Global warming solved!

Global warming solved!
Well, not quite -- but at least now we can concentrate on making the days longer

By MONTE SOLBERG

Last Updated: 18th December 2009, 8:09am

Is it just my imagination or did the Copenhagen climate summit actually last for three months?

At any rate, Copenhagen will soon be just a bad memory, the industrialized countries will soon be billions of dollars poorer and those interesting people who travel the world protesting things can return to their ... jobs?

The really important thing is that the problem of global warming has now been solved, which really is the best Christmas gift we could have wished for.

Let me be the first person to suggest that President Obama immediately receive the Nobel Peace Prize for "giving totally excellent speeches about climate change" and for having "a really great attitude."

Anyway, now that we've figured out how to control the Earth's temperature, I am putting in my request to turn the heat down just a bit in the summer, except during the evenings in Calgary where it's already cool enough. And I want it to be about the same temperature in the winter as it is now, except nothing colder than -30C, and I want them to schedule the storms during the work week. Oh, and I want the days to be longer too which technically isn't a climate thing, but close enough for climate science.

This naturally brings me to the issue of whether Canada's Parliament should prorogue, or as normal people would say, "close down for a little while."

Personally I've always been pro-rogue, even before Sarah Palin wrote Going Rogue. Rogues are independent-minded free spirits. Roguism is why I joined the Reform Party 20 years ago. It's why I admire entrepreneurs, soldiers, explorers, inventors, farmers and ranchers. They are people who sacrifice and are self reliant as opposed to asking, "When is the government going to do something?" In the age of neverending stimulus packages, I would love to hear someone say (probably a rogue), "When is the government going to stop doing something?"

Seriously, there has to be some program somewhere in the bowels of these great lumbering governments that has outlived its usefulness. Is it possible, for instance, that legislators might take for granted that the grants they hand out are actually helping people when in fact they aren't?

Unfortunately, my own experience is that when you try to trim these programs, people who were barely aware that the programs existed become convinced that they can't live without them. Then, under pressure, the government yields and ineffective but expensive programs go on to fail millions of Canadians for decades on end.

My point is that whether or not Parliament prorogues isn't nearly as important to the well-being of the country as well-informed citizens who think for themselves and understand that the government can't solve most of our problems and even asking it to try is to court disaster.

I urge you to consider this as we prepare to celebrate another December event which is even bigger and, at the risk of being sacrilegious, much better than Copenhagen. In fact, it's even bigger than the Beatles and somehow it manages to go on year after year all without a dime of taxpayers' money.

-- Solberg is a former Conservative MP

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