Roundup: When lower carbon is not lower carbon

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As the various interests trying to promote the continued development of Alberta’s energy sector amidst changing global markets and the need to move to a carbon-constrained future, one is bound to find a number of arguments that are inherently self-serving and containing falsehoods (such as the fiction that Andrew Scheer and Jason Kenney keep trying to promote that somehow Alberta energy can reduce the environmental footprint in China and India, and that we can take their emissions credits for it). Energy economist Andrew Leach found another one promulgated by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (which I will remind you is an organization that has gone so far to the one side that major players like Royal Dutch Shell have withdrawn from the group, because they understand the need for mechanisms like carbon pricing).

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau announced that the government was providing $25,000 per PS752 victim to families assist with immediate costs while they wait for compensation.
  • Trudeau is off this weekend to the Cabinet retreat in Winnipeg, where he will also meet with Brian Pallister and the mayor of Winnipeg.
  • Here’s a look at some of the possible considerations around the timing of the New NAFTA implementation legislation in Parliament.
  • Harjit Sajjan says that Canada would respect an Iraqi request for our forces to leave the country if it were made.
  • The federal government plans to hire trainers for Canadian officials if we win the Security Council seat vote in June.
  • The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called for the end to three resource projects, not knowing most First Nations support them.
  • Failed Conservative candidate Bobby Singh says he’s in the leadership race. (We’ll see how long it lasts).
  • Justin Ling reminds us of some parts of Jean Charest’s legacy in Quebec, in particular around the crackdowns on student protests.
  • Chris Selley laments the loss of Preston Manning’s idea and energy from the Conservative movement.
  • Kevin Carmichael looks at the state of the auto industry, and how its future may be shaped by the incentives governments offer for electric vehicles.
  • Susan Delacourt makes note of how much better things seem to be working without Parliament in session or daily Question Period – which is not a good thing.
  • Colby Cosh offers an acid take on some of the arguments presented at the Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday in the Trans Mountain appeal.
  • My weekend column looks at how Thursday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision is just one more example of governments who use the courts as political cover.

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One thought on “Roundup: When lower carbon is not lower carbon”

  1. I doubt that any of the CPC leadership candidates whose names are in the news would do anything but double down on Scheer and Kenney’s oil-and-gas-lighting. The bizarrely clandestine Ambrose is clearly Kenney’s favorite, and would just put a prettier face on his opportunistic and self-serving denialism. Her abysmal performance as Harper’s environment minister should leave her branded as the Kenney Kyoto Killer.

    MacKay would commit political suicide were he to go against the dogma of the beast he helped create. The only candidate in 2017 to support carbon pricing was Chong; he got roundly booed for his heresy, and may not even be able to satisfy the onerous requirements to run this time around. That leaves Charest, who is an apparent pariah with more baggage than an airline terminal.

    The party is so obsessively focused on the headline grabbing, easy answer to Scheer’s performance in the election, which is that it was his untrustworthiness on social issues such as abortion and LGBTQ+ human rights that turned voters off. But less often mentioned and more difficult to work on, at least without telling the “swivel-eyed loons” what they don’t want to hear, is that the more the CPC doubles down on the reality distortion field and manufactured crisis of “western alienation,” the less likely they are to come up with a viable climate plan and will continue to cede the #1 most salient issue to the Liberals and other parties.

    “Rebranding” is more than just marching at Pride. I’m sure gay people don’t want to die in climate disasters either. If they really wanted to “rebrand” honestly, they’d change their name and fitting acronym from Conservative Reform Alliance Party to the Kudatah Koala Killers.

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