of our GDP in Canada is in the hands of what we call the large funnel emitters the big polluters, 19%. It’s 9% in the United States, so I don’t want these industries to leave the country because if they leave the country we’ll loose jobs. But also they will go in countries where there is no regulation and they will pollute even more and the planet will not be in the better situation. I want them to stay. I want to give them demanding but reasonable regulations that meet targets to reach.

I want to work with them, with the market in creating a carbon market in Canada. It’s the best way to proceed. I want to boost the efficiency of the new sources of energy in Canada, to wake up all the innovation that is dormant in this country, to find the solutions.

Let me talk about Alberta. If we reconcile the incredible economic growth in the very, very worrying environmental threat that you have in Alberta to make something sustainable, if we succeed in Alberta we’ll succeed everywhere in the world after. And we will export these solutions and we will make mega tonnes of money with it. It’s what I want to do!"

Actually, a funny read of the transcript is here:

CBC's Evan Solomon: [...] We didn’t hit out Kyoto targets. so, for all the talk, there was no action. How do people trust that Stéphane Dion is talking action and not just more talk?

Dion: When I became minister of the environment? July 2004.

Solomon: 2004, that’s right.

Dion: So one year and a half.

Solomon: And you released the green paper and yes I know about the Montreal Protocol, but…

Dion: But what?

Solomon: Well, I just ask you: was the Liberal leadership record on the environment, in their decade of leadership or more, was it good or bad?

Cute. It shows that reporters are so use to politicians making promises that huge things can be done properly in a short period of time.