“Net-Zero Tyranny”

Coming from a country that may soon choose to be led by either a cognitively challenged second-rate codger or a vengeful lunatic, one would like to look north, to Canada, for some inspiration.

This is an idea many Canadians no doubt find inspiring. A decade ago, The Globe and Mail published an essay that made the case that Canada was a better role model than the U.S. due to its approach of “mutual accommodation” — what the late Quebec premier Robert Bourassa called “one of the world’s rare and privileged countries in terms of peace, justice, liberty and standard of living.”

Aside from the cheapshot at Trump it’s not a bad article.

One of the main topics of discussion in Canada at the water cooler and around the kitchen table is the rising cost of groceries. Canadians are making their voices heard loud and clear on this topic. Politicians should be well aware by now that their constituents are having a tough time making ends meet.

Yet for over six months the federal Liberal government has been dragging its feet on implementing an effective way to bring down the price of many basic goods: taking the carbon tax off farms.

By now, the verdict is near-unanimous: the federal carbon tax is a farce. The exemption for heating oil in Atlantic Canada put a lie to the entire project: faced with declining fortunes in the East, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blinked and chose votes over virtue. Cue the outstretched hands from the rest of the country: what about propane? what about natural gas? what about everyone who heats their house east of the Quebec-New Brunswick border?

OTTAWA — A new poll suggests most Canadians want more carbon price carve-outs, and that Ottawa’s decision to lift the levy on heating oil for more than one million households is so far not driving support towards the governing Liberals.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged his government will not cave to pressure from premiers and opposition parties to keep watering down his signature climate policy by removing the carbon levy from more forms of heating fuel. In interviews with The Canadian Press and Radio-Canada, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has said no more exemptions will occur while he’s in the job.

The premiers of five provinces are calling for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to meet with them to discuss their request for carbon price exemptions on not just home heating oil, but all forms of home heating.

The open letter shared Saturday was signed by the premiers of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

In the open letter, the premiers wrote that while they are pleased that Atlantic Canada has received a carbon price exemption on home heating oil, which around 30 per cent of residents use, they believe that similar exemptions need to follow.

Several decades back, I sat (attentively) through a briefing on the Kyoto Protocol. A colleague of mine asked me what it was all about.

I told him it was an economic plan drawn up by environmentalists and doomed to failure. Boy, I was wrong.

No doubt the protocol was an economic scheme. Basically, the smart folks at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came up with a new, global currency — carbon.

Vandals attacking Ulez cameras have run up a repair and replacement bill of up to £10 million in only six months.

The estimated total comes as Transport for London (TfL), which runs the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez), is now being forced to hire security guards to protect engineers installing and repairing cameras and mobile Ulez camera vans.

Latest figures show that from April 1 to Oct 31 this year, the Met Police recorded 220 cameras stolen and 767 cameras damaged.

Alberta’s energy minister says Canada is being “sacrificed on the altar of anti-development” as the federal government pushes clean energy regulations despite the country’s carbon emissions only representing 1.5 percent of total global emissions.

The comments were in response to federal regulations that would see Canada achieve a net-zero electricity grid by 2035. The plan is to focus on investing in energy sources like wind and solar, smart grid, and energy storage systems.

The president and CEO of a federal foundation with a billion dollars to spend on environmental technologies has resigned after her organization was the target of a whistleblower complaint earlier this year.

In her letter of resignation as the head of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), Leah Lawrence said her departure was prompted by growing criticism of her organization.

“Given recent media reports, House of Commons committee testimony, and the surrounding controversy, it is clear there has been a sustained and malicious campaign to undermine my leadership,” she said in a letter to her board of directors.

The federal government is pushing an aggressive emissions reduction strategy that could devastate the Canadian economy and threaten our way of life. This isn’t just about the oil and gas industry. Port-related industries, transportation, infrastructure, health and education, and countless other sectors will be collateral damage. As will the standard of living of everyday Canadians.

Reality is both consistent and objective, and because it is, bad ideas produce adverse results—you could also think of it as “every good tree bringeth forth good fruit” while “a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”

More than half of Canadians want the federal government to axe the carbon tax from home heating bills, according to a new poll.

Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed want relief from carbon pricing on all home heating, according to the Leger poll, which was commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). Twenty-one percent opposed extending the carbon tax exemption while 22 percent of respondents said they were unsure.