Justin Trudeau: A Reality Check

While Canadians are rightfully applauding the retaliatory tariffs the Trudeau government will be imposing on the United States, my concern is that distraction will diminish the outrage that same government's nationalization of the Kinder Morgan pipeline has engendered. Far too many people, it seems, are incapable or unwilling to hold two conflicting opinions simultaneously, our preference for absolutist thinking often winning out.

Solid journalism and astute letter-writers, it is hoped, will keep the climate-change betrayal of Justin Trudeau in the public's eye and mind.

Today's Star does its best on several fronts. Here is what a Millenial has to say:

After the crippling rage and ensuing cynicism I’ve harboured since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s callous electoral reform betrayal last year, I didn’t feel anything at all when I found out he was buying a $4.5-billion pipeline.

How silly of me to think that, in 2019, I would finally be able to vote for someone who would take our carbon budget seriously, and have it actually count toward something other than a tally of the other conscious voters who also wasted their ballot.

When Trudeau went to Paris, he made a major commitment to the rest of the world on our behalf. It was a commitment that his Liberals evidently had no intention of keeping (much like electoral reform), as he preached sanctimoniously to other countries of its critical imperative. Trudeau has made self-righteous liars out of all of us, and many don’t seem to care.

How silly of me to think that Canadians would eventually be embarrassed by the global community’s disapproval of our myopic selfishness, as we refuse to even stop growing our oil industry, let alone phase it out.

I am 34 and live in Toronto. A large portion of my meagre paycheque is depleted by riding expensive public transit, buying expensive vegan groceries and renting a tiny, overpriced apartment. But I don’t mind forking over the money because I feel like I am doing my part to help tackle climate change. After all, our governments are busy subsidizing more important things with their share of my cheque, I’m told. How silly of me.

Once a year, I try to take a camping trip to get away from the grind and pretend that I am living in harmony with nature for a few days. This month, I’ll bring my tent to Burnaby Mountain, along with some hard-earned cash that I have set aside to help pay the salaries of those who will arrest and fine me when I get there. At least I can say I helped create jobs, right?

Alykhan Pabani, Toronto

Other writers express similar cynicism and disappointment about a man who promised so much and delivered so little:

Your pro-pipeline editorial states: “To be clear: The new pipeline should be built, or more precisely, expanded.”

I am at a loss as to why the Star would make such a statement when this particular investment in, and expansion of, the Trans Mountain pipeline flies in the face of the Justin Trudeau government’s platform to help Canada (and the world) transition to more of a green-energy economy.

When we expand our investment in fossil fuels by a massive amount, we are obviously moving Canada away from transitioning toward a green economy. Canada has already generously supported the oil industry in a multitude of ways through enormous subsidies, etc. By expanding pipelines and thus promoting the expanded use of fossil fuels, instead of shrinking our dependence on oil, we perpetuate the status quo, which has our planet sitting at the verge of collapse.

If our federal government intended to expand its investment in green technologies and help us transition to a more environmentally feasible energy base, it would not have blown the bank to support this pipeline. Where will the money come from to support green industries and initiatives?

When the sustainability of our planet and our children’s future is at stake, Trudeau’s boldest move should have taken a completely different direction. I am so disappointed.

Fran Bazos, Newmarket

It is no surprise that a deal has been made for a pipeline to transport fossil fuels for financial gain. It seems there is no political party standing the slightest chance of forming a federal government that is prepared to turn its back on the enormous wealth buried below Alberta soil — no one prepared to leave the pristine boreal forests in the ground where they belong.

The resulting toxicity to the land in which we live and breathe, native land rights and the increased world dependence on non-renewable energy sources seem to have no influence on the decision-making process. It’s big business that dictates decisions and the policymakers will ride roughshod over anyone who gets in the way.

Timothy Phillips, Toronto

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has obviously forgotten, or disregarded, what most scientists have preached repeatedly, that keeping fossil fuels in the ground is essential if we are to save our planet. He is planning to ship our dirty oilsands to be burned in Asia, and then claim that Canada is adhering to our commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change. Ethical?

Ross McCallum, Toronto

Finally, Jennifer Wells offers a history lesson on Kinder Morgan and draws this conclusion:

As for history, what it shows is there was a time and place for pipeline talk. The prime minister is gambling on the merits of using the expansion as a bridge to a climate-conscious future. That might have worked decades ago. Today it leaves the young PM sounding very ’80s

.

Nathan Cullen's Peerless Takedown Of The Hapless Justin Trudeau

Enjoy (or not, depending upon your political/philosophical/environmental orientations):




Meanwhile, Star letter-writers offer some much-needed reality checks about Trudeau's betrayal:

Your editorial highlights the political risks in the Justin Trudeau government’s decision to buy the Kinder Morgan pipeline, but there is also a major economic risk involved.

If the government had read the fine print of Kinder Morgan’s security filings, it would note that the company warned its investors last year about the threat posed by successful action on climate change, in response to a formal complaint from Greenpeace on inadequate disclosure of climate risk.

According to the filing, serious progress on achieving the Paris climate agreement’s decarbonization goals would reduce oil demand and thus oil companies might not be able to honour their contracts with Kinder Morgan or sign new ones.

So Ottawa has bought itself a pipeline that only succeeds economically if the Paris agreement fails. Quite the Faustian bargain.

Keith Stewart, Greenpeace Canada, Toronto

Not only is this pipeline in direct violation of the constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples, but the bottom line is there is no viable market for bitumen transported by tankers. It’s not a product the world wants to buy.

HSBC and other big players know this and they are divesting from Alberta’s difficult oil because it’s not a valuable product, and even they are saying loudly that they want to steer clear of the oilsands because of the heavy consequences to the environment and Indigenous rights.

It’s shocking to see Paris climate “rock star” Justin Trudeau showing his true colours.

David Quigg, Toronto

UPDATED: Call Him By His Real Name

I hope Justin Trudeau has a vivid imagination and total recall. That way, he can revisit the fall of 2015, depicted above, a time, you may remember, when he was exultant, having won his a majority government after posing as a man who was going to bring Canada into the 21st century. It was a time he fooled so many of us. With any luck, he will not do so again.

That the clown prince/neoliberal stooge's gambit in buying out the Trans Mountain pipeline is not going over well is evident on a number of fronts. Following are but a few illustrations of that fact:

Star letter writers offer this:

As an atmospheric physicist and an active climate-change researcher, I find the conduct of the Justin Trudeau government in this regard disgusting and appalling. If we are looking for a visionary leader who would lead us from a fossil-fuel-based (and environmentally destructive) economy to a sustainable and clean low-carbon economy in Canada, then Trudeau is not that person.

When Trudeau was elected, there was a sense of hope in doing our part as a nation to really start reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I have followed the United Nations’ COP meetings with a great deal of interest, and Canada promised achievable objectives in the Paris Agreement. These objectives do not seem achievable now.

Kaz Higuchi, environmental studies professor, York University, Toronto

I find it appalling that the government is using taxpayers’ money to benefit a corporation. This makes me realize how influential the corporations really are and how insignificant are the voices of Indigenous people and the thousands of others opposing this pipeline.

How can the government turn a blind eye to the harmful effects this pipeline may pose? Oil spills are an inevitable consequence.

I wish there were some mechanism to determine how I want my taxes used. I am definitely not paying them so a corporation can build an oil pipeline to endanger the environment of a province with some of the most beautiful coastlines in the country.

Sneha Singh, Mississauga

Pierre Berton’s The Last Spike captured a moment when the Canadian government was in the railroad- building business. Now, Ottawa has entered its pipeline era. Will, at some point, Berton’s book get a sequel, perhaps The Last Spill?

Ken Luckhardt, Etobicoke

Across the country, the sense of betrayal and incredulity at this asinine purchase was palpable:

“We are absolutely shocked and appalled that Canada is willingly investing taxpayers’ money in such a highly controversial fossil fuel expansion project,” said Grand Chief Stewart Philip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, in an emailed statement. “We will not stand down no matter who buys this ill-fated and exorbitantly priced pipeline.”

On Parliament Hill, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called the purchase “an historic blunder with taxpayer dollars,” citing a document from the National Energy Board that says Kinder Morgan bought the existing pipeline from its previous owner for $550 million in 2007 — a far cry from what the Texas company will get by selling it to Ottawa, she said.

She also accused Trudeau’s government of writing a “blank cheque” for the pipeline’s construction costs, which Kinder Morgan has previously pegged at $7.4 billion.

“It seems completely insane,” May said. “I’m quite certain that this will go down as an epic financial, economic boondoggle.”

Environmental groups were equally unimpressed:

The Council of Canadians, meanwhile, attacked Ottawa’s purchase as a “Big Oil bailout” that would not remove obstacles to the pipeline expansion. Greenpeace, in its own statement, said Trudeau’s government has “signed up to captain the Titanic of tar sands oil pipelines, putting it on a collision course with its commitments to Indigenous rights and the Paris climate agreement.”

Columnist Gary Mason calls it a Faustian bargain:

Environmentalists who once applauded Mr. Trudeau and his enthusiastic embrace of the Paris climate targets feel deceived. Celebrity crusader Naomi Klein promised the PM on Twitter his decision would “haunt him” everywhere he travels now. He was called a climate fraud by influential activist Bill McKibben.

But the immediate and long-term political fallout is only part of Trudeau's problem:

The government’s chance of finding a private investor to buy the project before the end of summer is unlikely. The threat of lengthy, potentially violent protests and the impact that had on creating a reliable construction timetable is one of the reasons Kinder Morgan wanted out. Any new investor is going to wait until Ottawa gets most of the dirty work done, gets the project built through the most contentious areas of B.C., before feeling comfortable enough to take it on.

Clearly, if the feds ultimately succeed, the only happy campers will be the investors who buy it back from the government.

Thomas Walkom points out a flaw in the plan few want to acknowledge:

... the real weakness in Ottawa’s nationalization scheme is economic. The Trans Mountain expansion was conceived at a time when petroleum prices were hitting record highs and before shale oil had become an important source of energy.

In those heady days, it made some economic sense to build a pipeline devoted to developing Alberta’s high-cost oil sands for export. Now it makes less sense.

What’s more, as Alberta’s Parkland Institute points out, the Trans Mountain expansion was conceived at a time when there were fewer pipelines bringing tar-sands oil to market. Since then, the Keystone XL pipeline, which is meant to take heavy oil from Alberta to Texas, has been approved.

Educating oneself about important issues is a key responsibility of all citizens in a healthy democracy. To abdicate that responsibility is to encourage reckless, irresponsible government policy and action. Today, we reap the results.

However, for those informed on the issues, to say that Trudeau's name is mud is perhaps to date myself. How about updating it to bitumen?



UPDATE: In The Guardian, Bill McKibben says the only thing differentiating Donald Trump and Trudeau on climate change is that the former is not a hypocrite about his disdain for the environment. Considering the latter's lofty rhetoric, the analysis fits:

Trudeau says all the right things, over and over. He’s got no Scott Pruitts in his cabinet: everyone who works for him says the right things. Indeed, they specialize in getting others to say them too – it was Canadian diplomats, and the country’s environment minister, Catherine McKenna, who pushed at the Paris climate talks for a tougher-than-expected goal: holding the planet’s rise in temperature to 1.5C (2.7F).

But those words are meaningless if you keep digging up more carbon and selling it to people to burn, and that’s exactly what Trudeau is doing. He’s hard at work pushing for new pipelines through Canada and the US to carry yet more oil out of Alberta’s tar sands, which is one of the greatest climate disasters on the planet.

UPDATED: Trudeau Betrays Canada And The World

If you know anything about the climate-change peril within which the world lives, you will see this announcement by Justin Trudeau and his cronies as nothing less than a betrayal of the entire world.

The federal Liberal government has agreed to buy the troubled Trans Mountain expansion project from Kinder Morgan to ensure the controversial expansion of an Alberta-to-B.C. crude oil pipeline gets built.

The price tag is less than the company’s estimated $7.4-billion projected cost but taxpayers will be on the hook for $4.5 billion according to details released by Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr at a news conference Tuesday.

Ottawa will take over the expansion and the existing pipeline and assets in a deal that will see Kinder Morgan immediately begin construction. But Ottawa will immediately seek new buyers in the private sector and has promised to also extend insurance to them for any politically-motivated delays.

Even the right-wing is appalled by this obscene parody of government responsibility:

The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation condemned the move, saying it would saddle taxpayers with costs that should be borne by the private sector.

“This decision represents both a colossal failure of the Trudeau government to enforce the law of the land, and a massive, unnecessary financial burden on Canadian taxpayers,” the federation said in a statement.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May sees it for what it is:

“Kinder Morgan laughing all the way to the bank. KM gets $4.5 billion and walks away. Canada to raise money to build $7.4 billion project,” May said on Twitter.

Even the most ardent Liberal supporter must be starting to see the path this government is leading us down. It is one that culminates in greater debt and, more worrisome still, greater greenhouse gas emissions and despoliation of the B.C coast.

Hardly a legacy these renegades can ultimately be proud of.

UPDATE: If you watch even the first two minutes of Elizabeth May's response to the Trudeau betrayal, I think you will share my outrage.

The Second 'Thousand-Year' Storm In Two Years

Try telling the people of Ellicott City, Maryland, that climate change is a hoax.



The Washington Post, in a detailed analysis of this flood, has this to say about the role climate change played:

Climate change did not “cause” this thunderstorm complex.

However, climate change has probably altered the larger environment in which these small thunderstorms are embedded. Notably, the water vapor content of the atmosphere, as a whole, has increased and scientific studies have shown a statistically meaningful uptick in the frequency of extreme rain events over the eastern United States. Statistically, over the long term, these types of extreme floods are probably becoming more common, in areas that are normally rainy as a result of global warming.

Emerging patterns are undeniable, revealing climate-change deniers for the antediluvian fools they truly are.

A Few Impressions

I realize that Ontario's pending provincial election is likely less than riveting for those living outside the province; however, the fact that a demagogue like PC leader Doug Ford has been leading in the polls until recently should concern all of us.

As Canadians, we like to feel smug vis-à-vis the United States, saddled as it is with its choice of an imbecile for president. However, that smugness needs to be tempered both by the election of populist crack user Rob Ford, who was the mayor of Toronto, and the realization that brother Doug's robotic presentation of himself as "for the people" has yielded him quite a following. To ignore those realities does no one any service.

Last night's debate, featuring the leaders of all three major parties, was a study in contrasts. Both the NDP's Andrea Horwath and (outgoing?) Premier Kathleen Wynne acquitted themselves quite well (although I thought Horwath interrupted too frequently), displaying a poise and a depth of knowledge that one would hope for in a leader. On the other hand, Doug Ford relied on boilerplate promises to lower taxes and find efficiencies, at the same time 'guaranteeing that no one would lose their jobs.

And it got even better, as he

promised a 20-per-cent cut to the second-lowest income-tax bracket, an end to the province’s cap-and-trade system, and a 10-cent-per-litre cut to the gasoline tax.

Welcome to Magical Thinking 101.

To compound his amateurish bluster, Ford warned of dire consequences should the NDP form government:

“I travel around, I’ve talked to hundreds and hundreds of companies — they are terrified of the NDP coming in,” Ford told viewers during the raucous 90-minute televised debate.

“They’ve told me personally, ‘We will pack up and we will go down south in half a second.’ God forbid the NDP ever get in, they will destroy our province,” he said, predicting Horwath “would annihilate the middle class” and “bankrupt this province.”

To the thick-headed, this strategy (Hyperbole/Fearmongering 101) would surely strike fear and loathing of those godless socialists. To drive home his point about the perils of an NDP government, repetition being his forte, Ford Added,

“They will destroy our province, destroy our economy. That’s a fact..."

This has been but a brief reflection by one who has followed politics for many, many years. As a student of human nature, I find all elections fascinating, offering as they do a kind of Rorschach test of one's fellow citizens.

Elections help determine the kind of society we live in. For those who feel strongly (and everyone should) about such matters, their responsibility to cast a vote is undeniable. Otherwise, of course, you are letting someone else impose their vision.

Ah yes, the beauty of democracy.

For those who didn't see the debate and might want to dip into it, here it is in its entirety:

Guest Post: A Response To Be Careful What You Wish For

As I indicated in my last post, I have been having problems with readers' comments. I have not been receiving them. I have found a workaround the situation; although I am still not being notified of them, I went into the dashboard and looked under Comments Awaiting Moderation, where I found several. The following is one of them, a response from BM to my post, Be Careful What You Wish For:

Walmart has been pulling off the same manoeuvre for years. Come into an area just outside town to get cheap real estate, ruin local businesses with cheap prices, employ people at minimum wage so that municipalities and state/provincial governments end up effectively having to provide top-ups - and the ruin is complete. Of everybody and everything.

Amazon merely does it on an even lower cost base. Get stupid local governments to bid (can you imagine the utter stupidity of anyone actually "paying" for an Amazom warehouse?), then running a military operation of having people running around filling orders with no breaks for no money. There are many descriptions online of the hell it is, from the UK and US. Gernany has no Walmarts because they insisted on work standards that Sam's boys could not tolerate - don't know about Amazon.

Still your average modern twit sails blindly to their doom blissfully unaware that hailing Uber sends money to California instead of local taxi drivers. Money gaily sent off to a central collection house instead of being spent locally,the only rationale being it's a bit cheaper for you personally upfront. Gradually, all these centralized businesses hollow out local economies. Then you pay for more welfare as taxi firms go bust. Enjoy your cheap ride! Disruptors, these firms call themselves. Spot on.

The whole thing is an extension of the offshoring of jobs to China. Now the offshoring is to send money to some app developer in a place far away who is feted as a business hero.

And so we blindly march to the destruction of our societies apparently saving a loonie at a time, until eventually nobody can afford anything because we all work crap jobs. The rich get incredibly richer and the plebs stand around wondering what hit them.

And people slave to develop apps that will let them hit the hackpot, screw everyone else.

Nobody ever claimed the average dude or dudette wandering down the street glued to their phone actually had reasoning power, after all. They might have a PhD, but they're still terminally stupid, because they simply do not bother to think, and say "hang on a minute!". No, saving a nickel now means they regard themselves as smart.

And Bezos laughs at hundreds of millions of dummies, collects their data as well as money, and becomes a de facto emperor.

I buy local, I use the post office. I would not pay a dime for an Amazon warehouse in land or subsidies. Let the predator pay his own way.