AB gov't challenging federal Net-Zero regulations

The Alberta government is adding a constitutional challenge of the interim Net Zero regulations to the multiple court challenges they have filed against the federal government.

 

Danielle Smith in 2011. Photo by Dave Cournoyer. CC BY-SA 2/0, Wikimedia Commons.

Alberta to Challenge Constitutionality of Ottawa’s Net-Zero Electricity Regulations | Epoch Times | Carolina Avendano:

May 1, 2025 - "Alberta is taking Ottawa to the province’s Court of Appeal over the federal government’s net-zero electricity regulations, arguing the rules overstep provincial jurisdiction and could drive up costs while increasing the risk of power outages. The province announced the legal action during a press conference on May 1, where Premier Danielle Smith described it as 'another step to protect Albertans’ livelihoods' from federal policies the province says 'threaten' the reliability of its electrical grid and could increase electricity prices by 35 percent....

"The Clean Electricity Regulations are part of Ottawa’s plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. They set limits on carbon dioxide emissions for generation units that use fossil fuels, with the stated aim of achieving a low-carbon economy 'at the pace and scale needed to drive clean growth, strengthen our competitiveness and attract more major investments.' 

"The federal government last December shifted its target for a fully decarbonized electricity grid from 2035 to 2050.... Meanwhile, the current framework, finalized in December 2024, provides interim targets generators must meet by 2035, which Smith has also called 'unreasonable and unattainable,' arguing they 'will still make electricity unaffordable for Canadian families.'  

"Ottawa says the regulations are needed to protect the environment and human health from the effects of climate change. 'Cutting pollution in communities across the country is good for our climate, economy, health, and well-being,' said the government in December 2024.... 

"During her May 1 address, Smith cited an analysis by the Alberta Electric System Operator, which suggests the net-zero electricity regulations would make the province’s electricity system more than 100 times less reliable than the provincial adequacy standard by 2038. The report also suggests the federal regulations 'will fail to deliver meaningful reductions in carbon emissions in Alberta'....

"Alberta currently relies on natural gas for 75 percent of its power generation, according to provincial estimates. The premier has previously said the province has a 'quicker and cheaper' alternative solution to achieve a carbon neutral power grid by 2050, but that it would require Ottawa to give up attempts to 'interfere' in Alberta’s governance..... The province has filed multiple court challenges against Ottawa, many of them related to federal climate policies. 

"'Canada’s constitution is absolutely clear,' [Alberta Justice Minister Mickey] Amery said at the May 1 press conference. “The provinces have exclusive jurisdiction over the development, conservation, and management of sites for the generation and production of electrical energy.' Ottawa says the regulations are established under the authorities of the Canada Environmental Protection Act, 1999, which provides legislative basis for certain federal environmental and health protection programs."

Read more: https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/alberta-to-challenge-constitutionality-of-ottawas-net-zero-electricity-regulations-5850893

Looking into Mark Carney's Values

          What Mark Carney ultimately wants, Peter Foster concluded in 2021 after reading Carney's
          manifesto Value(s), is "a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism"

Peter Foster: Mark Carney, man of destiny, wants to revolutionize society. It won't be pleasant | National Post | Peter Foster:

June 5, 2021 (updated January 16, 2025) - "In his book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, Mark Carney, former governor both of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, claims that western society is morally rotten, and that it has been corrupted by capitalism, which has brought about a 'climate emergency' that threatens life on earth. This, he claims, requires rigid controls on personal freedom, industry and corporate funding....

Mark Carney at World Economic Forum, Davos, 2010. 

Photo by WEF. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

"Since the advent of the COVID pandemic, Carney has been front and centre in the promotion of a political agenda known as the 'Great Reset,' or the 'Green New Deal,' or 'Building Back Better.' All are predicated on the claim that COVID, and its disruption of the global economy, provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not just to regulate climate, but to frame a more fair, more diverse, more inclusive, more safe and more woke world.

"Carney draws inspiration from, among others, Marx, Engels and Lenin, but the agenda he promotes differs from Marxism in two key respects. 

• First, the private sector is not to be expropriated but made a 'partner' in reshaping the economy and society. 
• Second, it does not make a promise to make the lives of ordinary people better, but worse. Carney’s Brave New World will be one of severely constrained choice, less flying, less meat, more inconvenience and more poverty: 'Assets will be stranded, used gasoline powered cars will be unsaleable, inefficient properties will be unrentable,' he promises.

"The agenda’s objectives are in fact already being enforced, not primarily by legislation but by the application of non-governmental — that is, non-democratic — pressure on the corporate sector via the ever-expanding dictates of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and by 'sustainable finance,' which is designed to starve non-compliant companies of funds, thus rendering them, as Carney puts it, 'climate roadkill'.... Carney’s Agenda is promoted by the United Nations and other international bureaucracies and a vast and ever-growing array of non-governmental organizations and fora, especially the World Economic Forum (WEF), where Carney is a trustee. Also, perhaps most surprisingly, by its corporate victims. No one wants to become climate roadkill....

"Despite his thorough castigation of market society, Carney somehow also believes this 'corroded' society is clamouring to make great personal sacrifices for draconian climate actions and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Carney has been a prime pusher of 'net-zero,' the notion that climate-related human emissions must be entirely eradicated, buried or offset by 2050 if the world is to avoid climate Armageddon. He claims that net-zero is 'highly valued by society.' In reality, the vast mass of people have no clue what it entails; when Carney talks about this version of 'society,' he is talking about a small, radical element of it.....

"Carney is a classic example of what Friedrich Hayek called the “fatal conceit” of constructivist rationalism: the belief that the largely spontaneous institutions of the market order should be rejected in favour of more deliberately planned arrangements. Carney is undoubtedly an intelligent man, but Hayek stressed that the thing that intelligent people tend most to overestimate is the power of intelligence — particularly if they happen to be socialists. 

"Carney is also of the class that philosopher Karl Popper described as 'enemies' of an 'open society.' Popper noted that social upheavals tend to bring forth prophets who claim to understand the forces shaping the future, and promise salvation if they are given absolute power. Such was Plato’s model.... Similarly, Marx’s communism was a response to the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution....

"What Carney ultimately wants ... is a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism..... [A]ccording to Carney 'political technology' is needed to 'build a broad consensus around the right goals.' No question of debating the goals, or the science, just building a consensus to support them.... The threat is too great to permit any argument."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/peter-foster-mark-carney-man-of-destiny-arises-to-revolutionize-society-it-wont-be-pleasant

Read Mark Carney's Value(s): https://archive.org/details/values-building-a-better-world-for-all-mark-carney/mode/1up?view=theater

The high, hidden cost of green electricity

Adding more solar and wind to the energy supply pushes up the price of electricity for consumers and businesses.

Solar and Wind Power Are Expensive | Fraser Institute | Bjørn Lomborg:

March 25, 2025 - "Global evidence is clear: Adding more solar and wind to the energy supply pushes up the price of electricity for consumers and businesses....  

"[F]rom 2005, the Ontario government began phasing out coal energy and dived headlong into subsidizing wind and solar generation.... From 2005 to 2020 the average, inflation-adjusted cost of electricity doubled from 7.7 cents to 15.3 cents. Since 2019 the Ontario government has subsidized these high costs through a slew of programs like the 'Renewable Cost Shift', lowering the direct pain to ratepayers but simply moving the increasing costs onto the government coffers. Today, this policy costs Ontario more than $6 billion annually...

"A relatively small amount of wind energy costs Ontarians over a billion dollars each year. One peer-reviewed study finds that the economic costs of wind are at least three times their benefits. Only the owners of wind power make any money, whereas the 'losers are primarily the electricity consumers followed by the governments.' Yet, politicians — supported by powerful green energy interests and credulous journalists — keep gaslighting voters claiming green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels....

"At best, this is only true when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. At all other times, their cost is significantly higher. Modern societies need around-the-clock power. The intermittency of solar and wind energy means backup is required, often delivered by fossil fuels. That means citizens end up paying for two power systems: renewables and their backup.... This intermittency can be huge, as when solar power in the Yukon delivered a massive 150 times more electricity to the grid in May 2022 than it did in December 2022. It is also the reason that the real energy costs of solar and wind are far higher than green campaigners claim....

"One study shows that in China, when including the cost of backup power, the real cost of solar power becomes twice as high as that of coal. Similarly, a peer-reviewed study of Germany and Texas shows that the real costs of solar and wind are many times more expensive than fossil fuels. Germany, the U.K., Spain, and Denmark, all of which increasingly rely on solar and wind power, have some of the world’s most expensive electricity.... The International Energy Agency’s latest data from nearly 70 countries from 2022 shows a clear correlation between more solar and wind and higher average household and business energy prices. In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is about 16 cents per kilowatt-hour. For every 10 per cent increase in solar and wind share, the electricity cost increases by nearly 8 cents per kWh.... 

"In Germany, electricity costs 43 cents per kWh — much more than twice the Canadian cost, and more than three-times the Chinese price. Germany has installed so much solar and wind that on sunny and windy days, renewable energy satisfies close to 70 per cent of Germany’s needs — a fact the press eagerly reports. But the press hardly mentions dark and still days, when these renewables deliver almost nothing. Twice in the past couple of months, when it was cloudy and nearly windless, solar and wind delivered less than 4 per cent of the daily power Germany needed.... Last month, with cloudy skies and nearly no wind, Germany faced the costliest power prices since the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with wholesale prices reaching a staggering $1.40 per kWh.

"Canada is blessed with plentiful hydro, powering 58 per cent of its electricity. This means that there has been less drive to develop wind and solar, which deliver just 7 per cent. But the urge to virtue signal remains. Indeed, the federal government’s 2023 vision for the electricity system declares that shifting away from fossil fuels is a “scientific and moral imperative” and “the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetime”.

"Yet the biggest take-away from the global evidence is that among all the nations in the world ... there is not one that gets much of its power from solar and wind and has low electricity costs.... Instead, there are plenty of nations with lots of green energy and exorbitantly high costs."

Read more: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/solar-and-wind-power-are-expensive

Scientist Destroys Green Energy Narrative w/ Facts in Minutes | Bjørn Lomborg | The Rubin Report | March 4, 2025:

US, Canadian banks leaving UN Net Zero alliance

This year six major U.S. banks, and four of the Big Five Canadian banks, have announced plans to leave the UN-sponsored Net-Zero Banking Alliance. 

Banks quit Carney’s net zero alliance. Giving up net zero ideology should be next | Financial Post | Gina Pappano:

January 28, 2025 - "In November, InvestNow, the not-for-profit of which I’m executive director, submitted shareholder proposals to Canada’s Big Five banks asking them to exit both the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) ... two interrelated, UN-sponsored, and Mark Carney-led organizations whose members pledge to align their lending, investment and other activities with decarbonization goals, including achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. As I wrote in these pages in December, 'Canadian banks should not pursue political or ideological goals at the expense of fiduciary ones. And they shouldn’t shun oil and gas.'

"Well, fast forward to January.... Six of the biggest U.S. banks have all announced they’re leaving the NZBA and four of the Big Five Canadian banks — BMO, CIBC,  Scotiabank and TD — have followed suit. Also, in perhaps the biggest defection of all, BlackRock has left the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAMI) — the asset management arm of the GFANZ. It is ironic that in the week Mark Carney announced his run for Liberal party leader, his most cherished project collapsed.

"Why have these banks fled the net zero alliances en masse? In the U.S., at least, it likely has to do with the new administration having indicated an interest in investigating ESG (environmental, social and governance) lending and investing practices as potentially constituting a fraud against shareholders and the economy.

"The U.S. banks have also been accused of collusion by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, on the grounds that their net zero policies, including divestment from oil, gas, and coal, have contributed to the big rise in energy prices since 2020. The committee found 'substantial evidence that a climate cartel of financial institutions' had engaged in 'anticompetitive collusion' by demanding that companies 'disclose, reduce and enforce' their net zero climate commitments....

"Both the American and Canadian banks have stressed that leaving NZBA won’t affect their net zero commitments or their determination to help achieve a 'net zero global economy,' which means drastically reducing oil and gas production and consumption over a very short period....

"Canadian banks should take what is happening in the U.S. as a warning. Maintaining their singular focus on decarbonization to achieve net zero leaves them open to charges of collusion, too. The real-world effect of their favoured policy is to eliminate oil and gas, one of Canada’s most productive and prosperity-creating sectors. Its elimination would be bad for bank shareholders and customers, industry in general, the economy and our entire country. Their continuing down this ideological path, which runs contrary to the interest of shareholders and the public alike, should prompt further investigation.

"InvestNow applauds the banks in both countries for exiting the net zero alliances as a first step towards moving past the madness of 'Net Zero by 2050.' But the fact that they remain committed to decarbonization, to net zero, and to the effective end of our natural resource sector demonstrates that our work is not done. Our banks need to ditch ideology and get back to serving the people of Canada and their interests."

Read more: https://financialpost.com/opinion/opinion-banks-quit-carneys-net-zero-alliance-zero-ideology

Canadian Banks ABANDON Carney’s Net Zero UN Plan in SHOCKING Move | The Elev8 Podcast | January 18, 2025:

A common-sense climate policy for Canada

Graphic courtesy C2C Journal.

A common-sense climate policy for Canada | True North | Robert Lyman:

November 30, 2024 - "As the Conservatives prepare to take on the responsibility of governing, they must articulate a climate strategy ... that balances economic growth with practical environmental measures. Canada cannot afford to continue along the Justin Trudeau government’s path, prioritizing unrealistic, ideologically driven net-zero targets. The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act  ... requir[es] an overhaul of the economy’s energy system, including the role of fossil fuels. Hydrocarbons currently supply 73 percent of Canada’s energy needs, underpinning essential services like heating, transportation and manufacturing. Eliminating these barely 25 years from now is not just ambitious—it is effectively impossible.

"The costs of these policies are already apparent. Carbon taxes and emissions regulations have driven up energy prices and housing costs, exacerbating Canada’s affordability crisis. According to the Fraser Institute, the federal government’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan could add $55,000 to the average cost of a new home. This comes as federal spending on climate measures reaches $20 billion annually, with the broader economic cost of net-zero estimated at $60 billion per year. These sacrifices are pointless; Canada contributes only 1.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.... 

"Canadians are increasingly aware of the resulting financial and social burdens. Young people, seniors and working families feel the squeeze as energy and housing become less affordable. Adding to the frustration is Canada’s consistent failure to meet its international climate commitments. Unrealistic targets breed cynicism, especially when paired with negligible global impact. A newly elected Poilievre government might be tempted to take a reactionary approach that cancelled all climate measures. But this would be neither politically viable nor responsible.... 

"Instead, Canada should follow a pragmatic middle path, one inspired by the Copenhagen Consensus — a cost-benefit-driven approach that prioritizes technological innovation and adaptation over punitive measures. A reimagined Canadian climate policy would shift away from utopian targets and timelines. The net-zero goal, according to scientists aligned with the Copenhagen Consensus model, should be postponed to 2070 or even 2100, recognizing the long timelines required for energy transitions. Rather than subordinating everything to emissions reduction, the Conservatives should pursue a combined policy that aims to optimize economic growth, energy security, environmental quality and social cohesion....

"Governments should abandon attempts to 'pick winners' through subsidies or mandates, focusing instead on funding basic research and development.... Developing and commercializing new technologies at an organic pace is the most effective path toward meaningful emissions reductions. Equally important is the emphasis on adaptation and resilience. Climate policies should focus on protecting communities and infrastructure from immediate risks like flooding and extreme weather....

"A common-sense climate policy would also recognize Canada’s vast oil and natural gas reserves as assets rather than liabilities. Current regulations like the 2035 Clean Electricity mandate and the recently announced 'cap' on oil and gas emissions (actually, a draconian 35-percent reduction) undermine Canada’s energy security and economic stability. Revising or repealing these measures would ensure that the country’s resources contribute to both domestic needs and export markets.

"Reforms are urgently needed at the regulatory level to streamline environmental assessments and reduce delays in major projects, housing construction and capital investment, including the following:

1. Federal environmental reviews currently take years, sometimes over a decade.... Simplifying these processes while maintaining rigorous environmental standards would promote job creation and economic growth.
2. To address Canada’s housing crisis, federal climate-driven building mandates that inflate construction costs must be reconsidered.... 
3. Harmonizing Canada’s regulatory frameworks with those of the United States would facilitate cross-border trade and reduce compliance costs for industries.... While Canada should not blindly follow its neighbour’s lead, close alignment on key standards is the pragmatic choice.

"Finally, fostering federal-provincial harmony is essential. The Trudeau era has been marked by discord, with provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan bearing disproportionate burdens from federal policies. A collaborative approach that respects regional differences would not only improve governance but rebuild trust in the federation."

Read more: https://tnc.news/2024/11/30/lyman-a-common-sense-climate-policy-for-canada/

The original, full-length version of this article was recently published in C2C Journal.
https://c2cjournal.ca/2024/11/net-gain-a-common-sense-climate-change-policy-for-canada/

Canada is now a net importer of electricity

In 2024, for the first time ever, Canada has became a net importer of electricity, thanks to an energy strategy that puts decarbonization ahead of energy security.  

Canada's 'energy blindness' must end | Financial Post | Philip Cross:

July 5, 2024 - "In its monthly update on energy trends, Statistics Canada reported this week that this year, for the first time ever, Canada has become a net importer of electricity.... Traditionally, Canada has generated surplus electricity that it has exported to the U.S. But in April total electricity generation was down 6.9 per cent from a year ago, continuing a trend that began earlier this year. 

"The decline is the result of droughts across much of the country that have curtailed hydroelectric generation as well as planned maintenance at nuclear stations. Hydro and nuclear account for just over two-thirds of all electricity generation in Canada. Hydro contributed 26.0 million megawatt-hours (MWh) and nuclear 5.2 MWh of the total electrical production of 45.7 MWh in April. With hydro and nuclear power generation falling at home, we had to import 2.6 million MWh from the United States in April, while our exports plunged a whopping 64.4 per cent to 1.7 million MWh.

"Canada’s plan to lower greenhouse gas emissions largely depends on hydro power supplying most of our rapidly growing energy needs. We remain ambivalent about nuclear power, with Ontario and New Brunswick the only two provinces producing it.... Critics of wind and solar power often emphasize their intermittent nature when the wind is not blowing or the sun not shining. Intermittent electricity sources like these require maintaining reliable backup energy sources, notably power plants that burn fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas or coal. The recent reduction in hydro generation highlights how it, too, can sometimes be an unreliable source of power....

"Energy security means a reliable and affordable supply. Any prolonged interruption of supply would be catastrophic. In February 2022 Texas was within minutes of its electrical grid collapsing during an ice storm, a calamity that could not have been fully repaired until May. Here at home, Alberta’s grid was pushed almost beyond its limit during a severe cold snap this January. That would have been more consequential and life-threatening than a grid collapse in Texas given the extreme cold Alberta was experiencing.

"Electricity is fundamental to the lives and lifestyles of most Canadians. As former Ontario cabinet minister Dwight Duncan observed at a recent conference on energy policy, Ontario and Quebec have the highest energy demand in the world because of peak demand in both winter and summer. But there is a disconnect between Canada’s ambition to electrify our power grid and our reluctance to expand electricity capacity. Electrifying our homes and vehicles while using energy-hungry technology implies a massive increase in our electricity consumption.

"Only recently have governments begun to realize projected electricity demands far exceed supplies. That is why Ontario and Quebec recently announced ambitious and expensive plans to boost generation. Ontario is expanding and refurbishing its extensive network of nuclear plants. In Quebec, the Legault government recently installed Michael Sabia as head of Hydro Quebec to carry out a plan to substantially increase hydro and wind power to meet future demand, discarding plans that emphasized energy conservation and inevitably would have required unpopular price hikes. Alberta’s near-death experience has led it to restructure its grid to reduce the priority given to unpredictable renewable sources.

"Canada’s shift to being a net importer of electricity so far this year is a reminder that we have much work to do to increase production, especially since importing American electricity means relying on high-emission fossil fuels to generate power. Our plodding approach to building mega projects in recent decades raises serious questions about whether we will be successful.

"The European Union’s single-minded focus on decarbonizing its energy supply ended even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as the cost to households, industry and governments mounted. Richard Norris of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute characterizes our own refusal to acknowledge the primordial importance of abundant and cheap energy as 'energy blindness.' That blindness needs to end."

Read more: https://financialpost.com/opinion/canada-energy-blindness-must-end

Philip Cross is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

What would a Canadian energy security strategy look like? | Macdonald-Laurier Institute | March 31, 2022: 

Corporate Canada lost Faustian climate bargain

With the passage of Bill C-59, which outlaws "greenwashing" claims, Corporate Canada has lost its climate bargain with the Trudeau government, writes Bruce Pardy.

Corporate Canada betrayed capitalism. Now it has been betrayed | National Post | Bruce Pardy:

July 5, 2024 - "After years of colluding with climate hysteria and betraying capitalism, Canadian companies have been dumped at the curb. On June 20, Bill C-59 received Royal Assent. It’s a hodgepodge bill of humdrum provisions, hundreds of pages long.... But buried in the stack are two sections that prohibit 'greenwashing.' Businesses cannot claim that their products or practices help to protect against climate change or provide other environmental benefits unless they can prove the claims are true. The provisions amend the Competition Act and make climate and other environmental claims subject to the same regulatory regime as false advertising.

"Companies and industry associations have taken down climate pledges and environmental commitments from their websites and social media. 'Ottawa’s ban on "greenwashing" has already put a chill on climate disclosure targets,' objected Deborah Yedlin, president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, in a commentary for CTV. It will affect the entire economy, she wrote, add bureaucratic burden, halt investment, and weigh on Canada’s sagging productivity. Corporate Canada has lost its climate bargain.

"Over the course of decades, Western countries, but nowhere more than Canada, have undergone a cultural revolution. Accelerating climate activism, aggressive social justice ideology and managerial government have changed the landscape. Business elites, instead of defending capitalism, competition, open markets, the rule of law and other values of Western civilization, decided to switch rather than fight. To protect their own prosperity and influence, corporate leaders learned to speak the language and adopt the norms of progressive collectivism. They became cheerleaders for the new regime. Many came to believe in it themselves....

"The social responsibility of business became not merely to increase its profits, as Milton Friedman famously insisted, but to serve as social welfare agencies. They were not just to obey the law and deliver products and services that people wanted to buy, but to pursue social and environmental causes. They would serve the interests not just of their shareholders but their 'stakeholders,' as 'Environmental, Social and Governance' (ESG) models demanded. In their marketing and rhetoric, they embraced climate action, corporate social responsibility, social licence, 'equity, diversity and inclusion' (EDI) and social justice. They promoted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are a blueprint for socialist managerialism. The Business Council of Canada endorsed carbon pricing and Canada’s climate plans. Major oil companies promoted net zero and repeated the kinds of claims that governments themselves made: that climate action in Canada helps to prevent the climate from changing.

"Such claims are patently false. Even if you believe in anthropogenic climate change, if your country doesn’t contribute much to the problem, cutting its contribution isn’t a solution. Bringing Canadian carbon emissions to zero would make no measurable difference to anything. Countries that together produce far and away most of the emissions on Earth have no intention of changing their paths.... 

"Canada excels at climate boondoggles. Carbon taxes are just more money for government coffers that do not necessarily reduce emissions, if that actually mattered. Wind and solar power, a lucrative source of government largesse that some businesses have adeptly saddled up to, don’t replace fossil fuels. Carbon capture and storage, perhaps the most pathetic pretend of them all, is a breathtakingly expensive symbolic gesture that cannot be applied at scale. The Paris accord and its net zero aspirations are climate fairy tales. Canadian business leaders would never say any of this. That was the deal: pay homage to the climate gods, and you can be on the team. But now they can’t.

"Progressive statism has never been about the climate, or transgenderism, or whatever the cause du jour. The target has always been Western values and principles. Free enterprise is anathema to its aspirations, and as it turns out, so is prosperity itself. Canadian companies have betrayed the economic principles of their own society.... The Canadian business community still does not understand the point of the revolution. There can be no survivors."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/corporate-canada-betrayed-capitalism-now-it-has-been-betrayed

Four academic doctrines destroying Canada, Bruce Pardy, chapter author for The 1867 Project | Aristotle Foundation | June 13, 2023:

Scandal-plagued 'green slush fund' shut down

The Trudeau government is shutting down its scandal-plagued Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund, after a scathing Auditor-General's report found contracting rules being ignored, board members voting in clear conflicts of interest, and funding being given to ineligible projects, 

Government shuts down scandal-plagued cleantech fund after scathing auditor report | National Post | Christopher Nardi:

June 4, 2024 "Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced he is shutting down Sustainable Development Technology Canada — a  scandal-plagued cleantech fund derogatively referred to as the 'green slush fund' by Conservative MPs — in response to a scathing auditor general report on Tuesday. The government plans to transfer STDC’s funding responsibilities to the National Research Council (NRC).... 

"Auditor General Karen Hogan found that one out of six projects funded by STDC that she audited to the tune of millions were ineligible. [She] also found the organization had serious governance issues.... The auditor also found that the federal public service consistently disregarded its own contracting rules when it awarded $209 million worth of contracts to consulting firm McKinsey, which she described as a symptom of larger issues with the government’s overall procurement practices.... Hogan published two scathing reports Tuesday on how the government manages taxpayer funds either though professional services contracts or funding granted by STDC.

"A first audit of nearly 100 contracts awarded since 2011 to controversial consulting firm McKinsey & Company found 'frequent disregard for procurement policies and guidance' and infrequent proof of value for money.... 71 per cent of those contracts, worth $118 million, were awarded on a non-competitive basis. It also took a swipe at the government’s central purchasing agency, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), for failing to challenge other federal organizations when they issued contracts that appeared to overlap....

"Hogan audited 33 of the 97 contracts granted to McKinsey since 2011 and found that critical information was missing in over half (19) of them, such as why the contract was needed, what were the expected deliverables and if they were all provided, and whether the “ultimate intent” of the contract was met. 'All of the above meant that value for money could not be demonstrated for these contracts,' she wrote....

"In her report on STDC, Hogan says she found 'significant lapses' in the foundation’s governance and how it managed public funds. Between 2017 and 2023, STDC’s board approved $836 million worth of funding aimed at helping green technology projects start up, scale up, support their seed funding round, or develop partnerships and networks. But the AG found that the foundation gave out dozens of funding awards — totalling nearly $60 million — to projects that didn’t meet its eligibility criteria, failed to follow its conflict-of-interest policies in nearly 100 cases, and that its board didn’t even have the minimum number of members required by law.

“'We found that the foundation awarded funding to projects that were ineligible, that conflicts of interest existed in some instances, and that certain requirements in the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act were not met,' reads the report. 'It’s not always clear that funding decisions made on behalf of Canadian taxpayers were appropriate and justified,” Hogan added in a statement. 'We found 90 cases where their records showed that members of the board who had declared a conflict of interest were involved in discussions and then voted on awarding funding to a project, and that should not happen,' she told the Commons public accounts committee Tuesday morning.... 

"STDC has been in turmoil since the media reported on internal whistleblower reports flagging significant governance and conflict of issues within the organization beginning in February 2023. There are at least five ongoing or completed investigations into the STDC’s governance, labour practices and funding decisions, including by the AG and the federal ethics commissioner. The president of the board of directors, Annette Verschuren, resigned last year after being the subject of an investigation by the ethics commissioner. She admitted to having approved more than $200,000 in subsidies to the company NRStor, which she runs. The president and CEO of SDTC, Leah Lawrence, also resigned."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ottawa-ignored-rules-hiring-mckinsey-auditor-general

“Billion-dollar green slush fund scandal”: Conservatives push for answers to whistleblower claims | Global News | December 12, 2023:

Trudeau Liberals' Net Zero policies will harm future generations

Trudeau carbon tax hike will hurt future generations | Fraser Institute | Kenneth T. Green, Senior Fellow: 

March 21, 2024 - "Despite calls from seven of Canada’s premiers ... to scrap the upcoming carbon tax hike, ... Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has doubled down as he tries to convince Canadians this tax, ... set to rise from $65 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to $80 per tonne on April 1, will really be good for them. Speaking with reporters in Calgary (not coincidentally Premier Danielle Smith’s backyard), the prime minister said, 'My job is not to be popular. My job is to do the right things for Canada now and do the right things for Canadians a generation from now' to 'deliver that better future one generation from now, two generations from now.'

"But Trudeau’s argument that somehow GHG reductions, which might stem from Canada’s carbon tax, will yield appreciable benefits of any kind — economic or environmental — now or in the future is nonsense.... 

"Canada’s share of global GHG emissions is slowly declining and small relative to the world’s larger emitters, particularly China. Indeed, in 2021 Canada’s emissions comprised 1.5% of global GHG emissions compared to 26% for China (in 2018). And since 2005, emissions from China increased by a staggering 71.7%. It’s absurd to think that, even if Canada could drive its GHG emissions to zero, there would be any measurable impact on the global climate. And no impact on climate means no improved environmental benefits for future generations.

"Economically, the prime minister’s argument is even less compelling.... According to a study published by the Fraser Institute, implementing a $170 carbon tax would shrink Canada’s economy by 1.8% and produce significant job losses and reduced real income in every province....

"Trudeau government policies, including the carbon tax and imposition of federal bills C-48 (which bans large oil tankers carrying crude oil off British Columbia’s north coast, limiting access to Asian markets) and C-69 (which introduces subjective criteria including the 'social impact' of energy investment into the evaluation process of major energy projects), combined with impending regulations such as GHG emission caps, are contributing to a collapse in business investment and ultimately economic stagnation in Canada. Per-person gross domestic product (GDP) — a broad measure of living standards — ... stood in 2014 at $58,162, which is $51 higher than at the end of 2023 (inflation-adjusted). In other words, living standards for Canadians have declined.

"Capital investment, which contributes to economic growth and higher living standards, is also declining. A 2021 Fraser Institute study showed that the growth rate of overall capital expenditures in Canada slowed substantially from 2005 to 2019 and the growth rate from 2015 to 2019 was lower than in virtually any other period since 1970.... [F]rom 2010 to 2019, Canada’s investment growth rate dropped substantially below that of the United States and many other developed countries. Corporate investment in Canada as a share of total investment was also the lowest among a set of developed countries from 2005 to 2019.

"Far from delivering environmental or economic benefits for Canadians 'one generation from now' or 'two generations from now,' Trudeau’s policies have thrown serious shadows over the future economic prospects of Canadians, who will find themselves less well-off and less economically capable of adapting to predicted climate risks, whether manmade or natural."

Read more: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/federal-carbon-tax-hike-will-hurt-future-generations

Estimated Impacts of a $170 Carbon Tax in Canada | Fraser Institute | March 21, 2021:

Canadian premiers oppose carbon tax hike

Premiers of seven of the eight affected provinces have come out in opposition to the Trudeau government's planned April 1 carbon tax increase.  

Maritimes beg Trudeau for more carbon tax carve outs despite relief not afforded Westerners | Western Standard | Shaun Polczer:

March 12, 2024 - "Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey and PEI boss Dennis King are both begging Ottawa to consider delaying the proposed April 1 increase to $80 per tonne.... In an almost Dickensian letter to the PM, Furey on Monday begged.... 'I respectfully request that you consider pausing the implementation of the April 1st carbon tax increase, at least until inflation stabilizes, interest rates lower and related economic pressures on the cost of living sufficiently cool' 

"It comes days after PEI Premier Dennis King ... wrote in his own missive to the PM that the 23% increase next month would hurt 'Islanders' by adding 3.5 cents to the cost of a litre of gasoline and bringing the total to 23 cents.... 

"New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs ... joined in the chorus of Atlantic premiers although he was more forceful in his condemnation.... 'Since imposing his carbon tax six years ago, New Brunswickers have been subject to brutal increases every single year. These make the cost of everyday items such as food, fuel and groceries more expensive, driving up the cost of living for everyone,' he said. 'Even if he won’t cancel the tax outright, he can stop his plan to impose even more harm on New Brunswickers and Canadians by halting the planned tax increase.'"

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/atlantic/newfoundland-pei-beg-trudeau-for-more-carbon-tax-carve-outs-despite-relief-not-afforded-westerners/53059

Trudeau calls out 'short-term thinker' politicians as some premiers urge him to drop carbon price hike | CBC News | Catharine Tunney March 13, 2024 - 

"As a growing number of premiers urge the federal government to scrap an upcoming increase to the federal carbon tax, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pushed back on what he called 'short-term thinker' politicians and defended his government's deeply divisive policy ... during a news conference in Calgary Wednesday.... [M[ost premiers have called on the government to either scrap the program or pause the increase scheduled for April 1.... He's also facing attacks from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who said he'll force multiple votes in Parliament next week to stop what he's calling 'Trudeau's April Fools' tax hike'....

"Trudeau showed no signs of bowing to pressure from the premiers or Poilievre. 'That's an easy thing for short-term thinker politicians to say, "Oh, we'll get rid of the price." They don't talk about the fact that they're also going to get rid of that cheque, the Canada carbon rebate, that puts more money in the pockets of the vast majority of Canadians,' he said....

"At the beginning of next month, the carbon price is scheduled to increase from $65 to $80 per tonne. The federal policy — which includes both a tax on fossil fuels and rebates paid directly to households — was introduced by the Liberal government in 2019 and is designed as a financial incentive to encourage people and businesses to cut their consumption of fossil fuels and transition to greener forms of energy. Canadians living in the eight provinces with the federal carbon tax receive quarterly rebate payments which vary depending on the province and the size of household.

"On Tuesday, Liberal Newfoundland Premier Andrew Furey shared an open letter to the prime minister saying that while his government is 'deeply invested in environmental sustainability,' the scheduled increase will add to residents' financial burdens. Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston also wrote to Trudeau urging him 'cancel the carbon tax before any more financial damage is done.'

"So far, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan — which says it will no longer remit the money it owes for the carbon price on natural gas, as required by law — Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have weighed in, calling for Trudeau to pause or cancel the coming increase. British Columbia, Quebec and the Northwest Territories follow their own carbon-pricing mechanisms ... and are exempt from the federal program."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-premiers-carbon-tax-1.7142445

Premiers call on Trudeau to cancel spring carbon tax increase | CBC News: The National | March 13, 2024:

Saskatchewan gov't stops remitting carbon tax

On February 29 the Saskatchewan government, which has already stopped collecting federal carbon tax on home heating, announced it would not be remitting that share of the tax to the federal government. 

Sask Minister walks in Ottawa snow and refuses to pay carbon tax | Western Standard | Shaun Polczer:

February 29, 2024 - "[O]n February 29, ... Saskatchewan’s Crown Corporations Minister Dustin Duncan stood in front of a sleet covered Parliament building to announce the province wouldn’t be remitting the province’s share of Ottawa’s carbon tax ahead of a March 1 deadline.

"'I took a walk in the rain and made an important decision about the carbon tax,” Duncan said in a recorded message posted on Twitter ('X') on Thursday, in an oblique reference to Trudeau Sr.’s famous ‘walk in the snow' declaration on February 29, 1984. 'Today, I’m announcing that in addition to not collecting the carbon tax on SaskEnergy bills, the Government of Saskatchewan will not be remitting the federal carbon tax on natural gas Saskatchewan families use to heat their homes,' he stated. 'This is a decision that we do not take lightly and we recognize that it may come with consequences.'

"Saskatchewan officially stopped collecting the federal carbon tax on home heating effective January 1, in response to the Liberal government’s decision to exempt home heating oil in Atlantic Canada. But it wasn’t clear if it would remit the outstanding funds for the month to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) by the March 1 deadline.... Saskatchewan government officials, including Premier Scott Moe, proclaimed they would be willing to go to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 'carbon jail' for withholding the funds.... [T]he Saskatchewan government on February 21 declared itself the province’s ‘singular’ natural gas distributor in order to indemnify individual SaskEnergy employees from penalty.

"The Saskatchewan treasury claims the move has saved families $400 thus far in 2024 and shaved nearly a full percentage point off the province’s inflation rate, which stands as one of the lowest in the country."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/business/sask-minister-walks-in-ottawa-snow-and-refuses-to-pay-carbon-tax/52791

Saskatchewan won't remit carbon tax to Ottawa, defying federal law | Power & Politics | CBC News | :

Guilbeault brands Moe ‘immoral’ for breaking carbon law; vows to take unspecified ‘measures’ | Western Standard | Shaun Polczer:

March 5, 2024 - "Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe may be headed for the carbon clink.... Barely a week after the province said it would refuse to collect — or remit — the share of federal carbon tax on home heating bills, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault branded the Saskatchewan leader’s actions 'immoral' and “unspeakable' ... even 'criminal,' vowing unspecified 'measures' to enforce compliance.

“'If Premier Scott Moe decides that he wants to start breaking laws and not respecting federal laws, then measures will have to be taken,' Guilbeault said at a press conference in response to a question from a reporter. 'We can't let that happen. What if somebody tomorrow decides that they don’t want to respect other federal laws, criminal laws? What would happen then if a prime minister, a premier of a province, would want to do that?' he went on. 'It's irresponsible and it's frankly immoral on his part. We can have disagreements about things like climate change, but to be so reckless is unspeakable, really.'

"Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson [has] threatened to withhold carbon tax rebates for Saskatchewan residents that would amount to around $1,600 for a family of four. But Moe said withholding the tax saved them $400 In January alone. However those threats were nothing compared to Guilbeault’s comments, which struck an ominous tone that he may indeed be prepared to arrest provincial politicians on criminal charges.

"It’s a dramatic escalation that confirms the worst fears of politicians such as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith who has long insisted the Liberal government’s carbon policies could result in prison for government and other officials who refuse to comply with its clean energy regulations. Smith has vowed to indemnify officials and power producers to increase baseline natural gas fired power on the Alberta grid, which is what the Saskatchewan government essentially did last month when it declared itself the sole natural gas distributor in the province to protect SaskEnergy employees for not collecting the tax."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/guilbeault-brands-moe-immoral-for-breaking-carbon-law-vows-to-take-unspecified-measures/52885 

Net Zero threatens national security, warns former UK security minister

Net Zero is a National Security Threat and Must Be Abandoned, Former Security Minister Warns | The Daily Sceptic | Will Jones: 

March 1, 2024 - "Decarbonising the steel and electricity industry in pursuit of Net Zero represents a real and present danger to national security and must be abandoned, a former Security Minister has warned. Writing in a foreword to a new paper from campaign group Net Zero Watch, Sir Gerald Howarth, Minister for International Security Strategy under David Cameron, said:

Our adversaries are watching us like hawks, so let us leave them in no doubt: we are rearming and rebuilding, and Net Zero is firmly on hold.

"Professor Gwythian Prins, a defence expert and one of the paper’s authors, agrees that with the recent deterioration of the world’s security situation, “luxury beliefs” such as Net Zero must be jettisoned as a matter of urgency:

This is the moment when the music stops. The Port Talbot closure harshly exposes the costs of luxury ‘green’ beliefs. We cannot be dependent on imports for the full range of necessary steels to rebuild our arsenals – the Navy first and foremost – and, most ridiculously, we cannot depend for them on our global antagonists. Furthermore, our armed forces are wholly dependent on oil to keep them in the field, and our electricity grid will collapse without gas. Any attempt to abandon them will leave us entirely at the mercy of hostile powers.

"The paper also includes a contribution from Gautam Kalghatgi, a Professor of Combustion and Energy Engineering, who ridicules plans to decarbonise the armed forces through use of batteries and biofuels....

"Andrew Montford, Director of Net Zero Watch said: 'The ... contributors make it clear that Net Zero is leaving us at the mercy of hostile powers. A Net Zero army and a Net Zero economy could both be brought to their knees in a matter of days. In these dangerous times, our politicians must re-order their priorities.'"

Read more: https://dailysceptic.org/2024/03/01/net-zero-is-a-national-security-threat-and-must-be-abandoned-former-security-minister-warns/

Read "The Music Stops: Net Zero and national security": 
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/656f411497ae14084ad8d03a/t/65e18dad4b06fa0c5606a719/1709280690938/Prins-Music-Stops.pdf

No new roads in Canada, says Guilbeault

Justin Trudeau's climate change minister, Steven Guilbeault, told a transit conference in Montreal on Tuesday that the Trudeau government "has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure."

Guilbeault wants municipalities to stop building roads; urges people to walk | Western Standard | Shaun Polczer:

13 February 13, 2024 - "It’s not enough to ban internal combustion engines, keep oil and gas in the ground and force all Canadians to drive electric vehicles. Now federal [Environment and Climate Change] Minister Steven Guilbeault wants governments at all levels to stop building the roads to drive them on.

"Speaking at a transit conference in Montreal on Tuesday, Guilbeault said money that in the past would be spent on asphalt and concrete should be spent on projects to fight climate change instead. More roads and interchanges inevitably lead to more automobiles which inevitably leads to a self-fulfilling cycle of more road building and more cars — electric or otherwise, he said.

“'Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure. Of course we will continue to be there for cities, provinces and territories to maintain the existing network, but there will be no more envelopes from the federal government to enlarge the road network,' he said.... 'And thanks to a mix of investment in active and public transit and in territorial planning and densification, we can very well achieve our goals of economic, social and human development without more enlargement of the road network.'

"Guilbeault said overestimating the potential for electricity-powered transportation to solve climate change and other environmental issues would be 'an error, a false utopia that will let us down over the long term.' 'We must stop thinking that electric cars will solve all our problems,' he said via live video feed from Ottawa, to public transit advocacy group Trajectoire Québec.

"He said the Trudeau government has put up $30 billion to develop public transit since 2016, and has announced the country’s first annual financing program for public transit projects to allocate $3 billion per year for projects starting in 2026.

"The Liberal government also spent $400 million to encourage walking, cycling and the use of wheelchairs, scooters, e-bikes, roller blades, snowshoes and cross-country skis. Other projects include multi-use pathways, bike lanes, footbridges across roadways, new lighting, signage to encourage so-called ‘active transportation’."

"Guilbeault said municipal governments have to brace for EVs by doing more than simply installing charging stations. 'The solution to mobility will not consist only of electrification. Electrification is a component, but it’s not the only thing. There is the question of urban planning that is hyper important,' he said.... 'All of our planning practices have to be coherent with these mobility objectives, for the reduction of the ecological footprint of transportation and of greenhouse emissions.'”

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/guilbeault-wants-municipalities-to-stop-building-roads-urges-people-to-walk/52366

Environment minister faces backlash over road funding comments | CBC News, The National | February 14, 2023:

Germany's farmers bring protest to capital

Germany's capital was gridlocked on Monday as the country's farmers brought their ongoing national protests to Berlin, with an estimated 30,000 rallying at the Brandenburg Gate.  

Germany’s farmers are revolting | Academy of Ideas, Substack | Sabine Beppler-Spahl:

January 18, 2024 - "Thousands of tractors rolled through Berlin on Monday. The city was clogged for hours as the approximately 6,000 machines made their way to the city centre. Their destination was Brandenburg Gate where a protest rally, attended by many thousands (the organisers claimed 30,000) took place. It was the climax of a week-long protest organised by German farmers all over the country. And it was a massive show of discontentment with the government and its green agenda.

"'The traffic light coalition must go', was the main demand, displayed on banners fixed to the tractors. (The traffic light stands for the party colours of the three coalition partners - SPD, Green Party and Liberals.) It was a message echoed by the participants at the demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate too. When asked why they were taking part in the rally, people replied ‘because this policy is not only destroying the farmers, but the whole country’, or ‘because we are fed up with the restrictions imposed on us’.

"The protests were triggered in December when the government announced that it would abolish tax reliefs on agricultural diesel and farm vehicles [as] part of a general budget cut which became necessary after a court ruling exposed a €17 billion gap in the original 2024 budget. The additional burden on farmers was justified with the argument that the government wanted to cancel ‘climate-damaging subsidies’. Farmers, who depend on agricultural diesel vehicles  - understandably - saw this as an outrageous disregard for their work. ‘Why should we pay for the government’s incompetence?’ asked one farmer said at the rally.

"It was stupid of the government to believe it could get away with its new tax hikes at a time of growing discontentment. Like other entrepreneurs, farmers are suffering from the high energy prices in Germany. And because parts of the chemical industry have ceased production, fertiliser prices have also rocketed. In January, before the protests hit the streets, the government tried to appease the angry farmers by taking back the tax on vehicle fuel. It also said that the diesel tax would be phased out over a period of two years, rather than all at once. But the farmers who had geared up for the fight were not willing to be put off by such half-hearted compromises....

"For years, discontentment at ever harsher environmental regulations and time-consuming bureaucracy has been building up amongst farmers. In 2019, farmers blocked Berlin’s streets after the Merkel government demanded a 20 per cent reduction in the use of fertilisers, as part of its agricultural reform package. Since then, matters have become even worse. Keen to meet the EU’s strict nitrate laws, the current government announced further directives on nitrates, pesticides and animal-husbandry last summer. As part of the EU’s green new deal, farmland is now being identified for ‘renaturalisation’. Many farmers have already had to reduce their animal stock as a result.... 

"The determination of the farmers and the size of the protests have caught the government unprepared. On Monday, many protesters said they were fighting for nothing less than the survival of their industry. Without the freedom to make informed decisions, farming would have no future in Germany, they said. But what has made these latest protests special is that they have found such widespread support. Hauliers, craftsmen, restaurant owners and hunters were amongst those standing in front of Brandenburg Gate. Lorry drivers have announced that they will continue the protests this week. And as the tractors rolled through Berlin, countless people could be seen waving at them, and showing the thumbs up sign. A survey carried out by one of Berlin’s leading newspapers found that 65 per cent of those questioned said they stood on the side of the farmers....

"Regrettably, the government has reacted very helplessly. It has said that it would hold on to the cuts, but would reduce bureaucracy for farmers. When Scholz finally commented on the protests last week, he accused the farmers of being too radical: ‘If legitimate protests turn into anger or disregard for democratic processes and institutions, then we all lose’, he said. Such warnings say more about the chancellor and his fear than about the actual protests. The participants on Monday reacted with derision when asked about reports of far-right groups infiltrating the protests. ‘Do you see any right-wingers here?’ asked one. ‘Such talk is all about unsettling people’, said another.

"There were some flags showing the colours of the right-populist AfD, but very few, and only on the periphery. Indeed, the AfD has not been particularly popular with farmers so far. In the last general election in 2021, only eight per cent of farmers voted for the party.... It won't help the government to lump the farmers and their supporters into the corner of right-wing extremists. It will only make people think that for this government, anyone who opposes its green agenda is right-wing. The great solidarity with the farmers shows how exposed this agenda stands."

Read more: https://clairefox.substack.com/p/germanys-farmers-are-revolting

FARMERS REVOLT: Protests sweep across Germany against 'unfair' tax changes | Sky News Australia | January 18, 2022:

An inside report on UN's COP28

 "You can be sure that corporate media reports on climate change will be slanted," says John Birch Society CEO Bill Hahn; which is why the Society sent its own accredited journalists to COP28. This is from their reports. 

What Really Happened at COP28 | The New American | William S. Hahn: 

December 22, 2023 "So we’re told that a monumental deal was struck at the latest Climate Change conference that will phase out fossil fuels. But is it true? You can be sure that corporate media reports on climate change will be slanted.... This is why it’s important for us to attend these conferences and get a first person look at what goes on..... The New American, a media outlet of The John Birch Society, sent a team of three investigative journalists to COP28, the United Nations climate change conference that was held in Dubai, an Arab police state that does not allow dissent within its country. The New American had covered many of these UN conferences in the past and was once again granted official access to the event.... 

"A senior editor of The New American, Alex Newman, who has attended these conferences since 2009, reported online that 'Governments at the United Nations COP28 "climate" summit agreed to "transition" away from "fossil fuels" today. But don’t believe the hype from the media about a "phaseout" or "phase down’ of hydrocarbon energy at the UN summit. What is really happening is a planned phaseout of the Western world — what used to be known as Christendom or the 'Free World' — as the UN and Western leaders work to usher in a new "multipolar" world order'....

"Advocates of the globalist agenda have been quite open about this since at least the early 1970s regarding building a New World Order or NWO. Over the last few years, the Council on Foreign Relations [CFR] has offered a new course of direction for the NWO. It focuses on moving away from the leadership of the U.S. and other Western countries to also include other countries like [the] autocracies of China, Russia, and other participants of BRICS. Richard Haass, the longtime President of the [CFR] wrote in the March 23, 2021 Foreign Affairs magazine, 'The international system is at a historical inflection point.… the Western-led liberal order that emerged after World War II cannot anchor global stability in the twenty-first century.… The best vehicle for promoting stability in the twenty-first century is a global concert of major powers'....

"What he is describing is also known as a multipolar New World Order.... [T]he U.S. was used as the main leader for the post-WWII era. It unconstitutionally used its vast resources to help build up Communist countries, as well as those that would belong to the European Union, while at the same time building up world government bodies like the United Nations and its many affiliates. In a multipolar world order, the U.S. and its Western allies would continue to utilize its resources by transferring large amounts of wealth to poorer countries. Doing so will bring down the standard of living for the average American while raising up those in developing countries as well as countries like China and Russia who give lip service to the agenda of the United Nations, but work to build themselves into the leading superpowers.

"Mr. Newman reported, 'Throughout the COP28 ‘climate’ summit, the Biden administration and Western governments pledged ever-more suicidal energy policies and draconian wealth redistribution from the middle class under the guise of saving the planet. According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore, just the U.S. government’s latest methane promises — a de facto ban on natural-gas power plants — will take out upwards of 60 percent of American electric power generation. But that pain will not be shared around the world. In fact, officials from the United Arab Emirates and Communist China, among others, were exposed planning to make oil and gas deals at the summit.... The news was spun by the establishment press to portray the UAE government hosting the climate talks in a negative light. But the real significance of the scandal was lost: It highlights the fact that the anti-energy hysteria and silly "solutions" such as solar panels and windmills being peddled to Western populations by the UN and the media are primarily undermining the economies of Western nations, including Europe and the United States — not China or other autocracies, whose emissions are all soaring with no end in sight.'

"Leave it up to the suckers in the U.S. and the EU to follow the 'rules,' but Communist countries are in no way participating in their own economic destruction by dismantling their industries or turning off a major flow of revenue through resource or product sales. The value they place on human life disqualifies them from actually carrying out this agenda based on a democratic or just way of living. Ironically, the Kremlin posted this statement when Xi Jinping visited Russia earlier in 2023: 'We jointly work to create a more just and democratic multipolar world order, which should be based on the central role of the UN, its Security Council, international law, and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.' If that’s what they are working toward, then the free world should want nothing to do with it given the Communist’s idea of justice and democracy.... 

As Mr. Newman ... wrote, 'The president of the COP28 conference, ADNOC [Abu Dhabi National Oil Company] chief Sultan Al Jaber, outraged climate alarmists worldwide when he ridiculed their pseudo-scientific pronouncements. [see video]. "I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist," he told former Irish President Mary Robinson.... Other oil-producing Arab governments also injected a major dose of reality into the summit while undermining the UN-backed Western media narrative. Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman ridiculed the idea that the world would "phase out” hydrocarbon energy. “And I assure you not a single person — I’m talking about governments — believes in that,” he was quoted as saying in the press.'

"This is the heart of the matter: Climate action is nothing more than a front to usher in totalitarian world government — a New World Order that proponents in globalist and communist circles have been discussing for more than 100 years. Those elected officials and other so-called dignitaries in the climate change movement do not honestly believe in their cause, or their actions would have reflected their convictions.... [B]ills to get the U.S. out of the UN have been recently introduced in the House and the Senate, the first time in a long time. Let’s generate some pressure in Congress to get these voted on."

Read more: https://thenewamerican.com/opinion/what-really-happened-at-cop28/

COP28: Criticism mounts against president over fossil fuel comments | Global News | December 3, 2023:

Trudeau govt to ban non-electric car sales by 2035

Just before Christmas, the Trudeau government announced regulations that would phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered automobiles in Canada, and ban their sale completely by 2035.

Federal Government EV Mandates Destined to Fail | EnergyNow.ca | Fraser Institute:

December 20, 2023 - "The Trudeau government [has] unveiled regulations meant to phaseout the sale of new internal combustion vehicles and compel Canadians to buy zero-emission vehicles..... [A]ccording to the Trudeau government’s new regulations, all new passenger vehicles and light trucks sold in Canada must be electric zero-emission vehicles [EVs] by 2035, with interim targets of 20 per cent by 2026 and 60 per cent by 2030.... 

"And yet, despite multibillion-dollar subsidies and governmental efforts to promote EV adoption, consumers are not embracing them. In Canada, only 6.5 per cent (98,589) of the 1.5 million new vehicles sold in 2022 were electric, according to Statistics Canada. Achieving the Trudeau government’s 2026 target would require a rapid increase in EV sales to more than 300,000 in coming years and more than 900,000 in 2030 (assuming no change in total vehicle sales). Such rapid growth in a short timeframe is at best questionable....

"But even in the unlikely scenario of sudden shift in consumer preferences, production-side barriers loom large.... According to a recent study, to meet international EV adoption mandates (including mandates in Canada and the U.S.) by 2030 the world would need 50 new lithium mines, 60 new nickel mines, 17 new cobalt mines, 50 new mines for cathode production, 40 new mines for anode materials, 90 new mines for battery cells, and 81 new mines for EV bodies and motors, for a total of 388 new mines worldwide. For context, in 2021 there were only 340 metal mines operating in Canada and the U.S.

"And historically, the development of mining and refining facilities has been slow. Production timelines range from six to nine years for lithium and 13 to 18 years for nickel—two elements critical for EV batteries. The aggressive government timelines for EV adoption clash with historically sluggish metal and mineral production, raising the risk of EV manufacturers falling short of needed minerals.... Simply put, it’s not at all clear that sufficient capacities will be available to produce enough EVs to achieve the mandates being imposed on Canadians and Americans, nor is it clear consumers in either country are willing to spend their own money to purchase them."

Read more: https://energynow.ca/2023/12/federal-government-ev-mandates-destined-to-fail-fraser-institute/

New cars sold in Canada must be zero-emission by 2035, Trudeau government announces | FULL | Global News | December 18, 2023:

Motor Mouth: The consequences of Canada's EV mandate | Driving ] David Booth: 

December 18, 2023 - "It’s now official. We have, as a nation, joined those other countries banning the sale of internal-combustion-engine-powered light-duty vehicles past the year 2035.... Discussion is over, the plans now firm, and the political party in charge, more desperate for wins that any time in their eight-year reign, are firmly committed to its implementation. In other words, automakers’ sales targets for battery-powered vehicles — some 20 per cent of all new cars sold in 2026, 60 per cent by 2030, and the full 100 per cent in 2035 — have been mandated, and now all that’s left to do is deal with the consequences....

"A lot of things have to go right for Canada to achieve 100-per-cent ZEV sales nationwide by 2035. Pierre Poilievre can't get elected. Battery prices need to decrease. The roll-out of charging stations needs to be ramped up. The federal government will have to maintain its subsidies much longer than originally proposed. Failure of any of the above could render these best of intentions wasted. Throw in the fact that it takes as much as five to 10 years for a mine to come on-stream in Canada, and the precipitous drop in pricing EV proponents have been promising seems remote indeed.... In fact, the idea that a fully functional EV — as in, one with sufficient range to serve as a middle-class family’s only mode of transportation — will be anywhere near CDN$30,000 without subsidies in the next five years seems laughable. A ... 400-km-plus-(real-)highway-range four-door five-passenger EV for 30 large? With no government cash in the trunk? No one in North America — or Europe — can build that car.

"But the Chinese can. In fact, they’re already doing it, and, thanks to a cost-of-manufacturing advantage that some corporate European CEOs put at as much as 15,000 euros, they are ravaging the E.U. market as we speak. Many other markets as well.... [W]ith the mandate’s rapid progression — that 60-per-cent-of-new-cars-be-EVs-by-2030 rule – it might become viable for BYD, NIO, and the like to establish a beachhead here..., And when — okay, if — they come, there’s precious little chance our native auto industry can counterattack.... 

"By [2030], 60 per cent of all cars an automaker sells throughout our entire country will have to be BEVs. That would mean that if you sell, say, 60,000 electrics nationwide, you’d be allowed to sell 40,000 non-ZEV ICEs. For many of the larger automakers in Canada, that would be a bad year....[O]ur American cousins ... could flood our market with new (actually slightly used) ICEs to make up for the shortfall. Back in 2009, when our dollar was at par ... five per cent of the new cars sold in Canada came from south of the border. With even more money to be made and a captive audience facing a shortage of cars they’re no longer allowed to buy through Canadian dealers, it could be many more."

Read more: https://driving.ca/auto-news/industry/canada-electric-vehicle-availability-standard-ev-mandate-sales-2035

Guilbeault's plan to reduce danger from cow burps

Justin Trudeau's climate change minister, Steven Guilbeault, celebrated food and agricultue day at the COP28 summit on climate change by unveiling the Canadian government's plan to reduce the environmental threat posed by cow burps.

Guilbeault moves to cap methane emissions from cows | Western Standard | Shaun Polczer:

December 11, 2023 - "First it was the oil and gas industry. Now Envrionment Minister Steven Guilbeault is taking aim at another major sector of Alberta’ economy by targeting flatulent cattle.... [A]at the COP28 summit in Dubai ... Guilbeault announced the proposed ‘Reducing Enteric Methane Emissions from Beef Cattle’ (REME) protocol to 'incentivize” farmers to implement changes that would be eligible for methane offset credits that can be bought or sold'....

"It’s the fourth such schedule to be included in Canada’s greenhouse gas offset system and the third policy measure announced by Guilbeault’s office at the COP28 summit including limits on industrial methane and a cap on oil and gas.... Environment and Climate Change Canada said the draft REME protocol was 'informed' by Alberta’s offset protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fed cattle. At this point it only covers burping emissions from beef cattle — more than half of which are found in Alberta — and not dairy cows that are concentrated in the Lower Mainland and Quebec.

"According to Environment Canada, agriculture was responsible for 31% of Canada’s total methane emissions in 2021, the majority of which are produced by beef and dairy cattle. Methane is generated during the natural digestive process of cows and is released into the air when cows burp. 

"The offset credit system is among several measures Canada is taking to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels under the Liberals’ 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/agriculture/guilbeault-moves-to-cap-methane-emissions-from-cows/50938

Ottawa's plan to cut methane emissions 'unconstitutional,' Alberta premier says | Power and Politics, CBC News | December 11, 2023:

Ottawa comes down hard on methane-burping cows. Are humans next? | Calgary Herald | Don Braid:

December 12, 2023 - ""Methane eructated and flatulated by cattle is a secondary but substantial cause of climate change. So, too, is gas from moose, elk, deer and many other creatures less susceptible to regulation. But the worst offenders by far are humans, each and every one of us expert at using our built-in emission technologies. As a species we are so gaseous and numerous that our methane production far exceeds those of any cud-chewing creatures. Much is written on all this, although one has to wonder about the accuracy of facts and figures. Who can measure the totality of human flatulence? And how? Regardless, Ottawa is on the case.... 

"As usual, Ottawa presents a climate measure as advantageous both scientifically and economically. 'Each credit represents one tonne of emission reductions. Credits can be sold to facilities that will use them to meet emissions reduction obligations, or to other businesses to meet their low-carbon economy commitments. This means fewer methane emissions, and more financial opportunities for Canadian farmers'....

"There are ways to reduce methane emissions from cattle — feeding them a certain kind of seaweed, for instance. This is apparently very effective, although not so practical on the Prairies. Cattle can also be bred with low-emission genetic traits. If the entire dairy herd were bred this way, according to one company, emissions in the national dairy herd could drop 20 to 30 per cent by 2050.

"Kyle Larkin, executive director of the Grain Growers of Canada, says farmers and ranchers already face pressure from federal demands to cut fertilizer emissions. 'It’s fine to put targets out there,' he says, 'but we need a plan to be able to get to those targets, and if the government was serious about reaching the 30 per cent fertilizer emissions reduction target, or the methane reduction target, there need to be dollars put into best management practices and helping farmers to adapt.' But Ottawa continues to drop measures on one sector after another. The Liberals are so zealous, in fact, that they might even announce low-emission targets for humans."

Read more: https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-ottawa-comes-down-hard-on-methane-burping-cows-are-humans-next

Corruption, cover-up alleged in federal green fund

Canada's House of Commons ethics committee is investigating allegations of and mismanagement, miscoduct, and cover-ups in the federal government's main green tech funding agency, whose CEO and board president have already resigned.

Whistleblower accuses Liberals of 'egregious cover-up' over controversy at green tech fund | National Post | Catherine Lévesque:

December 12, 2023 - "In bombshell testimony at a House of Commons committee, a whistleblower accused the federal government of an 'egregious cover-up' over allegations of mismanagement and misconduct conducted by the board of Canada’s main funding agency for green tech. The whistleblower, a former employee who worked at Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) from 2020 to 2022, showed his face during his testimony at the committee on industry Monday night, but on the condition that his name would not be used.... 

"During his time at SDTC, the whistleblower conducted financial due diligence and compliance of projects. He said he is the only one who could openly speak about the problems at the agency, since he had not signed a non-disclosure agreement, unlike many of his former colleagues. He alleged that $150 million of taxpayer money was granted improperly, including to companies directly connected to SDTC’s own board members....

"Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne had previously said that his department was made aware of allegations concerning SDTC earlier this year, and had asked an independent third party, the accounting firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, to conduct a 'fact-finding exercise.' Champagne said ... The findings, as reported by the Globe and Mail, showed evidence of inappropriate funding, conflict-of-interest breaches, high turnover rates and stress-related leaves of absence. As a result, Champagne demanded that SDTC take corrective measures, including creating an action plan that he expects will be implemented by the end of this year and suspending government funding for all new projects until the corrective measures are in place....

"This testimony is the latest in a series of developments concerning the fate of SDTC, which has put more than $1.5 billion into clean technology companies since 2001. The Conservatives have already said they would shut down the fund if they form government. The president of the board of directors, Annette Verschuren, recently resigned after being the subject of an investigation by the ethics commissioner. She admitted to having approved more than $200,000 in subsidies to the company NRStor, which she runs [see video]. The president and CEO of SDTC, Leah Lawrence, also resigned. In a letter to the board of directors, she cited a 'sustained and malicious campaign to undermine' her leadership."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/whistleblower-accuses-liberals-of-egregious-coverup-green-tech-fund

Breaking News!!! MP Cooper Digs Into Incredible Allegations In New Govt Scandal | IUI Cafe | November 8, 2023:

Trudeau appointee fled ethics investigation hearing | Western Standard | Christopher Oldcorn"

December 13, 2023 - "A cabinet appointee under an ethics investigation for alleged insider dealings abruptly left a Commons Industry committee hearing on Tuesday evening while being questioned. According to Blacklock’s Reporter, whistleblowers accused Annette Verschuren, a Liberal Party donor, of directing federal employees to search for grants on behalf of her non-profit Verschuren Centre.... On November 20, Verschuren resigned as chair of the federal foundation Sustainable Development Technology Canada [SDTC] ... after she admitted to having voted to allocate $217,000 to her money-losing company.... Verschuren is being investigated by the Ethics Commissioner for a suspected breach of the Conflict of Interest Act.

"During her testimony via videoconference, Verschuren informed the committee that she had expertise in business matters. 'I understand business,' she said. 'I have been on boards for almost 30 years..... 'I am chair of a governance committee of a major company in Canada. I understand —.” Following this exchange, Verschuren suddenly stood up, turned off her headphones, and disconnected from the videoconference. The committee adjourned after the incident. 

"This followed a whistleblower's testimony claiming that the Verschuren Centre relied on taxpayer subsidies. Witness Number One, a former financial compliance officer at [SDTC] , alleged that in 2021 as chair Verschuren sought millions in grants for her Verschuren Centre for Sustainability in Energy, located on the campus of Cape Breton University, where Verschuren also serves as the chancellor.... A foundation review committee 'rejected it based on the conflict of interest,' said Witness Number One. However, foundation employees were ordered to “help the Verschuren Centre and move that application into other sources of funding'....

"Records show the Verschuren Centre in 2022 received $3 million from the federal Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. It also received $1.4 million from the department of fisheries in 2022, another $70,000 from the National Research Council this past April 1, an additional $1 million from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency on September 5 and $1.18 million from the federally subsidized Canadian Food Innovation Network on September 19."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/news/trudeau-appointee-fled-ethics-investigation-hearing/50997