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Transition to we know not what

08 Feb 2023 | OP ED Watch

One thing about climate alarmists and green revolutionaries: they don’t discourage easily. Canada’s government stumbles from scandal to fiscal mishap like some political version of Dr. Watson in those old Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce black-and-white B movies but its ambitions just keep increasing. The Prime Minister claims to feel people’s pain: “We can feel it, how times are tough right now” he said before a caucus meeting. And so it’s time to throw a lot more money down the drain on green projects guaranteed to fail, and also to smash the parts of the economy that do work into smithereens. Trudeau’s Minister of Natural Resources burbles that he’d rather call his “just transition” bill a “sustainable jobs” bill, perhaps because just and Justin sound too much alike. And “in the next few months his government will introduce further policy on green technology projects” while Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the government is just getting started on job creation in the imaginary green energy sector. “I would say last year was the appetizer. The main course is this year”. We already have indigestion.

Also, the Globe & Mail reports, “Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says her 2023 budget will prioritize spending on health care and the green energy transition, while ensuring the government’s overall fiscal plan is sustainable during what is expected to be a challenging year.” Lest you should feel anxiety, she adds that “we do need to continue to take a fiscally prudent approach.” Unfortunately “continue” is a word this administration uses to describe things they are not doing and would not know how to even attempt; in fact on Trudeau’s watch federal debt has risen more than 50%, from just over $1.2 trillion to well over $1.8 trillion, due to hair-raising deficits that topped out at $314 billion in 2020-21, very nearly as large as total revenue.

So with the planet on fire and dark forces adding gasoline to it, no price is too high to pay to save us just in case there turns out to be a price. Which naturally there won’t since the Liberals know their plan will work in a way that delivers more and better jobs than you ever heard of, cleaner and greener and more bucolic.

Just don’t ask for details. It is noteworthy that in all of this the Canadian government keeps telling us what grand things its “Just Transition” will do even though one of the missing elements of the plan is the plan itself. They plan to have a plan and hope it all works out, but for instance, Blacklock’s Reporter informs us:

“Mandating use of electric cars will result in a 23 percent increase in overall demand for electricity, says a Department of Natural Resources report. Estimates of resulting impacts on power rates are ‘still being developed,’ it said. ‘The projected costs of the investments needed to enhance Canada’s electricity grid to meet increased demand from electric vehicle charging and the electrification of the economy more broadly are currently being developed,’ the department wrote in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons. ‘The majority of grid costs associated with electric vehicles likely will be attributed to upgrades to distribution systems.’”

So how do they know that whatever plan they might one day concoct will work? Simple: They know that whatever they want to do happens because they want it to. Which is the sort of thinking one would expect among the truly obsessed. Which, as Anthony Furey complained in True North, is what we are dealing with:

“Maybe the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau occasionally does things that aren’t to do with climate change. Maybe. But you’d only notice that if you’re an Ottawa bubble policy junkie who follows the ins and outs of Parliament. Zoom out though and from a bird’s eye view, it seems that all the Liberals do is roll out a never-ending series of climate-related projects.”

He then produced a list including “the upcoming increase to the carbon tax that will happen this April. This will see the carbon tax price per litre on gas go up to 14 cents.” Also the ban on plastic bags which, to be fair, might not be primarily about their carbon footprint. But the rest is:

“Also last month, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced that the government was mandating the percentage of automotive sales of new vehicles that must be electric vehicles – beginning with 20% in 2026 and 100% by 2035.”

And then there’s the Just Transition:

“where they will be working to aggressively phase out jobs in the oil and gas sector. They promise to replace them with high-paying green jobs, but their projections may not come to pass as they’re all based on magical-thinking.”

Is that it? Alas “no, I’m not done yet – there are the fertilizer reduction targets aimed at farmers that the government is still working on.” And more:

“Finally – still not done! – there are the climate coalitions the government joined during the World Economic Forum the other week. Yes, that’s coalitions, plural. The government signed Canadians up for two different international coalitions designed to reduce emissions usage throughout the global supply chain.”

One more plan to come up with a plan. But it’s all for the cause. As Canada’s own erstwhile “Green Jesus” Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault tweeted a couple of weeks ago “The data is in: 2022 was Canada’s 3rd worse year for insured damage from extreme weather. The costs of climate change continue to mount.” Or maybe we got richer and more populous so bad weather claimed more wealth. But to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

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