The uselessness of Canada's climate alarmism

[Herman]

Canadians aren't interested in paying more to fight climate change despite the Trudeau government's plans to take Canada in that direction.

A new poll finds just 18% support continuing to increase the tax while the majority want the tax reduced or eliminated altogether.

In fact, more than twice as many Canadians, 37%, want the tax eliminated than want it to increase. Meanwhile, a further 18% want the tax reduced while 27% say it should stay where it is now.

The Leger poll of 1,564 Canadians was conducted from Sept. 15-17 and asked a number of questions about the Trudeau government's plans to make Canada a net=zero emitter by 2050. Seems most aren't aware of the plans and then once made aware, don't find the plans to be realistic.

The poll even asked a direct question about paying more for gasoline and the response was an overwhelming no. After explaining that the current carbon tax contributes about 14 cents per litre to the price of gas and the planned increase will contribute 40 cents per litre by 2030, poll participants were asked, "Do you support paying more for gasoline as part of Canada's climate net-zero policies?"

A stunning 68% said no, they don't want to pay more for gas while just 20% said yes and 12% said they didn't know.

Among those who said they don't want to pay more for gas were 25% of those who said they want to keep seeing the carbon tax increase. Seems those advocating for the carbon tax to go up really mean they want other people to pay more, not themselves.

But most Canadians don't want to pay more for gas and most don't want the carbon tax to go up. That might be because despite what the people at the top keep telling us, average Canadians know this tax is making life less affordable and despite what the government says, you aren't getting more in rebates than you pay.

[Herman]

Former Finance Minister Joe Oliver tells it like it is.

Canada will soon be alone and ignored in its climate obsession
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/opinion-canada-will-soon-be-alone-and-ignored-in-its-climate-obsession/ar-AA1hG0O4?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=6d5d20f8510f44a593e31973d99b3b56&ei=13

In its fervour to achieve net zero emissions the federal government is increasingly isolated internationally, while its influence on other countries has vanished as, through incompetence and worse, it has tarnished Canada's brand as a country to emulate.

As Mike Tyson once said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." The European Union had a plan to reach net zero by 2050 but its member states have now been hit by a severe energy crisis and are backing off in response to popular discontent.

In a "brave new approach to politics" designed to stave off electoral defeat next year, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reversed course and approved development of a giant offshore oil and gas field. And he delayed signing off on green policies that would have imposed "unacceptable costs" — calculated to be five times their economic benefits — borne disproportionately by blue-collar workers.

n support of Sunak's belated awakening to economic and political reality, the Telegraph queried, "If the consequences are prohibitively expensive and involve saddling millions of households with additional expenditure for unknowable benefits in an unfair way, why would anyone make the transition?" Why, indeed, Mr. Trudeau, when according to a Leger poll only 15 per cent of Canadians think net zero is realistic? The question has added poignancy since the green policies of both countries can have only a negligible influence on global emissions and none on temperatures.

According to the EU's top energy official, with renewables unable to make up for the disappearance of Russian natural gas, Europe will need U.S. fossil fuels for several more decades. No mention of Canada, the world's sixth largest gas producer, since we literally cannot deliver either to Europe or to the vast Asian market. So much for Justin Trudeau's inane comment that there is no business case for exporting Canadian natural gas. Strong global demand for oil will now be supplied by less environmentally conscious petro-states, rather than from our proven reserves, the fourth largest in the world.

Germany's finance minister — Germany's — recently criticized the EU for its "enormously dangerous" green plans that threaten social peace. He is busy trying to reverse the de-industrializing effect of the high green energy prices that now have people calling his country "the sick man of Europe." In France, President Emmanuel Macron has given no date for banning fossil fuels. India's Narendra Modi warns Western countries not to impose "restrictive" climate-change policies on the developing world, while for its part, China has six times more coal plants under construction than the rest of the world combined. Its emissions have tripled since 1990.

In the U.S., moving entirely to EVs could cut union employment by half in electorally crucial Rust Belt states. If Republicans score a 2024 trifecta of presidency, Senate and House, that likely would lead to dramatic reversals in green policies, including increased drilling for oil and gas. Then Canada would be virtually alone in its fixation on climate apocalypse.

The progressive conceit that Canada can serve as a moral leader on climate change was always egotistical nonsense. The world is bemused by our self-harm and irritated by our hectoring, especially since we have missed our Paris Accord commitments and every other target we ever set. Canadians are very tolerant and fair-minded, with much to be proud of. But our prime minister has talked down our brand by decrying our supposedly "genocidal" past and systemically racist present.

Because the rush to net zero is a) unattainable, b) colossally expensive and c) without appreciable environmental benefit, it should be a political loser. But true believers, rent-seekers, socialist ideologues, mainstream media devotees and compromised academics inundate the public with hyperbolic fear-mongering, while alternative voices, including reputable scientists who don't self-censor, are banned or ignored. Without determined political leadership to fundamentally change direction, we will fall even further behind a world that is increasingly indifferent to Canada's climate jeremiads.

It is past time to stop our indulgent moralizing about climate change. We need to reverse policies that are causing severe economic and social damage and start acting rationally in our national self-interest.

[Oerdin]

The 2EF'w goal is to destroy western society, end democracy, and create an unexpected totalitarian state run by them.  They want to lock you down, prevent you from traveling, they want to impoveriah you, they 2ant energy to be unobtainable for you but easy to get for them, and they even want to be able to dictate to you what you can and cannot spend your money on.

[Herman]

There's so much anger against them, but people keep using them. See, in China, in school they tell you the fossil fuels are terrible and they're destroying our planet or not? No. Okay, but in America, do they tell you fossil fuels are terrible and hey're just destroying our planet? Yes. This is one of the main things we teach kids is they're terrible and they're destroying our planet. And yet kids hear this and they go and put gas in their car. Why are people doing it?

[Herman]

The Parliamentary Budget Officer reports the carbon tax will cost Canadian farmers close to $1 billion by 2030.

But it's not just transportation and food that gets hit with Trudeau's carbon tax.

Home heating is punished too. The current carbon tax costs 12 cents extra per cubic metre of natural gas, 10 cents extra per litre of propane and 17 cents extra per litre of furnace oil.

An average Canadian home uses about 2,800 cubic metres of natural gas per year, so the carbon tax will cost them about $337 extra to heat their home. Costs are similar for propane and furnace oil. Home heating is essential for a place like Alberta.

Punishing Canadians with a carbon tax is pointless and unfair.

It's pointless because the carbon tax won't fix climate change. As the PBO has noted, "Canada's own emissions are not large enough to materially impact climate change."

It's unfair because ordinary people who are driving to work, buying food for their families and heating their homes are backed into a corner. Carbon tax cheerleaders tell them to "switch."

Switch to what?

What abundant, reliable, affordable alternative energy source is available to Canadians? This isn't like choosing between paper or plastic bags, this is about surviving the winter and affording food, or not.

Canadians should not be punished for staying warm and feeding their families.

[Oliver the Second]

Canada's Supreme Court Deals Blow to Justin Trudeau's Liberals, Rules That a Federal Climate Alarmist Law Is Unconstitutional



In yet another political defeat, the Liberal government of Canadian Globalist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has seen their climate alarmist policies overturned by the country's supreme court.

In a Friday decision, Canada's Supreme Court dealt a blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government as they ruled that a federal law on the environment is mostly unconstitutional.

The Impact Assessment Act (IAA) is designed to measure how major projects – such as coal mines and oil sands plants – impact the environment.

The Supreme Court decision is a victory for the provincial government of Alberta, Canada's main fossil fuel-producing region.

Alberta challenged the IAA, saying it gave the federal government in Ottawa too much power to discontinue natural resource projects.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/canadas-supreme-court-deals-blow-justin-trudeaus-liberals/

[DKG]

Canada's Supreme Court Deals Blow to Justin Trudeau's Liberals, Rules That a Federal Climate Alarmist Law Is Unconstitutional



In yet another political defeat, the Liberal government of Canadian Globalist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has seen their climate alarmist policies overturned by the country's supreme court.

In a Friday decision, Canada's Supreme Court dealt a blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government as they ruled that a federal law on the environment is mostly unconstitutional.

The Impact Assessment Act (IAA) is designed to measure how major projects – such as coal mines and oil sands plants – impact the environment.

The Supreme Court decision is a victory for the provincial government of Alberta, Canada's main fossil fuel-producing region.

Alberta challenged the IAA, saying it gave the federal government in Ottawa too much power to discontinue natural resource projects.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/canadas-supreme-court-deals-blow-justin-trudeaus-liberals/

Bill C-69 was blatant federal intrusion into provincial jurisdiction.

[Herman]

Canada's constitution splits most major responsibilities between federal and provincial governments, while a few are shared jointly. Using the environment as an excuse, the Trudeau government was trying to rewrite the basic law of the land.

The Supreme Court ruled the Trudeau government "plainly overstepped the mark" with the IAA. The act can apply to federally funded projects on federal land, or Canadian projects outside the country, but, the court decided 5-2, the feds cannot use the alleged climate crisis as an excuse to override the constitutional division of powers between the federal government and the provinces.

Hallelujah!

The act was appallingly "woke" and entirely impractical. In fact, it could easily be argued the law was designed to thwart all new energy projects.

For instance, it contained clauses elevating "Indigenous knowledge" and gender sensitivity to the same level as scientific assessment of environmental impact in determining whether future pipelines, hydro dams, oilsands developments and other energy projects should go ahead.

Supposedly deliberately, the act never properly defined what was meant by Indigenous knowledge.

A prime example is the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northwestern B.C. Its construction was not popular with the Trudeau government, which would rather not see the development of a liquid natural gas industry in Canada.

The elected chiefs of the Indigenous communities along the route were in favour, but the largely ceremonial hereditary chiefs were opposed. It would have been very easy under the IAA for federal regulators to ignore the democratic chiefs and kill the GasLink line, which is currently expected to be completed later this year or early next.

There was another great hazard if the Supreme Court had upheld the IAA – the threat to national unity.

Not only had Ottawa crushed provincial constitutional jurisdiction through the IAA, it had effectively declared war on the oil and gas industry and those parts of the country that rely on the energy sector.

Friday's ruling at least won't add to western alienation and the possibility of western separatism becoming a force.

The IAA ruling may also set a precedent against other federal overreach, such as last month's clean electricity regulations that mandate wildly unrealistic net-zero emission goals for electricity generation by 2035.

That is a similar federal intrusion into provincial jurisdiction.

[Oerdin]

I heard record numbers of people who had moved to Canada are now leaving.

[DKG]

Trudeau will be gone soon. But what will his legacy be? Legalization of marijuana? If he got his way it would be the total elimination of a prosperous middle class using the climate emergency as his excuse.

Meeting UN's absurd emission targets would bankrupt Canada

Every major United Nations conference on climate change ends the same way – with absurd political hype over adopting meaningless catch phrases and setting imaginary goals that its 195 member nations will then fail to achieve.

This year's global gabfest in Dubai, located in an uber-wealthy Mideast petrostate, will be no different, so for the next few days, be prepared to endure endless ginned up media hysteria about whether member countries, including Canada, will agree to either:

The Trudeau government's position has been to phase out unabated fossil fuels – meaning the use of oil, natural gas and coal to produce energy where there is no mechanism to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions they produce, such as carbon capture.

The new way the Trudeau government says it is that Canada's policy is to phase out unabated fossil fuels, meaning fossil fuels will still be used even under the government's policy to achieve "net zero" emissions by 2050, although overall production will be drastically reduced.

Regardless of what wording this latest UN global gabfest on climate change comes up with – and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is one of the conference's "co-facilitators" working on the issue – public skepticism is warranted.

That conference grandiosely announced all member nations, including Canada, would adopt policies to limit the increase in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, and ideally no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Eight years later, the UN's climate czars announced last month heading into the Dubai conference that current international commitments to reduce emissions will only lower them to 2% below 2019 levels by 2030, when a 43% reduction is needed to keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Applying that target to Canada, our greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 totalled 724 million tonnes.

A 43% reduction by 2030 would mean cutting our annual emissions to 413 million tonnes in seven years, significantly more stringent than Canada's current target of 439 million tonnes.

Canada's current annual emissions based on the latest federal government data from 2021 were 670 million tonnes.

That means Canada would have to cut our annual emissions by 257 million tonnes annually by 2030 to meet the UN target.

That would mean reducing our emissions by the equivalent of all annual emissions from Canada's oil and gas sector (189.2 million tonnes) plus the agriculture sector (68.5 million tonnes) in seven years.

The negative impact on our economy of achieving that target would be devastating, so the real issue is how much economic damage is the Trudeau government prepared to inflict on us in attempting to achieve an impossible target?

What the Trudeau government has consistently failed to understand is that Canadians are ready to help lower emissions if they have realistic ways to do so that do not impose unfair economic burdens on them, particularly in the tough economic times and affordability crisis they are currently facing.

However, they will, and are, rejecting federal policies that simply increase their cost of living with no demonstrable benefit to the environment.

That's because with 1.6% of the global total, Canada's emissions are not enough to materially impact climate change, as the parliamentary budget officer has reported, along with the fact that when the negative impact on the Canadian economy of the federal carbon tax is factored in, most Canadian households paying it end up worse off financially, despite federal rebates.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-meeting-uns-absurd-emission-targets-would-bankrupt-canada

[Brent]

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault will mandate that all new cars be zero-emission by 2035, with a government official claiming the move is to allow quicker access to electric vehicles, according to an anonymous official.

The law will require that 20% of car sales be electric cars in 2026, 60% in 2030, and of course 100% by 2035. Companies can also reportedly receive credits toward their zero-emission vehicle sales before the regulations are put into effect in 2026.

[Herman]

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced that 20% of all new vehicles sold in Canada "must be" EVs by 2026.

That's at least double the share now. So, what is Guilbeault's strategy for pulling off this radical transformation? He plans to reduce the time consumers must wait for delivery of electric cars. According to the brains trust in Ottawa, buyers are shying away from EVs because they have to wait too long for them to show up.

That might have been the problem two or three years ago, but now the reverse is true. Now, dealers across the country have unsold EVs piling up on their lots because automakers overestimated consumer demand, made too many of them and ended up shipping the extras to dealerships whether the retailers wanted them or not. There are now too many EVs and not enough customers.

Ford and General Motors have announced huge reductions in EV production because consumer demand just isn't there.

Trust Justine's government to propose a costly solution to a problem that no longer exists.

The problem is, EVs remain too expensive for middle-class buyers. Once manufacturers satisfy the demand of wealthier customers for EVs as symbols of their upper-middle-class eco commitment, there is far less uptake among people earning under $100,000 or more.

Last year, our federal Natural Resources department even admitted the push for all new vehicle sales to be EVs by 2035 would make cars and light trucks too expensive for 25% of Canadians. When it is no longer possible to buy internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, one-quarter of Canadians will just have to go without cars. That doesn't seem to bother Guilbeault, Trudeau or their pals in the environmental movement.

Also, contrary to Liberal hype, EVs not only cost more to buy, they cost more to maintain and repair. Their range between charges is poor in the winter and recharging times are long.

Consumer Reports magazine recently found EVs are 73% less reliable than gasoline and diesel vehicles. Because they are so much heavier, they chew through tires 40% faster. When they are in collisions, they cause more damage and are more expensive to repair, so are costlier to insure.

Contrary to Liberal bumph, over their lifetimes, they are not cheaper than internal combustion engine vehicles.

And don't forget, we aren't building new power plants fast enough to charge them all.

[Herman]

I saw this on a Postmedia link.

Carbon tax a fraction of total carbon costs

The Trudeau government's argument that the federal carbon tax is only a minor contributor to inflation wouldn't be as aggravating if it was the only thing in its climate plan.

But it's just one thing in that plan that is adding to the cost of living for Canadians.

We're told that, at the current inflation rate of about 3%, the carbon tax on fossil fuels contributes only 0.15 percentage points of the total; a bit more if you factor in its indirect costs on most goods and services, including food.

But that's not the only cost.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in April the government's spending commitment on climate change is north of $200 billion — so far.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said last year that when you factor in the negative impact of the carbon tax on the economy, 60% of households paying it are already paying hundreds of dollars more in carbon taxes annually than they get back in climate action incentive payments.


The Trudeau government's argument that the federal carbon tax is only a minor contributor to inflation wouldn't be as aggravating if it was the only thing in its climate plan.

But it's just one thing in that plan that is adding to the cost of living for Canadians.

We're told that, at the current inflation rate of about 3%, the carbon tax on fossil fuels contributes only 0.15 percentage points of the total; a bit more if you factor in its indirect costs on most goods and services, including food.

But that's not the only cost.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in April the government's spending commitment on climate change is north of $200 billion — so far.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said last year that when you factor in the negative impact of the carbon tax on the economy, 60% of households paying it are already paying hundreds of dollars more in carbon taxes annually than they get back in climate action incentive payments.

In some provinces, that will increase to 80%, as the carbon tax increases from its current $65 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions to $170 per tonne in 2030.

There are federal clean fuel and clean electricity standards which will add to our cost of living, increasingly, over time.

There's the cost of upgrading the electricity grid — with the heavy lifting to be done by provincial taxpayers and ratepayers.

That will be necessary to handle the increased demand for electricity, due to mandated federal electric vehicle sales targets, rising from 20% of the market in 2026 to 100% in 2035.

Because EVs are more expensive, less reliable and have less range than traditional gas-powered vehicles, costs to buyers are being subsidized by federal and some provincial governments — paid by taxpayers.

Setting up a supply chain for EVs is costing taxpayers money, as well as establishing a national charging system for them, plus the costs faced by EV owners for installing home charging stations.

True, some of this money will create new jobs and tax revenue but that's offset by the government downgrading Canada's oil and gas sector, costing our economy billions of dollars annually, even though, as the PBO noted, Canada's emissions — 1.6% of the global total — aren't enough to materially impact climate change.

[Oerdin]

All these regulations and taxes do are destroy the living standards of Canadians without doing anything for the environment.  I am convinced that is what the fascists at the woke WEF want though.  They want the west to destroy itself so it can be replaced by other countries.

[Brent]

All these regulations and taxes do are destroy the living standards of Canadians without doing anything for the environment.  I am convinced that is what the fascists at the woke WEF want though.  They want the west to destroy itself so it can be replaced by other countries.

There is no question our declining living standards are intentional. While Trudeau's so called climate action is creating a lot of poverty in Canada, countries like Vietnam and India are building coal fired power plants.