Lorrie Asks A Significant Question And Chantal Makes A Comment

Dion could anger Liberal premiers Chantal Hébert Even before voters get to cast their verdict on Stéphane Dion's much-awaited carbon-pricing plan, it will have to run the gauntlet of... Dion registers with voters! Will the Liberals bring the same expertise to controlling the climate as they did to controlling guns?

By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN, TORONTO SUN

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Today, I, Stephane Dion, am proud to unveil the Liberal plan to fight global warming and save Gaia.

To combat this scourge which kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year, I, Stephane Dion, and the Liberal party, today propose the creation of a National Climate Registry.

As we all know, people don't kill people, climates kill people.

And in a civilized country like Canada, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to be walking around our streets armed with an AK-47 Category 5 Hurricane or a Semi-Automatic Tsunami in their back pocket.

The National Climate Registry is our response to this growing crisis.

Unlike Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, who think it's okay for just anyone to walk around our cities armed with their own personal climate, I, Stephane Dion, and the Liberal party, am ready to take immediate action to address this global catastrophe.

Further, I, Stephane Dion, and the Liberal party, realize there are some Canadians who have a legitimate reason to have a climate -- such as professional meteorologists and air traffic controllers.

Therefore we will provide these individuals with an easy, inexpensive way to legally register their climates.

Following the completion of a government-approved training course in which anyone able to listen to 24 hours of David Suzuki explaining how a carbon tax -- and I use the term advisedly -- "works", without going insane and having their eardrums explode, will be issued an easy-to-complete National Climate Registry Certificate form.

To qualify for the National Climate Registry Certificate, anyone desiring to legally own a climate in Canada will have to answer a few simple questions such as "According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or, alternatively, Al Gore, when will a 20-foot tidal wave wipe out Manhattan? Be specific."

There will also be a math component in which people seeking to legally register their climates will be asked to record the daily temperature outside their front door five times a day for the next 10 years, the total to be divided by the amount of money stolen during the sponsorship scandal.

Those answering correctly will receive a National Climate Registry Certificate by mail sometime before the next millennium, plus a free gift coupon redeemable for a DVD of An Inconvenient Truth while supplies last, or, alternatively, The Day After Tomorrow or Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis.

Anyone wishing to transport their climate to another jurisdiction will be required to fill out a separate form explaining how a cap-and-trade system works.

By the way, if anyone knows how a cap-and-trade system works, could you please give our National Climate Registry Call-Answering Centre, conveniently located for Canadians in Kyoto, Japan, a ring and explain it to whoever answers the phone?

I, Stephane Dion, and the Liberal party, would greatly appreciate it.

Finally, I know Canadians will be concerned about the cost of our proposed National Climate Registry.

After careful examination of the financial details, I, Stephane Dion, and the Liberal party, estimate the net cost of the National Climate Registry to taxpayers will be no more than $2 million. And ideally, once we get the bugs worked out, "revenue neutral."

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Besides, if this doesn't work, we could always ban the climate.

Thank you.