blueblood

Hit Google "environmental benefits of ethanol" and put on a pot of coffee then. I've already stated that profitable farmers have maxed out their production for years. They've used the same amount of fertilizer and diesel fuel for years, (less diesel nowadays due to more efficient farming practices) I used X amt. of fertilizer for crops used for food, and will always use X amt. of fertilizer because I have maxed out. So the input energy of growing the crops for food, ethanol, sitting in a pile is all the same. So the next year, if I'm going to be burning B5 in my diesel fuel from Canola that I sold, that means I'm burning 5% less diesel than I normally would have. As for transportation costs, that is getting offset by the large gains made in high grain prices. As for fertilizer prices, the higher grain prices mean it's now economical for lots of farmers to truck cheap fertilizer in from the states, and we're starting to ship fertilizer from Russia. Also Agrium I think was taken to the competition bureau. But hey, lets not invest in strengthening our economy and helping out the environment (a little bit), lets instead tax the crap out of Canadians (we'll always be taxed the crap out of no matter who's in charge), write welfare cheques to china and india letting them spend our money how they wish. That's how Canada will honor the kyoto protocol without tanking the economy. If that is what the Liberals and NDP are campaigning on, have fun come election time.

Time to start popping up more dams. Start R&D'ing into cellulosic ethanol, it's Quebec's beleagured logging industry's only chance at getting out of it's current mess. Other than that, with Canada expecting to make a fortune in our commodity based economy, we need to diversify our economy. With finite commodities being our main money maker, that is a recipe for disaster in the long term.

link There are enough links on both sides whether or not it does a thing for greenhouse gases. As a farmer I don't get a direct dime from ethanol. What the investment in ethanol does is this, it resulted in higher grain prices, which means come income tax time there is more dollars in the feds purse and provinces purse. Better to invest our money here than hand out welfare cheques to corrupt countries.

Well to honor the Kyoto Treaty without tanking our economy, the original topic is a good question. Another way of wording it would be, are you willing to send your tax dollars to India and China to buy carbon credits to honor Kyoto?

That oil in the ground is no good unless it is exploited, which is done now. Should the service rig charge royalties along every transaction along the line? Should I as a farmer charge royalties everytime my grain changes hands? The entertainment industry gets to do this. You for one adamantly complained about the Quebec Dairy industry getting huge government protection and if somebody could get us cheaper milk, by all means go for it. You had also complained about government protection leading to bad marketing. Which is ultimately what copyright law is. If the entertainment industry is so worried about their stuff getting "stolen" then they shouldn't release their media where it can't be recorded. They can gouge radio stations, MTV, etc. They can only do live concerts, they can hire private security guards at move theatres to catch people with cameras. We should not have to pay because of poor marketing. The scary part about copyright law is for instance a drug company makes a cure for cancer, and due to copyright law they get a monopoly and ultimately gouge the consumer due to lack of competition. There are going to be a few people that die from cancer because they cannot afford the drug when if copyright law didn't exist, other, better run companies could make piles of the drug, compete with each other and drive down the cost making the drug way more affordable to the consumer. If all the industries in Canada got the same protection as the entertainment industry, we would be in hot water.

This coming from a Quebecer. By that logic, why not Albertan oil companies charge royalties for oil and gas sold by Quebec retailers. How about Albertan and Ontarian taxpayers charging royalties on all the Quebec socialist joke programs. Copyright laws are a ridiculous subsidy to reward bad, totalitarian business practices. If companies are bitching about people "stealing" their music, do a better job securing it. Copyrighted stuff should fall under the same free market principles everything else is under, this results in cheaper goods, goods being made better due to competition, and more money in the consumer's pocket.

People are walking into Kim Walker land here... He got the book thrown at him even though he apparently (and I do mean apparently) saved his daughter's life. I took Dr. Greenthumb to be a left winger... I personally sympathize with Kim Walker, but he still killed somebody and has to pay his debt to society. That having been said if a person chooses to get in a consentual fight with somebody, there's no law against that...

Well I did have rabbit ears before... And I am paying for mediocrity now. If they sold DirecTV up here and didn't cut any of the channels, I'd buy it in a second. Star choice and Bell are horrible. This is an example of where a monopoly is a folly (Star choice and Bell offer identical programing). If there was competition there wouldn't be crap. Canadian made stuff needs to be better, it has potential to be better, just because it is protected doesn't mean it has to be crap. A defence for Can. TV and that it's shows can be good enough is that the new fangled Degrassi show is syndicated on the CW in the US and comes on some FOX channels.

If the Can grain industry is all going into ethanol, the new varieties of wheat coming out would be a complete waste, why grow #1 wheat if it's going to be used for gasoline. I mean like I said public outrage to the point of the gov't of the day being voted out of office would stop the industry in it's tracks. Look at global warming issue, public outrage is forcing the tories to act lets say un-toryish.

I had one of those DirecTV dishes for a little bit and loved it. I got my hockey games (which is all i watch canadian tv for anyway) CBC newsworld if I wanted Can. news. And all the specialty American channels. Blasted reality tv is ticking me off, that's what's all on the major networks now and turns me off of them. But since I've gotten star choice I've been very disappointed, I've seen Bell but it's no better. Comparing Movie Central to Starz is like comparing a greasy hamburger to a steak at the keg.

The government wouldn't let all of our grain go into the ethanol industry, they'd get voted out of office, I can see the cellulose thing taking off though. That's why they only settled on 5%. I think they know what they are doing as far as energy needs and keeping our economy going goes. I bet when oil runs out, nuclear fusion will conveniently become availible. First and foremost the U.S. packing industry is why the border is open. R-Calf doesn't have anywhere near the lobbying power say Tyson foods has. This mad cow showing up is meaningless as it is 13 yrs. old, the Americans realize these things will pop up. Right now it is boom times in the American packing industry. An overflooded cheap Candian beef supply and sky high American demand. A cattle set aside program is desperately needed to correct this problem. We're getting robbed.

Neither would I, the main thin is, the industry had to get corrected, and it did, but in the way you didn't like. Ethanol won't make much of a difference in emissions, I'd be a fool not to see that. But the rural economy needed a shot in the arm. It was unfortunate that the federal Liberals didn't take the steps that the Tories did to correct it. If the federal Liberals enacted a Land set aside program in the first place, we wouldn't be in this mess. They missed the boat and are paying for it and are going to have a hard time winning rural votes when the tories are in power and the farmer is getting over nine bucks a bushell for wheat. But a cattle set aside program is desperately needed, there are way too much cows in the country. I don't like the gov't writing cheques for bad business practises.

And people didn't, lots of land got seeded to grass, or just went to waste. Europe has a land set aside program, and if Canada didn't have the ethanol industry, I'd be wanting a land set aside program to compete with Europe.

Of course it doesn't I was showing a hypothetical situation, sorry for confusion.

I was saying IF there was no Canadian channels, the die hards would flock to FSN, versus, and NBC. The ratings they would get from Canadian die hards would spin that scenario the other way around. There are 30 million people in Canada, that's a big resource for American TV, they would cater to us if it was a free for all especially in Sports. Why would anyone want to alienate all those viewers?

I have a problem with a cheap food policy that encourages "dumping" policies that are damaging to the economy and make everyone poorer at taxpayers expense.

FSN, the versus channel, and NBC show lots of hockey games. IF there was no Canadian channels, they would have no competition, not only that, they would get fairly high ratings from all the Canadians who love hockey.

Also legalizing murder and stealing would remove the criminal element from those. Lefty logic, if everything is legal there is no crime.

They are still forcing ethanol. Still cheaper to import oil then by your thinking. The ethanol industry is going to pay for itself in time and in turn make the government money, why else would a Conservative government fund such a thing. It's a far smarter investment than writing out cheques and giving them out to farmers like welfare cheques and hoping the problem goes away, as was done in the prev. Liberal government; policy like that just about collapsed the grain industry. We should not be writing cattle producers cheques unless they keep their bulls at home and kill off the overflooded livestock market and put it back in balance. I think there is a way to make bio-diesel out of animal fat, I might be wrong on that. If taxbreaks are a subsidy, then how does it tap a taxpayer???? He's not paying for anything.

That's short term. They made it work in Brazil with sugar cane. I imagine oil was ridiculously expensive to refine when it was first being used, by that logic they should have stuck to coal and whale oil. Let the ethanol industry go and the costs will come down. Your not addressing the jobs created and the fact that the rural economy is strenghthened, are you against that too? Would you rather have those workers at the plants unemployed? Would you not want the tax collected from property taxes, GST, income taxes, corporate taxes, come on your a Liberal now?

Even with government subsidies to get it going... There is one problem with fusion that I might have trouble with and that is economic spin-off. The oil industry is the main reason why the Canadian economy is doing so well right now. Implementing this might tank it. Also if it is made from Hydrogen, what would we do with all that Helium produced???

I can see what you mean by standing collectively you can defeat bullies. If the Allies would have done things with your definition of "civility" (wearing pink shirts instead of 20 guys from the school pounding the bully's into submission) would we have defeated the nazi's? I doubt it. The pink shirts were more of an intimidating message, "we are united, if you attack one of us prepare to face the consequences whatever they may be" The bullies were smart enough to realize they couldn't beat up hundreds of kids without getting beat up themselves. just standing together collectively doesn't beat bullies, it is the threat of violent action and violent action itself that does the trick and the stronger ones always prevail.

Yah but there's always going to be crops grown regardless. My wheat board claim was logic, and just read a western producer or Manitoba cooperater, there's always a few characters who claim the board needs all the grain in Western Canada to survive. In an export market that agency is needed for accountability. In a domestic market the wheat board would be foolish which is why there is no wheat board for oilseeds and other crops. You know that companies don't like being taxed. You and I both know that if companies are being taxed to heavily, they will say screw it and move elsewhere where it doesn't cost them as much to operate. A subsidy like that helps out the economy greatly.

I don't see why they wouldn't. I wouldn't mind cleaner air, and a chance to make some money off of the environmental thing. I don't buy much into the global warming thing due to vairous variations of temp and CO2 levels during Earth's 4.5 billion year history. But I don't mind removing some of the crap that's in the air.

So if this individual loses the election as an independant and loses, would she sue everyone in the riding citing that they didn't vote for her just because she was a transsexual