The Ball Is In Our Court

I am well past the age when I feel any real hope for the future of our species. Far too many of us are content to define our lives by the ease and conveniences afforded by technology, technology that is leaving us with an increasingly unstable environment and climate. And now, of course, we are beginning to see the effects, worldwide, of our self-indulgence. Hurricanes, tornadoes, unseasonable weather, fire and rain are but a foretaste of what is to come.

Nonetheless, like many others, I believe that we cannot abandon hope completely and must fight the good fight no matter its ultimate outcome. I read an article the other day which suggests a way that we can substantially reduce our collective carbon footprint. Unlike the ignoble lies told by people like Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and, here in Ontario, Doug Ford, there may be a way to have our environmental cake while we more or less continue to consume as our prodigal lifestyles dictate.

Patrick Brown offers a partial solution to our woes:

Massive savings in carbon emissions are possible worldwide if governments adopt the highest energy efficiency standards for lighting and household appliances such as fridges, freezers and washing machines, researchers say.

Unlike the hot air Mr.Trudeau is happy to regularly release, this could go a long way toward the Paris agreement goal of keeping the global rise in temperatures as close as possible to the 1.5°C maximum world leaders agreed upon.

Many countries have already adopted higher energy efficiency standards, including the entire European Union (EU). But if the best standards were applied globally, more than 1,100 average-sized coal-powered generating plants, each producing about 600 MW, could be closed.

If low carbon electricity production were used to generate the remaining electricity needed, and fossil fuel plants were closed, then a reduction of 60% of all emissions from buildings would be possible by 2030, CAT [Climate Action Tracker]says. This is 5.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, more than the EU’s entire current emissions.

Since we seem inextricably wedded to our convenience and comfort, this approach yields much and demands little. A good example is to be found in India, where efforts to boost the use of LED lights has led to dramatic reductions in energy use:

It meant at peak times that India needed 6,000 megawatts less electricity to satisfy demand than if ordinary bulbs had been used. The government was able to negotiate for better prices for mass orders of LEDs from the manufacturers, lowering prices and increasing jobs at the same time.

The trend to government intervention to cut energy use is catching on:

Other countries are also producing excellent results with different policies. In France lighting installations in non-residential buildings must be switched off at night, to reduce both energy waste and light pollution. The resulting energy savings are comparable to the annual electricity consumption of 750,000 households, lowering CO2 emissions by 250 kilotonnes and saving French businesses €200m in energy costs.

Professor Niklas Höhne of NewClimate Institute, one of the three members of the CAT consortium, said: “We found examples around the world where people are reaping the benefits by switching off lights in cities at night, switching to LEDs, smart lighting and smart metering, apps provided by energy companies to encourage customers to save energy or to use appliances at off-peak hours.”

As a species, we are very good at playing the victim, embracing a willful ignorance and helplessness, seeming to prefer that to an active participation in dealing with our self-made problems. It doesn't have to be that way.

The ball is now in our court.

Ahem, About That Second Amendment Thing

Clearly, this guy takes his rights very, very seriously, yet another reason to avoid the U.S. like the proverbial plague.

The Lie Deflector

This is a device critical thinkers probably don't need, but many others could benefit from. Simply click on the link within the box below to view the video:

Lie Deflector from MarkFiore on Vimeo.

On the other hand, we could dispense with such technology with this Spoiler Alert: You know Trump is lying when his lips move.

Last Gasps?

Some days, writing this blog is quite easy, as I only have to turn to the letters page of my newspaper to aggregate the well-considered thoughts of my fellow Canadians. Today is such a day.

To believe our Prime Minister, we can have our economic and environmental cake served upon the same plate. His fatuous assertions that pumping out more bitumen by twinning the Trans Mountain pipeline goes hand in hand with his climate change 'policy' is the stuff that will satisfy the untutored and the ideologues, but offers not even thin gruel to those prepared to open their eyes to our increasingly fraught world and engage in some critical thinking.

Today's Star letters are ample testament to the fact that some refuse to don the blinders that the federal government is so keen for the electorate to wear.

While I encourage you to read all of the letters online, here is but a sample:

Tim Harper has it right. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in a cul-de-sac of his own making. The social-permission requirement made sense when campaigning for office. So when Trudeau talked of “consultation,” it made sense.

To alter that promise in order to sell oil makes sense, except that it does not make environmental promises believable. Development doesn’t happen without side effects. So to invoke constitutional authority and say the federal government rules makes a mockery of “consultation.” Trudeau’s government is caught not in a cul-de-sac, but between a rock and a hard place. Or is it a political dead end?

The Liberals will lose seats in B.C. whatever they decide. If they go ahead and put coastal waters at risk, they will lose seats. When there is an almost inevitable oil spill, Liberals could be friendless in B.C. for a long, long time. They don’t have many real friends in Alberta and the phaseout of oilsands extraction is inevitable.

So why not create an environmentally friendly Liberal legacy now and say farewell to Texas pipeline companies?

To invoke the heavy hand of federal authority now will make a lot of enemies. Think of British Columbia and Quebec for starters and Canadians who care about global warming, too.

Bruce Rogers, Lindsay, Ont.

Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notely, what about your children? When they’re suffering from the effects of climate change, what will you say? “I’m sorry but, like John Turner, I had no choice?”

Canadians want investors for a sustainable country, not an oil-stained, disfigured landscape. It’s 2018. Isn’t it time for sustainable political leadership?

Barry Healey, Scarborough

In 25 years or so, if people in Canada and around the world are facing unstoppable species extinction, extreme weather events and flooding, widespread ocean acidification, mass displacement of people, epidemics of illness and disease, and an expanding civil war, we may have a hard time explaining to our children and grandchildren why we used taxpayer money to “rescue” an American company’s oilsands pipeline, despite wide opposition from Indigenous leaders, scientists and other citizens, and the fact that its construction undermined Canada’s international commitments to reduce greenhouse gases when it was still possible to avert catastrophe.

Perhaps we’ll just have to tell them that it was in the national interest, and leave it at that.

Michael Polanyi, Toronto

Thomas Walkom explains the Trans Mountain pipeline controversy very clearly. The hysteria around this project proves it is a last gasp of a dying industry. Unfortunately, the last gasp would involve more huge, expensive, damaging infrastructure, causing enormous environmental harm that Canadians would have to pay for, now and into the future. We have many difficult choices ahead as we change to a sustainable economy, but this choice is obvious: no new pipeline.

Martha Gould, North Bay, Ont.

If these engaged citizens are correct, perhaps the gasping you hear is not just those of a dying planet, but also a political party and government going the way of the dinosaurs.

Defining The National Interest

As the video included in yesterday's post shows, Justin Trudeau likes to defend the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline as in 'the national interest." The term itself is a contentious one, given its nebulous nature. For the Prime Minister, it seems to mean economic growth, moving Alberta's bitumen to port, and bolstering Rachel Notley's climate change initiatives.

As the following letter from a Toronto Star reader indicates, however, there is a more crucial definition that Mr. Trudeau and his fellow bitumen and pipeline enthusiasts are entirely dismissing, one that should take precedence:

PM’s pipeline woes of his own making, Harper, April 11

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, B.C. Premier John Horgan should compromise because this pipeline is in the national interest. Why is that? He doesn’t say.

I see the national interest as one where all of us move in a planned and purposeful way toward an economy that does not depend on oil and gas. In that world view, giving oil companies breaks on environmental assessments or emissions rules or buying pipelines so they can move their oil is against the national interest. It is the interest of oil companies not to leave stranded assets. The national interest is to move forward into a low-carbon future in Canada and around the world.

Mr. Trudeau speaks out of both sides of his mouth. “Yes,” he says, “we will meet our Paris targets.” Then he approves drilling in Nova Scotia, refuses to sign on to an Arctic heavy-oil treaty and permits Alberta oil to triple production of a very inefficient, high-greenhouse-gas emissions product, and approves a pipeline without ever reviewing its climate impacts or demonstrating that bitumen can be cleaned up.

Meanwhile we have never reduced our emissions targets as a country and are not projected to meet those targets any time soon.

And how can he say he has consulted with First Nations when the B.C. Federation of Indian Chiefs is standing at the Watch Tower, committing civil disobedience, and getting arrested to make their voices heard? Yes, let’s act in the national interest. Let’s all of us move toward a low-carbon future in right relations with our first peoples.

Rev. Frances Deverell, Nanaimo, B.C.

As The Mask Slips Away

My late father-in-law, a man of deep conviction and integrity, was fond of this saying: "Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor."

Although he did not originate the adage, he felt it firmly described the thinking of those who control the levers of power, our governments. And now that his mask is slipping away, it seems an apt description of Justin Trudeau's true sentiments and the policy decisions he is making.

As preliminary evidence, sauce as it were to the great corporate feast, consider his Canadian Infrastructure Bank scheme, about which I wrote last year. While its ostensible purpose is to raise private capital to fund various projects to rebuild our steadily decaying roads, bridges, etc., it can also serve as a neat little package of corporate welfare:

Federal investments doled out through the government’s new infrastructure financing agency may be used to ensure a financial return to private investors if a project fails to generate enough revenues, documents show.

What investors have recently been told — and what the finance minister was told late last year — is that if revenues fall short of estimates, federal investments through the bank would act as a revenue floor to help make a project commercially viable.
Experts say the wording in the documents suggests taxpayers will be asked to take on a bigger slice of the financial risk in a project to help private investors, a charge the government rejects.

All of that perhaps palls, however, now that Kinder Morgan has issued a May 31 ultimatum to the feds, threatening to suspend construction on the Trans Mountain Pipeline twinning project unless the impasse between the B.C. and federal government ends. As a remedy, a strong dose of socialism is now being considered to protect Trans Morgan's nervous shareholders:

Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the federal government will act on the Trans Mountain pipeline project in “short order,” sending the strongest signal yet that it will move to financially backstop the project to reduce the risks for its American-based backer.

[Rachel] Notley has already said her government is open to buying the Trans Mountain pipeline — meant to move Alberta oil to port near Vancouver for shipment overseas — to ensure the expansion goes ahead.

Morneau, who has been in touch with Kinder Morgan officials, said earlier in the day that Ottawa is “considering financial options” to ease those concerns. Speaking later, he wouldn’t provide specifics but said there was a need to “derisk” the project so it can proceed.

Significantly, but not surprisingly, the Finance Minister

framed the issue as an economic one, talking about the need to enhance opportunities and good jobs while saying nothing about the concerns around the environment or rights of Indigenous Peoples raised by the project.

As usual, his boss, Justin Trudeau, continues to speak out of both sides of his mouth, claiming his environmental vision is bound up with an economic one, insisting there is no contradiction between the two.

Mr. Trudeau likes to talk about what Canadians know and understand. I suspect he is speaking of those Canadians who go through life blithely and willfully unaware of the immense peril our world now faces thanks to climate change, not those of us who understand that a drastic reordering of our priorities is crucial if we are to survive what lies ahead.

That Was Then; This Is Now

Funny about campaign promises. Most people take them with a large grain of salt, yet once in awhile, large segments of us are drawn in by the hope for a better day, hope fueled by an earnest politician who seems intent on upending the traditional shoddy, cynical and ultimately heart-breaking way of doing things that has become the default position of contemporary politics.

Such was the promise of Justin Trudeau.

But that was then, and this is now.

The Star's Tim Harper writes about the pipeline dilemma now facing Justin Trudeau, one, as I noted yesterday, is self-created:

For all the prime minister’s talk about how the economy and the environment go hand-in-hand, sometimes they become detached and action is needed, not a continuation of a Goldilocks not-too-hot, not-too-cold mantra that works as a sound bite, but not always as policy.

So here we are, a defining moment for the Trudeau government, with the clock ticking; a defining moment which Trudeau has largely brought upon himself.

The battle between Rachel Notley, desperate for a pipeline win if she is to have any chance at re-election, and B.C. Premier John Horgan, whose coalition with the Green Party will fall apart if he is not steadfast against the Kinder Morgan twinning, has grown increasingly acrimonious. Predictable, perhaps, but largely wrought by Mr. Trudeau himself:

It is important to remember how a campaigning Trudeau promised to deal with pipelines and other resource development compared to where he stood Tuesday.

On “social license” the Liberal platform read: “While governments grant permits for resource development, only communities can grant permission.”

Today, however, is a different story:

That was modified a year into the mandate with a more broad definition that dealt with consultation and dropped any reference to permission.

Another golden oldie from the Trudeau campaign trail:

...from the 2015 platform was a promise to Indigenous Canadians that they would be full partners on resource projects: “This will ensure on project reviews and assessments, the Crown is fully executing its consultation, accommodation and consent obligations, in accordance with its constitutional and international human rights obligations, including Aboriginal and treaty rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

Words have consequences, and now Trudeau will have to wear that betrayal of the Indigenous people:

Trudeau is going to have to force an unpopular pipeline expansion by bulldozing it past a provincial government, Indigenous leaders and protesters.

Trudeau will expend much more than political capital. He will have his green bona fides shattered.

Justin Trudeau will hardly be the first politician to break his promises. However, given the great hope Canadians invested in his election, he can expect some long-lasting consequences to his betrayal of the public trust.

That's Another Fine Mess He's Gotten Himself Into

In a post yesterday, The Mound offered a searing assessment of Justin Trudeau's abject failure on the climate-change file. Only the most ardent acolytes of the Prime Minister will fail to see that his soaring rhetoric has far outpaced his level of achievement. Says Mound:

Raising public awareness about climate change as needed to secure public support for carbon taxes only shines a spotlight on the hypocrisy of Trudeau's pipeline policy. You can't have people thinking too much about climate change when you're trying to ramp up the extraction, transmission and export of dangerous, toxin-riddled, environmentally devastating, high-carbon, ersatz petroleum. You simply cannot square that circle.

And Trudeau's dilemma is deepening as he is hoisted on the petard of his own pleasing rhetoric about social license, indigenous rights, etc., all of which some people, especially residents of British Columbia, have taken seriously, putting them on a collision course with both Alberta and the federal government.

Alberta's Rachel Notley is warning of an approaching constitutional crisis over B.C.s refusal to play ball with the twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline:

The lack of action followed Monday morning comments by Premier Rachel Notley that British Columbia’s actions to halt construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion aren’t “too far off” from a constitutional crisis.

“If the national interest is given over to the extremes on the left or the right, if the voices of the moderate majority of Canadians are forgotten, the reverberations of that will tear at the fabric of Confederation for many, many years to come,” Notley said.

In his determination to get the pipeline built, Trudeau has a panoply of unpalatable options, all of which would entail a huge political price. As the following clip states, he could suspend transfer payments to British Columbia, impose economic sanctions on the province, or, most draconian of all, invoke the Federal Emergencies Act, which would allow him to call a state of emergency in both B.C. and Alberta, enabling him to suspend provincial law, thus paving the way for the pipeline construction.



None of these options is desirable, but again, Trudeau has brought himself to this precipice by his love of his own public image and rhetoric. One thing is certain in my mind,whatever option he chooses: in 'going to the mats' for the petroleum industry, Justin Trudeau will be making abundantly transparent that he is little more than a servile enabler of the neoliberal agenda.

The Kids Are Alright

You may note that in the title of this post, I chose the informal version of all right, lest there be any doubt about the ideology of many young people today. Hardly conservative in their propensities, it would seem that many of them are awaking to the potential for power that they have, as long as they are able to keep alive the surging outrage welling within them, the most recent catalyst, of course, being the Parkland shooting.

It would seem the survivors of that shooting are playing the long game in order to keep their mission for sensible gun laws alive. Here is their latest effort at deepening the momentum they have thus far achieved in raising crucial awareness that their country needs sane gun laws, the deep obstructionist efforts of the NRA and their supporters, including bought-and-paid-for corrupt politicians, notwithstanding.



Meanwhile, galvanized by the diseased leadership of Trump, and a sign that democracy is not entirely dead, a record number of women are running in the U.S. midterms.



Now, if we can only convince Canadians out of their complacency, maybe the least we can accomplish is strong turnouts in pending provincial and federal elections.

This Is Hard To Watch

The following incident occurred in Toronto on February 18 of this year. It is difficult to watch, but I encourage you to do so, and use headphones so you can hear, not only the anguished cries of the pinioned Black youth, but also the response of the onlookers, likely the only bright spot in this whole sorry episode.

But first, a little background:

Part of the video of a violent takedown captured on YouTube shows 19-year-old John Doe crying desperately while pinned to the ground by three men in TTC fare inspector uniforms. “I’m hurting, I’m hurting,” and “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

When Toronto Police officers arrive, they swarm the scene, keeping him down and then haul him up to take him to the cruiser and handcuff him.

At one point there appear to be at least seven men piled on to him.

Such excessive force. Why? Nobody knows. He was unarmed. He was already pinned down by three grown men. He wasn’t in any position to run.

Was John Doe's 'offense' that he is Black?

The teen and his mother have launched a $3 million lawsuit against the Toronto Police Services Board, the Toronto Transit Commission, two unidentified police officers and three unidentified TTC fare inspectors.

The lawsuit alleges racial profiling, assault, unlawful detention and negligence among others.

John Doe, a student of paralegal studies also working as a food courier, was just another guy on the 512 St. Clair streetcar preparing to exit at Bathurst St. when he was grabbed.

“He was suddenly and without warning attacked and thrown to the ground by TTC fare inspectors despite crying for help, held there, not told what was happening,” said Hugh Scher, one of his lawyers.

There was never any indication that the fare hadn’t been paid. And he had paid, Scher said. Nor was he charged with any offence of TTC bylaw infraction [Emphasis mine].

For those who say he should have simply cooperated with the authorities, all I can ask is, "How would you have behaved had you been subjected to such an apparently unwarranted and Kafkaesque experience?

Lifeblood For A Moribund Democracy?

By any measure, I think it is safe to say that ours is not a healthy and vital democracy. One only has to look at election turnout statistics to see ready proof.

In the last two elections, barely half of Ontarians bothered to cast a ballot — an embarrassing 48 per cent voted in 2011, and a dispiriting 51 per cent turned out in 2014.

Federally, the last election saw increased turnout, but that was only due to the lofty but ultimately largely empty rhetoric of Justin Trudeau, who attracted the youth vote, a topic I will return to momentarily.

While the virus of demagoguery is most readily apparent in the United States, Canadians are hardly immune. One has only to look, for example, at the Toronto mayoralty of the late Rob Ford, the crack-smoking bad boy who many voters could not get enough of.

And of course now, in Ontario, many are predicting that his brother, Doug, will be the next premier, despite the fact that he will not allow media on his campaign bus and is skipping out on the first leaders' debate on April 11. His strategy seems to be to speak in generalities (finding new efficiencies - where, oh where, have we heard that one before?) promising everything to everyone, and at a very attractive cost - none. And on top of that, he promises to lower taxes.

What is the cure, or at least an effective treatment, for this rash of nonsense? Perhaps it lies in lowering the voting age to 16. Lance Copegog, one of those 16-year-olds, writes:

It is a shame that voters in Ontario do not cherish their democratic right to vote.

Liberal MPP Arthur Potts, who represents the Toronto riding of Beaches—East York, introduced a private members bill that proposes the voting age be lowered from 18 to 16 in provincial elections.

His arguments have a compelling quality as he looks at youth activism:

First Nations-led youth councils are holding the government to account on its promises to Indigenous people in Ontario, young activists involved in the Black Lives Matter movement are advocating for systemic change, and many others are making a difference in their communities.

Most young people do not deny that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time. The action that we take now will determine our very survival.

As well, Copegog takes encouragement from what young people are doing in the U.S.

The activism of the survivors of the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting demonstrate that today’s young people are articulate, courageous, and passionate. Their activism saw them go head-to-head with the National Rifle Association and Senator Marco Rubio, a darling of the gun lobby.

I can see additional advantages to lowering the voting age. At 16, most are still in school, a wonderful venue to engage meaningfully on today's vital issues, promote discussion and foster some critical thinking amongst peers.

Voting at 16, whether through peer pressure or increased awareness, would likely further the chances of electoral participation as a lifelong habit.

Finally, such youth engagement might shame their indolent, disengaged parents into the same participation.

In his column today, Tim Harper offers sundry reasons for increased participation by young people who already have the right to vote, millenials:

They prefer government spending over balanced budgets (understood by Justin Trudeau and Kathleen Wynne), don’t believe corporations pay their fair share of taxes, don’t believe income inequality has been properly addressed and are more comfortable with big interventionist government.

They also want to see action on climate change, policies to lift people out of poverty and they back a more open immigration system.

Those very issues resonate with younger people as well. Theirs is a broken world that they will have to contend with far longer than someone of my generation will.

Why shouldn't they have a voice?

He Talks A Lot

... but doesn't seem to say much.

Here is our Prime Minister on anti-Trump protests:

Are Two Sellouts Pending?

He's loved of the distracted multitude,
multitude, who like not in their
judgement, but their eyes.

Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 3

As Claudius in the above states, there will always be those who suspend their deeper thinking when evaluating public figures, preferring to reflexively accept the public images the latter so carefully cultivate, often at the expense of some less attractive realities. Never has there been a more important time, however, for critical public vigilance.

For example, despite the soothing words of Justin Trudeau that his government will never accept a NAFTA agreement that is not in the best interests of Canadians, Thomas Walkom has some grave doubts amid reports that a deal is close:

In actual fact, Canada will be lucky to minimize its losses.

After having restructured its entire economy to become an integral part of the U.S. market, Canada has little appetite to walk away from even a diminished NAFTA.

I fear that the Liberal government’s brave talk about no deal being better than a bad deal is just that — talk.

Trump also needs a victory. He has called NAFTA the worst trade pact ever. He needs a deal that, to his supporters at least, plausibly seems better.

He must show that he has bested Canada and Mexico.

For example, Trump's

plan to bias government procurement in favour of U.S. companies, [is] blatantly detrimental to Canada.

There is a precedent for all of this. In January, the U.S. and South Korea began renegotiating a free trade deal that Trump claimed was unfair to the Americans. Last month, they reached an agreement in principle that gave the U.S. virtually everything it had demanded.

In return, South Korea was granted a permanent exemption from Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs — tariffs that never should have been imposed in the first place.

On another front, despite all the Trudeau talk about taking action on climate change, given the EPA decision to roll back vehicle fuel efficiency, environmentalists are wary of the pressure being put on our government to "go along to get along."

The auto industry wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to go along with U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to weaken fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. Environmentalists want Trudeau to refuse, immediately, and join forces with liberal American states.

Thus far the feds has been noncommittal on the matter, and Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna's office has said it will make a decision based on “careful considerations of environmental and economic impacts.”

It hardly sounds like she is on the side of the angels here, a suspicion that has prompted Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada, to observe that

“standing on the sidelines is standing with Trump” rather than with the march of history.

Stewart says it is time to take a stand.

Cutting auto emissions is a significant component of Trudeau’s plan to meet Canada’s target, under the Paris climate accord, of cutting emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. Canada is not close to being on track to hit the target, a report released last week showed.

Finally, those still besotted with the early promise the Trudeau government showed on issues crucial to our collective survival should take a few minutes to watch this recent 'performance' by Catherine McKenna:



The Russians have a saying: "Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie." Unless and until we are able to make that choice (and our time is running perilously short, cooing government reassurances notwithstanding) we can only expect more temporizing and political expedience from this and any other government.