COP26 A Slap in the Face to Albertans and Our World-Class Energy Sector
CBC Survey Results, and Seniors Facing a Cut to the Guaranteed Income Supplement for Accepting Pandemic Benefits
COP26 A Slap in the Face to Albertans and Our World-Class Energy Sector
The COP 26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland is about midway through as I write this and it will wrap up on November 12th, but the Liberal government has already shown its hand by making policy announcements impacting millions of Canadians without consultation, foresight, discussion, or analysis. Prime Minister Trudeau announced that Canadian oil and gas development would be throttled back and a hard cap on emissions along with a promise to decrease and scale down to reach net-zero by 2050. I voted against the net-zero legislation back on June 22 because the contents of the legislation were more anti-energy workers than pro-environment. The on-the-fly announcement at COP 26 is just more of the same from the Liberal government.
Let’s look at Alberta. Alberta has already imposed a cap on oilsands development voluntarily at 100MT. There is a price on carbon at the producer level, a tech fund to finance clean technology, and widespread adoption of near-commercial carbon capture and storage as well as utilization programs. For example, the Clive, Alberta project by Enhance Energy that uses carbon to enhance oil recovery in older wells is the future. Canada’s 2019 carbon emissions from the oil and gas sector were 191MT which is 26% of the then total. Transportation accounted for 186MT in that same year.
We are facing an energy crisis. Prices across Canada for gasoline, diesel, and other energy products are going up. European spot prices for natural gas are 6 times higher than usual heading into the winter. European leaders and even U.S. President Biden have called for more development and production of energy products. This energy crisis is coming because of disinvestment, difficulty to scale utility-sized low carbon energy sources, and general uncertainty in the Western world of how serious any of these elite announcements truly are. This energy crisis will have a direct impact on the cost of living issues facing Canadians that add to inflation from massive public government borrowing and money creation by governments.
The worst part of this policy-making by hashtag (#netzeroby2050) is that when the newly minted environment minister was asked about details related to this announcement – he had none. In fact, both the new environment and natural resources ministers had sent a letter to the government’s net-zero advisory board to ask for help on producing this new policy for an emission cap on the sector. No analysis on the likely impact on our energy exports and jobs connected to the sector, no review of how imports of energy products would be affected (especially on the East Coast), and lastly no broad description of how the job market will be affected by such a move. Nothing. Not only is it irresponsible, but it’s the type of reckless, zero-evidence policy-making the Liberal government has become more and more comfortable with announcing and worrying about the details in the distant future. Chasing the hashtag victory instead of the implementation results.
A last open question I want to leave you with, is the Prime Minister going to continue to allow energy imports from other jurisdictions that don’t have an emission cap while putting at risk up to 500,000 jobs connected to the sector? I’d like to hear from him.
The Results are in: Defund the CBC Survey
In August, I sent a survey around asking for feedback on Erin O’Toole’s proposal for Conservatives to defund the CBC. I received 834 responses from constituents. 625 said yes to defunding the CBC, 192 said no, and 17 were unsure.
I continue to support defunding the CBC and received quite a bit of thoughtful and insightful feedback. Protecting the radio service the CBC provides for remote communities makes sense, especially when digital over-the-air services are not yet entirely reliable or Sirius XM is not broadly used. Many constituents pointed out, and this was in the last conservative platform, that the French CBC portion should be hived out as there isn’t a large market available for French programming outside of the CBC. There was a strong majority who expressed concerns about the quality of the news programming from the CBC and the open bias of the reporting. I will continue to advocate a better deal for Canadian taxpayers especially as we look to reduce our public deficit and balance the budget to prevent future generations from taking on an impossible debt to bear.
Seniors Facing a Cut to the Guaranteed Income Supplement for Accepting Pandemic Benefits
90,000 Canadian seniors are having their monthly income cut because they accepted a pandemic benefit.
As a result of receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), seniors are getting their Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) clawed back as a result.
Conservatives knew that this would be a problem for Canada’s seniors which is why we wrote to the previous Minister of Seniors in August. Conservatives are anxious to see this problem rectified.
Trudeau is clearly an uneducated mouthpiece when it comes to how Oil and Gas actually works in Canada. He clearly hates Alberta, as his father did, and seems to enjoy inventing new ways to make Albertans suffer. This is why politics is such a, excuse my language, shit show! People who have no clue what they are talking about are the ones in charge of dealing with things they don't understand! Since when has politics in Canada been dynastic??? I understand that no one leader will ever please everyone, but seriously, how much more do Canadians have to suffer under someone who clearly has no clue what he is doing??? Does he have any clue how many items we use in day-to-day life are created with hydrocarbons/oil??? Someone needs to sit him down (when he is no longer high from the pot he legalized) and teach him what he clearly doesn't know or understand. Then we wouldn't have to rely on other countries with no laws or standards for our oil. If he looks to bankrupt the country, well he is certainly on the right path! And throwing stuff out left, right, and centre to suck up to the COP26 with no back up and, I'm sure, surprises to his own staff/cabinet/ministers, whatever job titles and no answers when asked how it will be done?? Very irresponsible indeed, though not much of a surprise from Trudeau at this point in time.
Trudeau continues to attack Alberta/Saskatchewan oil, now on the world stage. It is a huge slap in the face of Albertans- the largest contributor to equalization. Trudeau can’t have it both ways- berating Alberta oil and continuing to collect money from the trampled on.