The Green, the Red and You and Me

by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU E. CHISU, CD, PMSC, FEC, CET, P. Eng. Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East As the psychopathic obsession with green energy continues relentlessly, pursued both in the media and in politics at all costs, the country is sinking further and further into the red and be assured that you and I, 'Joe public', will have to pay for it. Prime Minister Trudeau and his Liberal government took pride in recently announcing hard caps on emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) for Canada's oil and gas sector. In his wisdom he thinks that this will help to achieve Ottawa's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. As is so often the case with the current government, there are serious questions that have not been asked-let alone answered-about this new policy and its consequences for Canadians. But never mind, the leading politicians are all aces and current in their scientific knowledge as well as being advised by the most science loving and practising public servants. In the hands of such luminaries we are bound to do well in the near future. It is important to understand however, that the design of the cap on emissions, at least given current information, is to restrain current levels of production and gradually reduce them over time. In other words, they're designed to limit increased production and expansion of the oil and gas sector in Canada. This is a serious threat to the livelihood of Canadians living in the of western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It seems, though, that the savants in Ottawa will have a solution for them. Based on the latest data from Statistics Canada, and this is not fake news, the oil and gas sector represents 26.2 per cent of Canada's total GHG emissions. The remaining emission sources are exempt from the cap. It's not clear why the production of GHGs in the oil and gas sector are more harmful or damaging to the environment or the economy than GHGs produced in other sectors. It is clear however, that somewhere, someone has the intention to cripple the exploration of Canada's natural resources, especially the oil and gas sector, in order to implement a globalist agenda and a new world order. Common sense is telling us that given population growth and increases in income, the demand for goods and services that generate GHGs across all sectors, including oil and gas will increase. So unless there are breakthrough technologies, which the government is counting on but which only exist in some nebula at the moment, emissions will also increase. In other words, it's not clear how constraining one-quarter of GHG sources (the oil and gas sector) can help achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 if emission levels from the other three-quarters are growing. This logic amounts to a cancel culture approach taken by the current government. There are certainly unanswered question regarding home energy consumption, which includes heating and cooling homes, preparing meals and providing energy for the comforts of life. According to the latest available data from Statistics Canada, in 2015, 51.0 per cent of home energy consumption was provided by natural gas, 45.2 per cent by electricity and 3.8 per cent by heating oil. If the government constrains oil and gas production, and the population continues to grow, a marked shift to electricity must occur, particularly with respect to heating homes. However, the government is silent on nuclear energy, because it is taboo and not politically correct to speak about reducing GHGs by any means other than solar and wind power. Moreover, in its professional enthusiasm the government has provided no information about who will pay these enormous costs or where all the new electricity will be produced. There's a real possibility that Canadian families will have to pay to remove natural gas and oil-fired furnaces and replace them with electric heating systems, and that the cost of electricity will increase dramatically. Indeed, who else but the Canadian public will likely bear these significant costs in the near future? So why have there been no disclosures or information on this subject? Ottawa continues to present these 'green' decisions as if they're costless. Oh yes… the budget will balance itself - by reaching into your pocket. Let us also consider the question of GHG reductions in the transport sector, which is the second-largest source of GHGs in Canada at 25.4 per cent (2019). By the way - we live in a big country and we really need our transportation. The vast majority of Canadians are not living in the Ottawa bubble. The Liberal campaign platform in 2021 called for half of all "passenger" vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emissions by 2030 and all must be zero by 2035 - and they formed government. According to Statistics Canada, in 2020, there were 1.5 million new vehicle registrations and 39,036 (or 2.5 per cent of the total) were electric-battery vehicles (the percentage increases if hybrids are included but they are also potentially emitting vehicles). When we only look at "passenger" vehicles, aka yours to drive, the numbers drop to 498,031 total registrations and 28,007 electric-battery vehicles (or 5.6 per cent of the total). In my humble opinion it is not clear how Canada moves from 1-in-20 vehicles being zero-emissions in 2020 to 1-in-2 within 10 years and 1-in-1 in 15 years. And again, it's entirely unclear how all the new electricity and infrastructure to power these vehicles will be generated. Maybe the government's next step will be a call to some shamans to ask the gods to intervene for a miracle. With the COP16 climate conference over in Glasgow, and Prime Minister Trudeau home again but preparing to take his fearless team to Washington DC soon for the meeting of the new Tre Amigos, what can Canadians expect? The meeting will likely achieve nothing except more GHGs, and Canadians should get ready to pay the costs of more unrealistic globalist promises. In conclusion, the more these clowns pursue green, the more red they create, and they leave ordinary citizens like you and me holding the bag; to pay for generations to come. Maybe the time has come to make some changes in Ottawa. What do you think?