Reset of the economy and climate change
by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU E. CHISU, CD, PMSC,
FEC, CET, P. Eng.
Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East
In Canada there is more and more talk about a reset of the economy, using the excuse and opportunity of the Covid-19 pandemic. The politicians of the major political parties are more or less accepting of the idea and the elite media journalists are joyfully praising the advent of a new economy combined with a new social order meant to save the planet.
Obviously whoever tries to challenge them on reasonable and scientific grounds becomes an outcast and labeled as a "FAKELIST". Well, where there is smoke there is fire. Let's start with the so-called genuine plan entitled "The Great Reset", drawn up by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Lead by economist Klaus Schwab, the WEF organizes an annual conference in Switzerland for high-profile political and business figures.
The plan explores how countries might recover from the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Full of good intentions and new ideas we are heading for an uncharted future. There are people who fiercely oppose the ideas advocated by the WEF and more people, especially politicians, including our Prime Minister, who enthusiastically embrace them.
The social media is exploding, conspiracy theories of all kinds are flourishing, the establishment media is exalting and fuming at the same time and the politicians, mostly lawyers and political scientists, are talking nonsense relying on chosen courtesan scientists. Welcome to the new middle ages with a spike of communism as appetizer. Furthermore, because we are increasingly living in a virtual world, welcome to the virtual punishments. Burning at the stake on Facebook and Twitter or banishment to the gulag of the Star, the Globe and the CBC of whoever dares to challenge the establishment elaborated globalist doctrine.
So let us land in the best country in the world to live and raise a family, and see what is going on, and what the plans are for keeping it the same in the future. At this point the pandemic rages with a renewed intensity in the country and the provincial and federal leaders seem to be quite disoriented yet proud of themselves. They seem to have suddenly discovered the colors, becoming new renaissance artists in coloring maps and establishing elaborate pandemic rules based on heavenly inspiration. Are they living in an imaginary euphoric world, not realizing that the economy will soon collapse and they will be responsible for the hardship of future generations? Never mind. There are similarities to be found in ancient history; when Emperor Nero played the fiddle while Rome was burning. Our feet are to the fire and the show is on, but where is the water?
Let us come down to earth and see what the recently proposed Bill C-12 Canadian Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act legislation is about. It seems to be the main preoccupation of the present federal government; to build the new economy and the future of Canada on renewable energy, primarily wind and solar. Only that when there is no wind or sun there is no energy, and that does not depend on political decisions but on Mother Nature.
The legislation, C-12, essentially fulfills a Liberal election promise to be more aggressive at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and to get Canada to net-zero emissions by 2050 at any cost.
Reaching "net-zero" by 2050 would mean that emissions produced 30 years from now would be fully absorbed through actions that scrub carbon from the atmosphere, such as planting trees, or technology, such as carbon-capture and storage systems. The Liberals have promised to plant two billion trees but are silent on nuclear, the real no carbon emitting energy source. Never mind. The sun will continue to shine upon us until its nuclear power becomes extinct in the next billion years. Maybe in the future some wise and imaginative politicians will have plans to save the sun, you never know.
"Climate change remains one of the greatest challenges of our times," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters with glowing confidence.
The trouble is; we are far better at setting ambitious targets than we are at meeting them and we have the pandemic and the immediate economy to deal with.
If all of this sounds familiar, it's likely because a not-dissimilar bill, the Climate Change Accountability Act, was put forward by the federal NDP and passed in the House of Commons a decade ago during PM Stephen Harper's second minority government. If it's not familiar, that may be because the bill had the dubious honour of being the first one killed by the unelected Senate.
In the intervening years, Prime Minister Harper withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol, whose 2012 target we were destined to fail on, and then committed Canada to a 2020 target, now also missed, under the Copenhagen Accord. So again, we have high expectations, a lot of ink splashed about by a trumpeting elitist press, and a lot of bureaucrats doing Sisyphean work for this latest incarnation of unachievable climate accountability legislation.
The proposed bill also reflects a kind of new revolutionary thinking of reverse perestroika. It prescribes that the Commissioner of the Environment & Sustainable Development "must, at least once every five years, examine and report on the Government of Canada's implementation of the measures aimed at mitigating climate change, including those undertaken to achieve its most recent greenhouse gas emissions target as identified in the relevant assessment report." The first such report would land around 2025 and could well arrive even sooner. So in essence we have a revival of five year plans all accomplished on paper with glorious reporting by a government subsidized press and visual media of the completion, tactics refined in the former communist countries. Instead of going for progress we go back to a sad past experiment, having learned nothing from historical experiences.
On top of this Canada is also obliged under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to submit a biennial report on climate action progress relative to our 2030 target by the end of 2021 and annual inventory reports. Here we go again, giving more non-productive, glorified work to bureaucrats paid by the taxpayers in a truly new globalist driven world with our Prime Minister in the lead.
He proudly told the New York Times Magazine in 2017 that Canada could be the "first postnational state", adding with confidence, that "there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada".
All of this focus on an underworldly vision, when the primordial focus should be on the immediate future of ordinary citizens' quest to work and put bread on the table for their families.
At this time of challenges, governments at all levels should have a concrete plan and start executing it in order to contain the economic disaster that we are facing right now.
It's only fair to expect immediate and positive action from provincial and federal governments to lead us out of the pandemic darkness. Ultimately, the accountability for the governments' actions or inaction will be judged by Canadians themselves. Hopefully, we will still be living in a democracy.
Is this too much to ask? You be the judge.
