One of the things preventing Canada from becoming an energy superpower in an energy-hungry world is that our federal government keeps doing stupid stuff.
Justin Trudeau did it for a decade, undermining Canada’s growth by making it economically impossible to build oil pipelines without the government buying them.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pre-Canada Day pivot away from Justin Trudeau’s failed $200-billion-plus climate strategy, after supporting it up to late last year, is a classic example of what makes the public cynical about politics.
The timing was strategic, after Parliament had adjourned for the summer and the day before Canada Day, when Canadians were thinking about barbecues and fireworks, not industrial greenhouse gas emission targets.
“The Great Negotiator Carney” having zero success beyond Eurovision and accelerating ChiCom infiltration needed some good PR knowing CUSMA was not going to be renewed.
So he tossed some crumbs to the peasants by “renouncing” Trudeau’s nation killing green-scam.
Don’t believe it, Carney wants Canada destroyed as much as Junior did.
Next he’ll have CBC telling us that it was Poilievre’s idea to bail out his Developer bagmen.
The modern world and the rich, free lives it brought are both dying in Britain. Energy consumption has fallen by about 30% since 2005 and electricity consumption by about 23%, both due to climate policy costs, and particularly that of renewable energy, subsidies to which amount to £25 billion a year, 40% of the total cost of electricity supply. Insofar as we are maintaining our standard of living, we do so by borrowing and importing the goods of fossil- and nuclear-fuelled Asia. That borrowing cannot continue indefinitely, and an abrupt reversal in distressed circumstances is all but certain, with the consequence that wind and solar are not only a threat to British prosperity, but to any realistic hope of reducing emissions.
Earlier this month, Cenovus Energy CEO Jon McKenzie sharply criticized the federal-Alberta agreement that links support for a West Coast oil sands pipeline to carbon capture and storage (CCS) and industrial carbon pricing.
He described the industrial carbon tax as “insidious” and said industry has been clear that it should be revoked. He also noted that the Pathways Alliance CCS project itself carries an estimated cost as high as $30 billion.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to use nuclear power and natural gas to cement Canada’s status as a global clean energy superpower should have started a decade ago under Justin Trudeau.
The question now is whether Canada can make that plan a reality at “speeds not seen in generations,” given the 10-year delay in starting it.
Homeowners are being forced to tear out air conditioning from their private properties under climate laws, despite rising temperatures.
Council planning officers ordered residents to remove air-con units over fears they produce too much carbon dioxide, stating they should only be used as a “last resort”.
There was a time when I would not believe this to be other than the Bee.
For years, some of the most alarming projections of climate change were built upon a scenario known as RCP 8.5 and its successor, SSP5-8.5.
The public rarely heard those technical labels. Instead, they encountered the conclusions. Headlines warned of climate catastrophe. Studies projected severe economic losses, rising mortality, agricultural disruption, sea-level rise, and increasingly extreme weather. Governments cited such projections when developing policy. Courts referenced them in climate litigation. Businesses incorporated them into risk assessments.
While shareholder proposals were originally designed as a tool for investors to safeguard and enhance the long-term value of their holdings, a well-funded network of activist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and climate-focused groups has increasingly repurposed them to advance environmental and ideological agendas. In Canada, this campaign has zeroed in on the oil and gas sector and the financial institutions that support it. Yet, despite years of persistent pressure, these efforts appear to be hitting a wall — suggesting that the era of well-funded ideological environmentalism may be entering a less profitable phase.
In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, I was making $1.30 per week delivering 85 newspapers, five days per week. From such suckers as me, strong economies are built. Apart from my employer, I was also resentful of my father for not building a bomb shelter in the backyard, ensuring the survival of his progeny — me. Had I been asked if I really, really wanted my father to build a bomb shelter, I would have said “absolutely… 100%.” If I had been asked to give up half of my $1.30 per week to get the bomb shelter, I would have balked. I really, really wanted the bomb shelter, but only if it was free to me.
WITH 2050 in mind, a government report has announced a new target reduction of emissions by the period 2038-2042. The same report restated the earlier manifesto aim to have nearly all our electricity generation ‘clean’ (i.e. emission-free) by 2030. The three aims of the 2030 plan are ‘a secure and affordable energy supply . . . new industries and investments . . . and protection of the environment’.
Notice that ‘affordable’? ‘Families and businesses across the UK,’ they say, ‘will continue to reap the benefits of the clean energy transition.’ Are your clean energy benefits continuing? Have any of you received help of any kind from this Net Zero madness?
THE Government has signed up to a legal target to cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 87 per cent by 2040, Ed Miliband has announced.
The rather bland press release from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) states: ‘Families and businesses across the UK will continue to reap the benefits of the clean energy transition, as the Government sets a new emissions target to further protect family finances, grow the economy and tackle the climate crisis.
Rather than blaming Prime Minister Mark Carney for backsliding on climate change, why don’t the Liberals simply admit their policies under former prime minister Justin Trudeau were misguided, ineffective and ruinously expensive for Canadian taxpayers?
This week, Liberal MP and former environment minister and ex-Greenpeace activist Steven Guilbeault proved he’s capable of protest that doesn’t involve scaling the CN tower or chaining himself to oil sands equipment.
The Quebec MP announced his forthcoming resignation from the House of Commons, days after the CBC broke the news that 14 Liberal MPs (whom the CBC won’t name — but undoubtedly includes Guilbeault) penned a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, calling him out for allegedly reneging on the party’s environmental commitments. The letter insists that “climate change is the greatest threat of our time,” which certainly sounds as though it was penned by Guilbeault.
It was the end of an era and the four politicians who were its chief architects gathered in one room in Ottawa.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau and his former climate change cabinet ministers — Catherine McKenna, Jonathan Wilkinson and Steven Guilbeault — on Wednesday were at the Rideau Club, a private social club near Parliament Hill.
Political operatives behind the scenes, MPs across party lines and journalists were also there. The room was packed and on a warm Ottawa evening in May it quickly got hot.
So there was a business case for natural gas exports to Germany after all.
Of course, we never thought otherwise. But back in August 2022, with Europe freezing and scrambling after Russia invaded Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz came to Canada hat in hand looking for reliable LNG supplies. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau looked him in the eye and delivered his classic line, that there was “never a strong business case” for Canadian LNG exports to Europe. Too expensive, too far, Europe was going green anyway, etc.
