UPDATED: An Exercise We Should Be Avoiding At All Costs

While I am all for exercises that help keep us healthy, supple and mobile, as Canadians there is one that we should never undertake: bending over for bullies. The flexibility it engenders is bad for our national reputation.  Unfortunately, however, it is looking increasingly like our federal government's exercise of choice in pursuing its relationship with the U.S.

Consider the 'suppleness' we have shown thus far: removal of most of the retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.; removal of the digital services tax; the pending removal of the CRTC's order for streaming giants to start paying 15% of their Canadian revenues toward productions in this country.

For all of this, what have we gotten from the U.S. and The Beast that leads it? Nothing, coupled with a claim of indifference to renewing the CUSMA agreement, and a demand to be 'compensated' for the new Gordie Howe bridge before it can open, despite the fact that it was built entirely on our dime.

These exercises in submission, a far cry from the elbows up we were urged to practise for so long, have yielded nothing but more American disdain, and it has undeniably gravely hurt our national reputation, as well as our national pride.

Columnist Mark McQueen offers his thoughts on what we have done to ourselves viv a vis the opening of the Gordie Howe bridge, which was to be officially opened today:

When asked for a reaction, the White House threw a wrench in the works, saying that the “president’s position on the Gordie Howe Bridge has not changed. The Administration remains committed to securing the best possible deal for the American people.”

One could take that statement to mean either that the bridge would be opening, despite the president’s prior objections. Or, ominously, that Ottawa’s announcement didn’t have the support of the U.S. Administration.

On Wednesday, the trump card was quickly laid, with the president telling reporters that he is “not looking to renew” the CUSMA. Period.

Sound a bit like The Beast's famous dealing? Guess it worked:

Terrible poker players that they are, the federal Liberals folded immediately. Early yesterday, Ottawa formally rescinded its invitations [for the opening].

What the feds could have done, according to McQueen, was something quite different.

 If Ottawa wanted to give life to its “Elbow’s Up” campaign, it would have been poetic to unilaterally open Howe’s namesake bridge. The president clearly wasn’t on board with the opening in the absence of a broader trade deal, meaning that Ottawa proceeded without Trump’s consent.

That was a valid, NHL Enforcer-like strategy, had the Liberals just stuck to it.

One of two things would have happened: Washington would have acquiesced, recognizing the economic benefits of improved border flows might help Republicans prevail in key Senate races in Michigan and Ohio this fall.

In the alternative, Washington was within their rights to keep their U.S. Customs plaza closed tight. But that wouldn’t have stopped Carney from capitalizing on the summer tourist season by opening the bridge to U.S. vacationers and truckers looking to take Gordie Howe into Canada.

Instead, Canada’s new ambassador to Washington, Mark Wiseman, allowed the worst of all scenarios to play out: Ottawa kicked the president in the shins, only to immediately capitulate, yet again.

And what final form that capitulation will take is the thing that troubles me most. Instead of keeping all the tolls until the bridge is paid for, will Carney try more appeasement? Will he offer half the bridge to the Americans? Will he agree that the Americans should get all the tolls? The possible scenarios are many, all with the same result: more national humiliation.

UPDATE: If you subscribe to The Globe, I'd suggest you read this article. If you don't, here are a few salient points:

The existing century-old Ambassador Bridge is privately owned by the billionaire Michigan-based Moroun family, who charge vehicles at least double the rate paid at publicly owned crossings in other parts of Ontario.

Despite having a monopoly for many years, the Morouns want more:

United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra are trying to negotiate a deal that would save the Moroun family from losing too much money once they have to compete with the publicly owned Gordie Howe bridge, The Globe reported.

The Moroun family, which also owns a trucking empire, has fought for years to shut down any competition to the Ambassador, pouring tens of millions of dollars into federal and state politics along the way. That includes donating more than US$1-million to a campaign group supporting U.S. President Donald Trump. The family had also employed a lobbying firm – Ballard Partners – well-connected within the Trump administration, counting Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and his ex-attorney-general, Pam Bondi, among its former employees.

A commentator on the site suggested closing down the Canadian portion of the Ambassador Bridge, citing drug and gun traffic. That'll never happen, of course, but anyway, one can dream of a government with spine, eh?

The People Speak

  

Sometime when I write, I wonder how many of my views are shared by others. Given current media political coverage, it is often difficult to gauge. That is one of the reasons I always read newspapers' letters-to-the-editor section. And it is there that I almost always find a basis for hope, offering proof as they do that critical thinking is not dead.

The following take issue with the direction the Carney Liberals are taking.

Carney, Smith sign carbon price deal, suggest fall 2027 pipeline approval, May 15

As a lifelong Canadian and supporter of Liberal governments I am very disappointed by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s oil and gas agreement with Alberta.

Surely clean air to breathe is a priority for the good health of Canadians. Surely a sustainable way forward is harnessing solar, wind and other non-polluting energies.

Let’s leave our children and their children energy sources that provide clean breathable air, good water to drink and heating and cooling sources that don’t shorten lives.

Judith Murray, Burlington

 

When is our government going to finally put the environment first?

I am a scientist who has worked hard to learn about, teach and protect our earth and its environment.

May I suggest members of the federal Liberal party (and everyone else for that matter) read the following two books: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (a quick five-minute read) and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (about an hour’s read).

If you don’t have time, here are two quotes I think sum up what is being done to our environment under the current government, with its many new bills and policies.

Rachel Carson: “The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials.”

Dr. Seuss: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

I have learned over the years we must constantly fight for our environment in both good economic times and the bad ones. As a government priority it has never been given the attention it deserves.

It is time to put solar energy, wind power and the protection of animal and plant habitat on the front burner. It is time for companies to prove something is safe before they are permitted to sell it rather than waiting 10 to 20 years to see the effects on our environment.

It is time for companies to put money up front, before they begin fracking, building pipelines, or transporting toxic materials through our waterways and along our roads, to cover the cost of the inevitable environmental spills that will occur.

Who is going to put the environment first? Who is going to make Canada a great economy built on protecting our environment?

Because, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

Yvonne Clifford, Cambridge, Ont.

Oil is a dirty and finite resource. The sun is neither

I boggles my mind why Canada and Alberta are spending enormous amount of money, time and expertise on extracting dirty oil and building expensive pipelines to generate electricity and other forms of energy. Why indeed, when in about 40 years oil will be depleted, as it is a finite resource.

But the sun will shine for millions, perhaps billions, of years, providing free energy to everyone on Earth.

Gwen Petreman, Barrie, Ont. 

As long as the spirit of resistance and critical thinking are alive, falling into despair is not an option.

Stars In Their Eyes

 

There is an obvious problem with those who have stars in their eyes. Blinded by the light, they fail to see the darkness surrounding those stars. This seems an apt metaphor for those who view Mark Carney and his Liberal government in an unqualified way, assuming everything they do to build Canada's bulwarks against American assaults on our economy and our sovereignty is good and beyond criticism.

Such a surrender of critical-thinking skills is not in the national interest, and it certainly does a massive disservice to climate-change mitigation efforts. Consider, for example, the following:

The federal government and Alberta will try to clear the way for construction of a major new oil pipeline to the Pacific coast by September 2027, as part of a new deal that showcases Prime Minister Mark Carney’s softer approach to fossil fuel emissions in a bid to boost economic development. 

Friday’s “implementation deal” follows the memorandum of understanding signed last November that scrapped, suspended and watered down major national climate policies created under Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau.

Now, there will be some who contend Carney is just playing a game with Danielle Smith, who is quite freely wielding the separation cudgel against the feds, and that the prospect of building another pipeline is indeed remote.  However, as always, the devil is in the details, which seem a bit opaque at this point, save for this crucial point:

[W]hile Carney has repeatedly stressed that his government won’t support the pipeline unless a group of major oilsands companies builds their long-discussed “Pathways” carbon capture project, Friday’s deal includes no time frame for when that development would need to start construction. 

Instead, it outlines how Pathways would need to result in annual emissions reductions of six megatonnes from the sector by 2035, and another 10 megatonnes per year by 2045. 

Now, the Pathways project, like other technologies, seems more a dream concept than a reality at this point. I asked ChatGPT about its status, and this is what I learned:

The short version: the Pathways carbon sequestration project is still alive, but not yet under construction at full scale and remains politically and financially unresolved.

The project — led by the oil sands consortium now operating as the Oil Sands Alliance (formerly Pathways Alliance) — is a proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) network in northern Alberta. It would capture CO₂ from more than 20 oil sands facilities and send it via a long pipeline to underground storage near Cold Lake.

Note that it is not yet under construction, and remains financially unresolved. In other words, it doesn't really exist, and it likely never will be without massive taxpayer support.

The project is estimated at roughly C$16.5 billion, and oil sands companies have long argued they need stronger government incentives to make the economics work. Ottawa has offered a federal CCS investment tax credit, while Alberta has discussed provincial support, but negotiations over cost-sharing and carbon pricing have dragged on.

As you also might already be aware, a project of the Pathways scale would require massive amounts of energy, which would seem to be at odds for a technology touted as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

The key issue is the “energy penalty” of carbon capture: capturing CO₂ takes energy because you have to separate dilute CO₂ from exhaust gases, regenerate solvents, compress the gas, and pump it underground.

A rough rule of thumb for post-combustion carbon capture in heavy industry/oil sands is:

• Electricity: ~100–200 kWh per tonne of CO₂ captured
• Heat/steam (often the bigger requirement): ~1–3 MWh thermal per tonne of CO₂
• Compression and transport: additional energy for pipelines and injection

Using a middle estimate for 10–12 Mt CO₂/year, Pathways could require roughly:

Electricity

About 1–2.5 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year of electricity.

All of this has the whiff of a pipedream, if you will forgive the pun. It seems like a fraud being perpetrated on the Canadian public, given the Carney government's current penchant for gutting environmental standards in order to fortify Canada and keep it intact. 

Taken together, the changes are the latest in a series of decisions by the Carney government to remove or soften major climate policies at the federal level.

Last year, the government scrapped a planned emissions cap for the oil and gas sector, and cancelled the national consumer carbon tax-and-rebate scheme. It also ditched plans for mandated sales of zero-emission vehicles, and signalled it will change national electricity regulations to allow for more gas-fired power plants. 

There will always be apologist for everything the Caney government does. I, for one, have no intention of joining that politically-blinded group.