A friend of mine here in Yarmouth County, whose yard backs up on a salt marsh, says that two or three times a year now, the water rises to levels that he used to see only once every 10 years. This is in keeping with reports from around the world, dramatized recently by the government of the Maldives -- a low-lying island nation in the Indian Ocean threatened with extinction by rising seas -- holding a cabinet meeting underwater with scuba gear.

The Harper government is trying to rush the passage of a new agreement that could give European nations, which continue to overfish cod on the Grand Banks (over-quota again in 2008 to the tune of 119 per cent), a say in how Canada's fisheries are managed within its own 200-mile limit.

Worse, the provision was apparently drafted by the EU negotiators, without Canadian input. The Harper Tories merely acquiesced.

This new NAFO (Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization) treaty could come before Parliament for ratification within weeks, with the government refusing to allow debate on it.