It occurs to me, as I reflect upon my tropical beverage in the midst of Alberta’s midwinter heat wave, that rum and diet cola is a strange choice. Given the calories contained in a shot of rum, not to mention the source of rum itself, I wonder why I bother with the aspartame? Similarly, why do I bother to purchase organic food for my unruly brood when they tend to conclude every meal with a taco-chip chaser? Perhaps both these irrational choices can be viewed as a reduction in overall load. Minimize the sugar while still enjoying a cherished beverage? Minimize the chemical load in the overall juvenile diet?
I guess that makes sense.
More sense than Stephen Harper’s new Chemical Management Plan, affectionately known as “CMP.” I see on the Liberal Party of Canada website that while stakeholders and officials within government had expected at least 400 chemicals would be placed on the “List of Toxic Substances” within a year, the Conservatives propose listing only 200 and plan to take four years to do it. And have absolutely no plan for a regulatory system.
Don’t get me wrong: I am all for chemicals. I like chemicals. They make washing the bathtub a lot easier. It just seems to me that we ought to be able to rely on government to make sure that I am not devastating my health and my kids’ future while washing the bathtub or doing my hair. Frankly, I would trust my kids to Dion over Harper any day. What mother would not vote for a guy who intends to leave Canada cleaner for our children and grandchildren? What mother could resist a man who names his dog Kyoto?
I think Harper knows that mothers are catching on. Is that why he chopped three-quarters of the Status of Women Canada regional offices? Does he intend to keep us so busy trying to find safe child care and re-establishing our political pathways that we will not notice that he is allowing industry to poison our kids?
This is not entirely industry’s fault, by the way. Like us, industry relies upon government to set guidelines and policies. Just like you and me, most industry does not try to poison people on purpose. It is not any company’s job to monitor collective impact of all industry. Protection of the public rightfully falls to government.
Meanwhile, we can all sleep safer knowing that gay marriages are safe from dissolution. Harper is at least savvy enough to know that keeping after this thing would make him look stupid(er). Most Canadians do not give a crap. It is only a lunatic fringe who want to pursue this dumbass campaign to keep same-sex couples from enjoying the rigours of marriage that heterosexuals endure. What exactly they think same-sex couples will do to the institution of marriage, I have never understood. What is the threat, exactly? Where is the harm, exactly?
Anyway, parliament has voted and Harper says that the issue is dead. Good. We will not speak of it again except to make fun of that group of extremely tedious and silly extremists, who remind me very much of those weirdos who like to joust, wear armour, and eat without cutlery. Ah, the good old days, when men wore tights and women got traded for property rights, and nobody worried about the ice caps melting.
