And now back to our regularly scheduled budget.

So now that he hand wringing, gnashing of teeth and wailing over the Quebec election are finished, let's turn our attention for a few moments to the Conservatives celebrated and much maligned second budget.

I've just started reading the budget, and it is a real page turner to be sure, but as I've stated before, most of it seems to be directed at buying more votes especially on the urban fringes where the Conservatives hope to make up real ground.

The environment is now one of the top priorities of Canadians (at least until barbecue season starts, which is pretty soon), and so the Conservatives have also tried to flavour the budget with enough environmental initiatives that, combined with all of the spicy tax credits and rich government transfers, it will make for such a savory dish that the voters won't be able to resist voting Conservative on election day.

But is there real substance to these tasty sounding environmental morsels? There isn't for at least one of them, the $2,000 rebate for fuel-efficient vehicles and the "Green Levy" of up to $4,000 on gas guzzling SUVs and vans. Sounds good -- at least until you get into the fine print and do a bit of research. Vehicles are eligible for a $1,000 rebate up to and including those with performance ratings of 12.9L/100km. Vehicles above 13L/100km are subject to the levy, which starts at $1,000 and tops out at $4,000 for those above 16L/100km. Trucks are excluded from the levy even though they are some of the largest contributors to emissions on the road.

Just for fun (I don't get out much) I checked the ratings of about 35 SUVs and Vans on a Canadian auto review web site. Of those 20 were actually eligible for a rebate. Of the remaining 15 that fell into the Green Levy category, only one (1) fell into the highest levy category and that vehicle was over $60,000. And speaking of price, all but one of the vehicles that were subject to the Levy were over $35,000 dollars (not including taxes, freight etc.). Given the price tags associated with these vehicles does anyone thing a $900 tax ($1,000 less the refund of the $100 excise tax) is going to stop anyone from buying one of these puppies? I don't think so. So there's a least one useless piece of the budget confirmed. Let's see what we can dig up in the coming days.