Ill-considered responses by governments left highly damaging long-term legacies
History will record that multiple vaccine breakthroughs ended the COVID-19 pandemic. But it will also show that ill-considered responses by our federal and provincial governments left highly damaging long-term legacies. Here’s a list of what I call the COVID follies: Destruction of the Canadian aviation industry Canada’s airlines have been burning through their dwindling cash…
What can Canada do to reduce global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions while creating substantial economic benefits? My October column explained why attempting to replace fossil-fuel-generated electricity with wind and solar energy is technically impossible and economically disastrous. Here’s another solution: Export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to replace coal-fuelled electricity generation. This will cut coal plant…
The federal government’s plan to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar is technically impossible and economically disastrous
The combination of wildfires along the U.S. Pacific Coast, two simultaneous hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, melting glaciers and peat bog fires in Canada, and an unusually hot summer in Europe has raised global warming fears to frenzied proportions. Environmentalists are urging political leaders to legislate the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels. Curiously, the…
Generating, rather than consuming, government revenues will require a clear and profound reversal by the current government
After five years of suffering in eco-zealot purgatory under the Liberals led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the half million or so Canadians whose livelihood depends on the oil and gas industry finally got some good news: The oil sands are now part of the government’s green energy agenda! In an Aug. 12 interview, Natural…
Or was Trudeau just trying to buy the votes of young Canadians
Conflict of interest revelations surrounding the selection of WE Charity to administer the Canada Student Service Grant have dominated recent media coverage and led to investigations by parliamentary committees and the federal ethics commissioner. While getting answers on how WE was selected is essential, there’s been scant focus on the more fundamental question: why was…
For a healthy working-age person, the risk of dying from COVID-19 is significantly lower than dying by accident or from other diseases
After being locked down since March 16, Canadians are emerging, as if after a hurricane, to assess the damage that has occurred in just 12 weeks. The main victims are, of course, the patients and valiant front-line workers who have succumbed to COVID-19. But shutting down the economy has ravaged businesses, jobs and savings, while…
Canada’s recovery will depend on government policies that actively encourage, rather than impede, resource investment
Albertans are living a five-year nightmare that just keeps getting worse. The nightmare started in 2015 when newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Gerald Butts, head of the Canadian arm of the anti-fossil-fuel World Wildlife Fund, as his principal secretary and key adviser. A year later, Trudeau cancelled the previously approved Northern Gateway Pipeline destined…
Canada’s hopelessly dysfunctional and dangerous government-monopoly health-care system one of the least prepared in the world to deal with the crisis
The Liberal government’s plan to use Canada’s “fiscal firepower” to help Canadian families and businesses weather the COVID-19 pandemic has been appropriately termed “a measured well-targeted response” by the Fraser Institute. But no amount of cash can change the terrible reality that Canada’s health-care system is one of the least prepared to deal with the…
In 2015, we gathered in the meeting house of the remote Tl’azt’en First Nation at Tache, 215 km northwest of Prince George, B.C. I was there as volunteer chair of the B.C, Industry Training Authority (ITA), the organization responsible for funding and facilitating trades training in the province. Accompanying me were the ITA CEO and…
The government has compounded the problem of stalled pipeline projects by adopting UNDRIP, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People
In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a stunning decision with profound impact on the future development of our country. For more than a century, Indigenous title had been limited to the immediate environs around settlements. The court ruling vastly expanded it to “tracts of land that were regularly used for hunting, fishing or…
History will record that multiple vaccine breakthroughs ended the COVID-19 pandemic. But it will also show that ill-considered responses by our federal and provincial governments left highly damaging long-term legacies. Here’s a list of what I call the COVID follies: Destruction of the Canadian aviation industry Canada’s airlines have been burning through their dwindling cash…
