Photo: Bruce Forsyth. 
Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
November 2021
Re: “High on her own supply – Ex-minister still lecturing folks of climate issues” (Brian Lilley, Toronto Sun, 23 November):
Catherine McKenna obviously lives in an irony-free world. Isn’t it wonderful that despite no longer being a politician, she still gets to jet around the world, using fossil-fuels to do so, so that she can lecture us about how evil fossil-fuels are, and that we are all going to die in 10 years unless we render unto Caesar with increasingly higher, and completely useless, carbon taxes?
She stated that she was leaving elected politics so that she could “..devote her professional energies to the fight against climate change.” Does she have another job lined up, or is she starting her own “climate consulting” business? Of course, when I say starting her own business, I mean is she getting lucrative, sole-sourced government contracts?
Call me cynical, but is she shaping up to be yet another climate hypocrite, getting rich by terrifying gullible and brain-dead sheeple, who believe that governments can control the Earth’s natural climate cycles?
I’d love to have that kind of influence to get such a sweet gig, although I probably wouldn’t last long. I’d spend all my time trolling all those climate hypocrites by wearing Canadian fossil-fuel energy support clothing, and holding conferences and press briefings next to coal mines and natural gas power plants.
Speaking of trolling, it was masterful trolling of Poland to hold COP24 in Katowice, in the coal mining province of Silesian Voivodeship. Michal Kurtyka, COP24’s president and a state secretary in Poland’s Ministry of Energy, stated that this was done intentionally, so as to highlight how devastating to Poland’s economy it would be to transition off coal under current conditions.
Three ton block of coal. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
Given the fact that Poland derives 80% of their electrical generation from coal, it’s going to take more than windmills and fairy-dust to transition off coal. Perhaps Canadian natural gas and nuclear technology might help? How about clean-coal technology? Just a thought.
Of course, we should protect the environment; no one is disputing that. In fact, why are we still headed into a “climate crisis,” despite the fact that we have done a lot to clean up our air, water and land? We’ve done a lot to remediate the environmental damage done in the early years of the industrial age. Can we do better? Yes. Can we make fossil-fuel usage even cleaner? Yes! Even coal, the dirtiest and cheapest of the fossil-fuels, is burned cleaner than ever before, thanks to technological advances. Why don’t we get any credit for that?
It’s due to technological advances, cleaner burning fuels like natural gas, and nuclear generation, that we found solutions for things like acid rain and smog choking our cities, not by using solar panels and windmills. Even adding the relatively small number of electric vehicles currently on our roads hasn’t made a bigger difference than the former Drive Clean program.
Drive Clean was so successful in getting older vehicles off the road, vehicles that were replaced by new, cleaner-burning gas-powered vehicles (not EVs), that it was eliminated.
A lone electric car charging beside several empty charging stations. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
On the subject of EVs, I firmly believe in the market forces. If people really want EVs, they will buy them, regardless of whether there are government-funded rebates. If there have to be rebates to encourage people to make the leap to EVs, they should come from the auto manufactures, not the taxpayer. Like anything in a free-market economy, if a company makes a better product, at a better price, than their competitor, customers will buy it.
That leads to yet another question that I’d like to ask the automakers: are your announced plans to phase-out gas-powered vehicles within the next decade or so, because you actually believe in the superiority of EVs, or are you just trying to get ahead of government-imposed orders to eliminate all fossil-fuel usage, something that is completely foolish and simply not realistic? Maybe someday we can eliminate fossil-fuels, but we’re not anywhere close yet.
An unavoidable reality for private businesses is that they won’t sell a product that isn’t going to make them money, with the possible exception of Bombardier.
I’m not saying that EVs aren’t a worthwhile product. Maybe someday, I will buy one, but it’s not a realistic option for me right now. What I am saying is that we should have the choice to buy what we want to drive.
Sources: #COP24 – Poland, Europe, and coal: trolling or misunderstanding? – EU Reporter, Catherine McKenna retiring from politics, will not run in next election | CTV News, LILLEY: McKenna left politics but remains outspoken climate hypocrite | Toronto Sun.
