By way of penance, or as something of a catch-up mechanism, I offer in this blog comments on a variety of recent political issues – ranging from the silly to mendacious to downright dangerous.
The federal government generated a good deal of derisive laughter with the recent appointment of a Minister of Middle Class Prosperity. The new Minister had trouble defining the middle class but will apparently hope to increase its prosperity nonetheless. One can’t help wondering if this will be followed by the creation of a Ministry of Silly Walks, with John Cleese imported to act as a special advisor.
When I worked for the Ontario Government almost a half century ago, there was, for a brief period, a Ministry of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs. Its name was soon changed to the rather cumbersome Ministry of Treasury, Economics, and Intergovernmental Affairs (TEIGA). One reason given (I was never sure how seriously) for the change was out of a concern that the original name would inevitably be shortened to MOFIA – which was not seen as a welcome prospect.
Foolproof Consensus Building
We have just witnessed a heartwarming development in which the 13 leaders of our provincial and territorial governments came together at a meeting hosted by the new Captain Canada (Doug Ford) and reached unanimous agreement during their discussions. They achieved this remarkable breakthrough by allowing discussion only on matters with which they were already in agreement while refusing to entertain topics about which they disagreed (such as pipelines or legislation banning public servants from wearing religious symbols or clothing).
Leading the list of unanimous decisions was the belief that the federal government must provide more money to the provinces. Since most provincial Premiers were elected by promising to cut taxes not raise them, and most are also very critical of the size of the federal deficit, one wonders from what magical source the federal government is to obtain these additional funds.
The provincial and territorial leaders also agreed on expanding international trade but had nothing to say about the extensive network of interprovincial trade barriers that block the free flow of goods within Canada at a major cost to our economy.
Tory Trifecta on Environmental Issues
Doug Ford’s Conservative Government exhibits an impressive consistency in its completely backwards and dangerous views and actions with respect to environmental concerns. Exhibit A is Ontario’s Energy Minister Greg Rickford, who was faced with the impossible task of defending the Ontario Government’s pernicious and foolish action in cancelling green energy projects – some already completed – at a cost to the taxpayers of a quarter of a billion dollars. In response, he resorted to quotes, on two separate days, from an extreme website that denies climate change is at all the result of human behaviour.
Not to be outdone was Joe Oliver, appointed by Doug Ford this past spring as head of the board of the Independent Electricity System Operator, which oversees the province’s power grid and its future needs. He would have us embrace climate change because warmer land would boost our agricultural potential and we would all enjoy a more hospitable climate. [No, I am not making this up.]
Rounding out our threesome, we now have a report from Ontario’s Auditor General, an independent officer of the Legislative Assembly, which finds that the province’s plan to fight climate change is not based on sound evidence and will fall well short of its targets. It points out that the plan includes the benefits of the cap and trade program of the previous government, scrapped by Ford in the summer of 2018 and also projects a dramatic increase in the sale of electric vehicles even though the Ford Government cancelled cash incentives for buyers and the installation of charging stations.
His Way or the Highway
First prize, however, must go to Ford’s fellow Conservative, Premier Jason Kenney of Alberta. Since taking office, he has very aggressively targeted as an enemy of the state anyone who dares to offer views not in support of continued expansion of oil production and shipment. One of his first acts was to set up a $35 million dollar energy “war room” and to commission a $2.25 million inquiry to ferret out the so-called foreign funded radicals who have invaded Alberta’s body politic. The accuracy of statements under attack is irrelevant. Any criticism of the oil fields is, by definition, wrong and those making such statements are enemies and must be condemned. Things have reached such an extreme that talk radio host Danielle Smith called for the firing of any teacher involved in a high school test question which included a quote critical of the environmental record of the oil sands. One writer finds the actions of Jason Kenney reminiscent of the witch hunt behaviour of Senator Joe McCarthy whose anti-Communist crusade overrode individual rights in the U.S. in the middle of the 20th century.
Closing Thought
Given the number of outrageous statements and actions that generate more heat than light, if we could only find a way to harness these utterances we would have an abundant new source of energy.