Can you imagine the Trudeau Liberal government proposing new regulations that threaten development of the aerospace industry without first consulting the Quebec provincial government? I can’t.
Indeed, the Liberals did the exact opposite in the SNC-Lavalin affair. Far from proposing new anti-corruption regulations for Quebec’s largest engineering firm, the Trudeau Liberals tried to rig the criminal prosecution of the company in the guise of saving Quebec jobs.
Or how about proposing dramatic reductions in emissions from the transportation or manufacturing sectors – reductions that would put job creation and economic growth in real danger – without giving Ontario’s government a heads up?
Sure, the Trudeau Liberals despise the Ford Tories, but they wouldn’t risk alienating Ontario voters by deliberately targeting one or more of Ontario’s key industries, unilaterally.
But that is exactly what the Trudeauites have done with their proposed “hard cap” on oil-and-gas emissions, released on Monday.
The federal Liberals are proposing drastic “industry specific” emission reductions aimed straight at Alberta and its energy sector. And they sprang the discussion paper on the Alberta government and on the oil and gas industry at the same time as they were releasing it to the public.
To make the Liberals’ deliberate antagonism for Alberta and energy workers even clearer, consider that just two weeks ago federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson hosted a meeting in Ottawa of all the provincial energy ministers and said not a word about the upcoming emissions cap.
Monday’s announcement came as a complete surprise to the governments of Saskatchewan and Alberta, two provinces whose economies are centered around energy development.
You can’t tell me the feds concocted the plan they released Monday in just the two weeks since the energy ministers’ summit. If they had, that would mean they could come up with a detailed, elaborate emissions plan in one-tenth the time it takes the same government to issue a new passport.
Didn’t happen.
The Liberals are once again indulging in their hatred for the energy industry and the West, confident that it won’t cost them politically because they already elect so few members in oil-producing provinces.
Consider that Canada’s energy industry and transportation industry contribute about the same amounts to the country’s overall emissions – oil and gas about 26 per cent, transportation about 25 per cent. Yet the Liberals are proposing to force the oil industry to cut emissions by 42 per cent over the next eight years, while the transportation sector only needs to make 23 per cent cuts.
And if the energy sector doesn’t make its target, there will be severe financial punishments.
Why target one sector? If you believe emissions are evil and excessive, shouldn’t you go after all of them with the same zeal?
Apparently not if you’re an openly divisive government with the smallest mandate in Canadian history that is highly dependent on votes from four large, urban regions (Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver) where “green” things are popular.
Since 2005, Canada’s emissions per dollar of GDP have fallen by nearly 20 per cent, thanks largely to private-sector initiatives. But you never hear that from the eco-fanatical Trudeau Liberals.
What’s going to make all of this worse, particularly in Alberta: On the same day as the Liberals released their gang-up-on-the-West emission plan, it also came to light that the cabinet is pushing an expensive new expansion of bilingualism into the private sector.
The Liberals want customers of airports, banks, grain terminals, maritime shippers, railways, telecom companies and trans-border truckers to be able to be served in French and for employees of those companies to be able to work in French (including on French computers) because, they claim, preserving the French language is essential to preserving national unity.
Meanwhile, national unity threats from trampling all over the West are easily ignored.
Post a Comment