As if we needed more proof that all those “preservatives” in food just lead to beaver cancer.

Quebec province slapped the country’s first carbon tax on energy firms on Monday, as Canadian business leaders urged “environmental taxation” to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions.

The tax, proposed more than a year ago, is expected to cost approximately C$200 million (Loonies… not talking about the currency.) a year to fund the province’s plans to reduce emissions.

It includes a per-litre levy of 0.8 Canadian cent for gasoline, 0.9 Canadian cent for diesel fuel, 0.96 Canadian cent for light heating oil, and C$8 a tonne for coal.

Separately, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives said Canada should become “an energy and environmental superpower,” and suggested higher energy prices to help cut emissions, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Monday.  That usuallyworks, right?  When we hear about the price of gas going up we all get hyper-excited about the economy getting ready to really go through the roof, right? Right?  Anyone?

Since 1990, greenhouse-gas emissions in Canada, a net exporter of energy, have risen more than in any other leading industrialized country, data submitted by the Group of Eight rich nations to the U.N.’s Climate Change Secretariat shows.  Quebec has pledged to meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.  Canada has signed on to the agreement, which calls for a 6-percent cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2012, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that target is impossible to achieve.  As if the Moose Farts weren’t enough already…

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Apparently the “free” healthcare wasn’t up to par (And I do have to mention that it’s not fair that Canada’s politicians are allowed to be attractive, apparently, while we get Nancy Pelosi.).

Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, who is battling breast cancer, travelled to California last June for an operation that was recommended as part of her treatment, says a report. We of course wish her all the best in her recovery, and hope that she can take this new-found respect for the US medical system back to her political career, instead of the vitriolic rhetoric that has otherwise dominated Canada’s view of the US system.

Stronach’s spokesman, Greg MacEachern, told the Toronto Star that the MP for Newmarket-Aurora had a “later-stage” operation in the U.S. after a Toronto doctor referred her.

“Belinda had one of her later-stage operations in California, after referral from her personal physicians in Toronto. Prior to this, Belinda had surgery and treatment in Toronto, and continues to receive follow-up treatment there,” said MacEachern. Great that she had the slice and dice part of the treatment done in Canada, as she could have had done with equal skill/care in any other third world country (See what I did there?), but it was the difficult, technical part of the procedure that needed the skill/efficiency of incentivized physicians in a for-profit hospital in the US.

Stronach, who announced last April she would be leaving politics before the next election, paid for the surgery in the U.S., reports the Star.

While it is rare for MPs to seek treatment outside Canada, MacEachern said Stronach was not lacking confidence in the system.

“In fact, Belinda thinks very highly of the Canadian health-care system, and uses it when needed for herself and her children, as do all Canadians. As well, her family has clearly demonstrated that support,” MacEachern told the Star.

Right. And I trust the dinner my 4 year old cooked for me, and when I eat it and sneeze into my napkin it is only because I really enjoy the taste better from a short distance away.

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