Why are sports cars being exempted from net zero rules?

You can carry on burning petrol and diesel in your car so long as it is a pricey, niche sports car. If you are a pleb who can only afford a family hatchback, on the other hand, you will have to convert to electric – and the government will pretend that it is saving you money. That just about sum up the government’s new policy on electric vehicles. The Zero Emission Vehicle mandate will be relaxed, but mostly for car manufacturers who produce fewer than 2,500 cars a year, who will be given a free pass. Given that these manufacturers – like Aston Martin – tend to be at the upper, more polluting end of the market, it is rather as if the government had just come up with a tax on airline travel which exempted private jets.

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How much greener did Canada’s homes get? Report takes a closer look at federal rebate program

The federal government provided $2.6 billion for heat pumps, solar panels, insulation and other green upgrades to Canadians’ homes through the Canada Greener Homes Grant. But what difference did that actually make?

A new report released this week by the non-profit Green Communities Canada suggests the program didn’t do enough to meet Canada’s targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s because “the savings aren’t deep enough and because we’re not doing enough retrofits,” said Kai Millyard, the group’s energy manager and co-author of the report.

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PINDER: Carney, a climate-warrior first and always

By any measure, Mark Carney’s resume is impressive. Mostly from Wikipedia, he was born in 1965, the son of a high school principal. The family moved from the Northwest Territories to Edmonton where his father was a Liberal candidate in the 1980 Canadian federal election. His mother returned to university to pursue a career in education when Carney was 10. He has an older brother and sister and a younger brother.

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John Ivison: Carney’s trick is not talking about his climate policies. So far, it’s working

Pierre Poilievre put forward a solid pitch to voters during his visit to St. John’s on Tuesday, focusing on the “lost Liberal decade” and the policies that contributed to the “poorest growth in the G7.”

He used a letter sent to political leaders by the CEOs of Canada’s 14 largest energy companies as a frame for his case, contrasting Conservative positions with those of Mark Carney’s Liberals on five key demands: the need to simplify regulations by overhauling C-69, the Impact Assessment Act; the need to ensure major projects are approved within six months; the removal of the cap on oil sands emissions the CEOs argue will shrink production; the requirement to kill the carbon tax on large emitters; and the desirability of creating ownership opportunities for Indigenous Canadians by extending federal loan guarantees.

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PIPELINE PARADOX: Brookfield to buy US pipeline giant as Carney refuses to repeal Bill C-69 pipeline ban

What’s good for the Canadian goose doesn’t hold for the American eagle. At least, not for former Brookfield chairman Mark Carney.

That’s because the Liberal candidate for prime minister, a vocal opponent of major new pipelines in Canada, is now facing scrutiny as Brookfield Asset Management — the investment giant he once chaired — closes in on a USD$9 billion deal to acquire Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel transport system in the United States.

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GWYN MORGAN: Canada is falling behind, and with Carney we’ll fall further and faster

‘Though Carney is smooth and superficially sophisticated, he’s cut from the same fanatical net-zero cloth as Trudeau.’

Donald Trump’s continuing rhetoric about making Canada the 51st State is certainly annoying, but one can’t deny that his apparent underlying message — that Canada is performing far below its potential and needs to get serious or its very existence may be threatened — carries a serious point.

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STIRLING: Cows are the new coal!

Western Canadian agricultural producers of canola, peas and oil cake are facing crippling retaliatory tariffs from China, because Canada imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs, in line with the USA, to protect our ‘homegrown’ non-existent EV industry.

Fact: Canola contributes $43 billion to the Canadian economy, slightly less than the subsidies thrown at EV battery plants, the manufacturers of which are bankrupt or teetering. 

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Is Mark Carney ‘Canada first’ or net zero first?

It is typical of people like Liberal Leader Mark Carney, who have spent significant time on either side of the increasingly porous border between the public and private sectors, that they have amassed a variety of side-appointments to various public and private entities, corporate boards and governmental and quasi-governmental advisory boards.

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Net zero could make flying ‘something for the privileged’

Net zero could make flying “something for the privileged”, the boss of Qantas has warned.

Vanessa Hudson, the chief executive of the Australian flag-carrier, said the higher costs associated with clean fuel were likely to push up air fares and could put them out of reach of the masses.

Her warning came as the boss of Airbus said net zero would add a “green premium” to plane tickets and reverse the decades-long trend of flying getting cheaper over time.

They don’t want you driving let alone flying, hell being allowed to heat your home is up for debate with the climate loons.

h/t Mauser

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How Just Stop Oil was policed to extinction

JSO, the climate activist group, is planning its final protest next month after senior figures were given long prison sentences

Just Stop Oil had looked on enviously at Dutch environmentalists who managed to rouse thousands of people to block a main road outside parliament in the Netherlands to protest against fossil fuel subsidies.

They had hoped to emulate their success in central London by gradually swelling a small demonstration to a mass protest that could “reclaim parliament”.

But the logistics of having enough people to occupy Parliament Square and the deterrent of potential jail sentences killed the idea in the end. “The firepower wasn’t there,” Jonathon Porritt, a JSO supporter, said.

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Trump Was Right to Kill the EV Mandate

Scrapping the EPA’s draconian tailpipe-emissions rule will boost competition, benefit consumers, and strengthen national security.

In his March 4 address to a joint session of Congress, President Donald Trump celebrated terminating Joe Biden’s “insane electric vehicle mandate.” A year ago, the Biden Environmental Protection Agency had finalized a rule, nominally about tailpipe emissions, that would have required 30 percent to 56 percent of all new light-duty consumer cars sold in the United States to be electric vehicles (EVs). Trump announced his intention to undo Biden’s EV overreach in his first week in office, as part of his executive order entitled “Unleashing American Energy.”

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WENZEL: Carney’s net-zero ideology would undoubtedly force home prices

With Mark Carney in the prime minister’s chair, it’s safe to assume his brand of climate-focused policy would drive the next wave of federal priorities. On the surface, that might sound appealing to those pushing net zero emissions.

But, when you peel back the layers, especially on the topic of net-zero housing, what you’re left with is an agenda that threatens to make housing even more unaffordable than is currently believed by the average Canadian. On the campaign trail he talks about building ‘millions of homes’ with no experience or real knowledge of what it would take to build these homes.

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Tariffs, Elon Musk and charging headaches: Quebec is suddenly seeing trouble in its EV paradise

MONTREAL — U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariff on the auto sector is a new blow to electric vehicle owners in Quebec but, in the province with the most electric vehicles in the country, EVs were already losing their lustre.

Robert Brunelle, a resident of Saint-Lambert, Quebec, is almost relieved after getting into a car accident last year. He bought a Tesla Model S in 2021 because it’s “a great car.” It’s fast. It’s quiet. It’s cutting-edge technology.

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Bell: Looks like Carney could be set to screw over Alberta with oil tax

You don’t need a read-between-the-lines dictionary to figure out where Prime Minister Mark Carney could well be heading.

On Thursday, Carney is talking about U.S. President Donald Trump and how the Americans are hitting the Canadian auto industry with tariffs.

Carney is talking about April 2 when Trump is scheduled to take other swings at Canada.

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