This guy is just garbage
He’s not wrong. It also was not successful. The idea behind carbon tax (first proposed by Harper and Poilievre) is that a levy would incentivize people to burn less. Didn’t work, large truck and pickup sales doubled, air travel increased. People just pay to burn.
We should have put in laws to limit vehicle size and fuel economy, not leave it up to consumer fashion. Just roll in a ban of ICE vehicles in large urban areas.
Taxing carbon doesn’t work. We need to restrict activity.
I will say that the carbon taxes made a pretty major difference to my workplace - it pushed up the replacement of our building boiler by a number of years, and switched it to natural gas instead of diesel. Not great objectively, but a marked improvement and the carbon tax was a major factor.
We should have put in laws to limit vehicle size and fuel economy, not leave it up to consumer fashion.
Fixing emissions requirements! I drive a 2 seater compact pickup with a 4 cylinder engine, it gets 8-9L/100km depending on the season and conditions. That’s as good as some modern sedans, and better than ANY pickup on the market. But no one makes a 4 cylinder compact pickup anymore because emissions limits are calculated partly by the footprint of the vehicle.
It’s far too late now but this whole truckzilla problem could have been stomped over a decade ago with intelligent policy. I strongly suspect that we will not get any intelligent policy today, particularly when the intelligent solution is both expensive and counter to industry.
this whole truckzilla problem could have been stomped over a decade ago with intelligent policy.
the problem is Canada does not have it’s own policy, we use US laws. Because we make their stupid trucks here.
Outside of North America, these are real work trucks:
That’s the truck I want, damnit. You can fill it with dirt, or knock it flat to carry sheet goods and lumber!
If you search “compact pickup” in Canada you get the godamned Jeep Gladiator, the Hyundai Santa Cruz, and the Chevrolet Colorado. All three are enormous and one of them just an SUV that’s missing row of seats! And despite weighing 1300lbs more than my shitty old ranger they have the same payload capacity!
Poilievre has never supported a carbon tax.
cap and trade, whatever, that didn’t work either for the same reason: pay to burn.
The idea didn’t fail because it’s inherently flawed. Taxing carbon could easily work, so could restricting activity. Neither is going to meaningfully happen in a resource-based colonialist country.
Can someone remind me again what we avoided by electing Carney instead of Poilievre?
I’m with you on carny sucking ass, but common we know what happened in the us, it’s kleptocrisy that’s what we sort of avoided
Celebrating our nation’s birthday Saturday instead of Wednesday?
I agree, it was divisive and costly. The Trudeau climate plan forced a pipeline expansion through a province that didn’t want it, after other provinces rejected alternative pipelines, at a cost of $34 billion for that single expansion, a whopping 459% over budget. Divisive and costly.
Good thing Carny isn’t trying to do that again, right? /s
Holy crap, it is literally a do-over. What in the world… Alberta to propose southern route for new West Coast pipeline, sources say
That opposition, as well as numerous environmental challenges, prompted the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney to try to persuade Alberta to change tack and consider building a pipeline that largely follows the right-of-way for the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Edmonton to southern B.C.
Canadian governance is basically a few resource companies, banks, and a couple of telecoms bundled together in a Roots trench coat with a maple leaf on it.
Yes. That is what all settler-colonial states ever are, extractive enterprises. Everyone please remember that when you celebrate So-Called Canada Day.
I feel like starting from this place won’t really help anyone to advance the conversation - this may win views on TikTok but decolonizing Canada and sending everyone back to (insert country here) is never happening nor will Canada divest itself from natural resources completely and become a socio-anarchist state – the best possible outcome is one where we leverage our resources carefully and responsibly and receive guidance from Indigenous communities and environmentalists but Canada going full stop green is not something that we will see in our lifetimes. Reality is all in the details and not the extremes.
Awesome, please produce a reading list here to show how you came to this understanding.
Obviously, criticizing settler-colonialism is not even remotely related to “send settlers back,” and you know that, I know that, because you never see people demanding that. I don’t care if criticizing things makes you catastrophize, you people need to be told this shit because you never actually accept the implications. If you cared about practicality you wouldn’t spend so much time convoluting something like this and instead accept that criticisms of colonialism are a necessary element in whatever gradual measures you pretend to subscribe to.
What a waste of time. Won’t answer to anything but that reading list.
Please keep your ranting on TikTok. This extremism makes it hard for practical leftists to effect change in the world.
Clever wording for a stupid take.
Sorry, I can’t keep up with your reply. It’s way too sophisticated for me. Just went straight over my head. Would you mind dumbing it down for the rest of us?
Sorry I don’t speak socialist brain rot.
Sorry I don’t hear dog whistles
Is that why I’m not keeping up? No wonder. I’m squinting into the light of an intellectual sun. Still, I appreciate you trying.
Canadians have to get something through our thick skulls. Every time voters in Ontario BC and Quebec tell Alberta they can’t develop their oil, they are being incompetent hypocritical assholes.
It’s easy to tell another province what they can and can’t do. It’s cheap hollow rhetoric. What’s hard is getting Ontario, BC and Quebec to be oil free. If Quebec with virtually unlimited electric power still has gas stations and extensive commercial natural gas oil refining and pipeline capacity, then how the fuck is the rest of the world supposed to?
Everyone should push hard to decarbonize their own economies before telling others what to do. As a Torontonian, I care more about GO electrification, public transit expansion, EVs, nuclear expansion, closing gas plants, making the building code close to passive house levels of insulation and airtightness and heat pumps galore.
Until everyone can fix their shit, oil and gas are neccessities. You don’t fix this by constraining supply. You kill demand, then supply follows. Alberta has the right to develop it’s resources. We have the right to not buy it.
In the mean time, Europe, who are far ahead of us on decarbonizing, needs our energy to get off Russian O&G. Same for all our real partners.
I care more about GO electrification, public transit expansion, EVs, nuclear expansion, closing gas plants, making the building code close to passive house levels of insulation and airtightness and heat pumps galore.
While Doug Ford cuts fuel taxes and increases highway speed limits 10%, to burn 20% more fuel.
Canadians have to get something through our thick skulls. Every time voters in Ontario BC and Quebec tell Alberta they can’t develop their oil, they are being incompetent hypocritical assholes.
It’s pretty rich calling the Québécois hypocritical assholes when we effectively destroyed an entire resource extraction industry in that Province that was on par with Alberta’s oil sands extraction operations.
Canada used to be the world’s largest supplier of chrysotile asbestos, with Quebec alone producing nearly 50% of the global supply from the 1940s through the 1970s.
Unfortunately, like oil we discovered this valuable mineral was — you know — killing people, so we wound that industry down. Quebec lost a very valuable industry where they had a commanding portion of the world supply.
So it’s pretty fucking rich to call people in Quebec “incompetent hypocritical assholes” when they went through the exact same thing in the last few decades, for very similar reasons.
Everyone should push hard to decarbonize their own economies before telling others what to do.
And it’s pretty hard to get that done when you keep putting more and more money into the infrastructure to maintain the oil economy. It de-incentivizes people from making the necessary changes to decarbonize. Building more pipelines to make it cheaper and easier for people to burn it in greater and greater quantities doesn’t slow climate change, and it doesn’t incentivize governments (or their voters) to make the changes this planet needs if we want to ensure it remains inhabitable for humans in the future.
And for those who think “our stopping pumping oil when so many other countries do it won’t change anything”, I’d like to point them to the current situation in the Straight of Hormuz, which itself has caused EV sales to be up nearly 3.5% globally from prior to the war and prices to spike globally.
All interesting points, yet if you turned off fossil fuels tomorrow Quebec would be crushed economically. You can’t do it yet we can’t do it yet. If you tried with an autocratic wave of a gun you would also be killing millions.
Your ambulances, firetrucks, restaurants and farms etc, all use it despite having a superabundance of alternative energy. The rest of the world have a much less opportunity to switch.
Until we do make the switch, without killing millions upon millions, it’s a neccessary evil. We must end it. Until we do, it has to come from somewhere.
I was a big fan of the carbon tax. It was a politically expedient, but ultimate mistake to remove it that shows a lack of leadership and quite frankly, shows how stupid your average Canadian is. It’s going to set our transition back a decade.
Europe couldn’t do without even in a proxy war over Ukraine, they were buying it from Russia! That should help you understand how not ready we are.
Your ambulances, firetrucks
https://electricautonomy.ca/fleets/first-responders/
Already EV alternatives exist.
I think their point is that it’s not just energy that we get from oil, but lubricants, rubbers, solvents, asphalt, plastics, and so on…
EV only tackle the energy part. They still need tyres, seals and gaskets, insulation, road surfaces, and more…
To be rid of oil is a huge undertaking comprising thousands of individual cases of finding renewable alternatives or stopping use entirely. Which is why we need to be working to remove oil from every step today, not partially removing three steps because it’s cheap and distracts environmentalists from the other 14,962 steps.
FFS…the solution does not have to be binary, and people who claim it is are just trying to defeat efforts.
We don’t need to eliminate hydrocarbon use, we just need to reduce it to a level the planet can buffer.
Maybe everyone should decarbonize? Why should Alberta get special treatment and get to be the last ones in the world to get off of fossil fuels? This is a GLOBAL problem, not an Ontario, BC, Quebec, Alberta problem.
Anyway Alberta is being dumb. There are companies that want to develop wind energy in Alberta, but Danielle Smith blocks them. What happened to letting the market decide? Maybe Alberta could at minimum just let the market decide. But their leaders are in the pocket of oil companies… American oil companies. They’re willing to sell out their own country to get the last scraps of oil revenue and then they’ll move to the US leaving their province to economic depression in the future.
Peak oil for electricity was last year. Peak oil for transportation is coming soon. It’s all downhill for fossil fuels.
It’s an economic imperative for Alberta to transition it’s economy. But they’ve been scammed by the oil industry into thinking they’ll be making big money from oil forever and Global Warming was invented by Justin Trudeau or some such bullshit. If they continue to believe everything the oil companies say, they will be left behind by the world and become the poorest and most backwards part of Canada.
Yes. Everyone must decarbonize asap, Alberta included. However, as I mentioned this is not easy, nor are we close to doing it. I provided a link for quebec’s fossil fuel consumption and even they are no where near ending fossil fuels. If they haven’t yet, how can anyone else. It takes time. Yes we must move at all haste.
My concern, is that as a general rule politicians are great at pointing fingers as a useless misdirection. A city councillor taking a strong stance on federal gun control is a great way to appear to be doing something, while really just doing nothing. Feds and provinces bark at each other all the time rather than doing the right thing in their jurisdiction.
This is much the same. I want Alberta to shut down the fossil fuel economy, but I’m not Albertan and resources are provincial. I’m in Ontario and I want us to shut down gas power plants, home furnaces and cars and keep our industrial heartlands with cool clean electricity. That is where my fight is.
Worry about shutting down the Alberta fossil fuel economy when my province doesn’t depend on it.
We are in a national housing crisis, and we aren’t building homes/neighbourhoods/cities ready for the fossil fuel free future. Our economies can’t do it, because we aren’t ready.
Peak oil for electricity generation was last year. Peak oil for transportation is soon, and the Iran war has hastened the timetable since ending dependency on oil is now strategically imperative for every country in the world.
You keep banging on about the fact that some gas is still used, trying to cling to some “hypocrisy” narrative. The fact is Alberta is trying to cling on to a dying industry and there is no hypocrisy to say that they need to transition from a dying industry. People still own horse and buggies today, that’s not evidence that it’s not obsolete technology.
We are in a national housing crisis, and we aren’t building homes/neighbourhoods/cities ready for the fossil fuel free future.
What are you talking about? We’re spending billions on transit. We’re building high speed rail. We’re expanding electricity generation. There are tax incentives for converting to a heat pump. See here: https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-efficiency/home-energy-efficiency/canada-greener-homes-initiative/canada-greener-homes-initiative
Everyone in my family has converted to heat pumps. Considering the rebates the government provides, it doesn’t take too long to pay off an investment in a heat pump.
Though maybe Ontario sucks at this because of Doug Ford sucks.
Doug Ford sucks because Ontario sucks.
And Ontario sucks because Doug Ford sucks. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be broken somewhere.
Good for you. Provincially no one is ready for the post fossil fuel world.
I can see you’re very attached to this false narrative and no amount of facts will make you let go of it.
That’s barely an opinion let alone an argument. Saying “na anh!” isn’t the discussion you think it is.
and no amount of facts will make you let go of it.
Try one. You might like it
While you aren’t entirely wrong we could also do actual realistic things to disincentivize fossil fuel extraction like remove government subsidies from it. Pass laws that not only require O&G companies to remediate the land (which we have but don’t really enforce), but require that they put money into a fund proportional to the expected cost of remediation vs. the lifespan of the field. Or have the companies build the single-use transportation system to their ports of choice. Why do I, who would really like there to be a world for my kids in 50 years, have to pay for those things, or let companies absolutely devastate the land with no repercussions whatsoever?
And yes, before you say it, I’d like the remediation plans to apply to just about all resource extraction methods, not just the fossil fuels. Although if we just internalized the cost of releasing all that carbon into the atmosphere, O&G would die out in a couple years.
Fully agree across the board. (Except the partially wrong bit, heh.)
Paid shill drinking an expensive coffee in aisle five.
If you had anything of value to say, that would have been the time.
Whereas abandoning climate targets is apparently unifying?
Not to me, any of you all feel that way?
Apparently “unity” means we just do what the O&G industry wants.
It was two divisive for the capitalists he means, he just forgot to finish his sentence
Let’s check back in 50-100 years and see what’s more expensive.
You mean 5-10 years. What’s the value of >1000 deaths in Europe so far this summer?
Let’s say the next few months and every summer from now on, we got forest fires season now!
Northern Ontario burns year around now. No seasons.
“Divisive” as in morons and corporate shills don’t care while the rest of normal people are saying its obviously urgent to do something? lol
“I shouldn’t have to make personal decisions! Corporations should be forced to change so I don’t have to.”
“NOT LIKE THAT!”
A climate plan can be divisive if it saves the climate.
The climate will be fine. We won’t.
oh my god don’t make me fucking say “maintains a survivable climate” the fuck is wrong with you
May I recommend decaf?
Look. “The climate” does not have interests. It will not be fine and it will not not be fine. It will simply exist without possessing its own subjective point of view on its state. You know damn well that when I invoke a subjective comparison, I am speaking from my own point of view, not that of fucking Gaia. We’ve put up with this rhetorical obtuseness for a very long time and I’m afraid I am going to stand by my outburst.
Perhaps an herbal tisane?
Hey, you’re not wrong. And neither am I.
The Earth goes through cycles, once it kills us it will do another ice age and stuff will return.
Just remember we are a cancer to the universe, and it wants to kill you!
People seem to be misunderstanding Carney’s point here, which is that the plan gave someone like Polievre ammo and a damned good chance of burning down Canada.
It really is worth watching the video, or reading the transcript (I couldn’t find one as of yet.) But he talks about the original plan which was entirely appropriate for the comparatively rosy pre trump era in which it was devised. These are different and bad times.
The Right, the radically anti climate right, is ascendent kind of across the globe. Had trump not been such a spectacular asshole, there’s a good chance Poilievre would be running things. Canada in contrast is one where you could see the Liberals walk this tightrope between the Left and Right. So while the Trudeau era plan is the one I’d prefer personally, I see a Carney plan as actually happening, in the long term (which is what matters) rather than being undone shortly by Poilievre or whomever.
I see a Carney plan as actually happening, in the long term
I agree, but…
The only problem with that is governments change on a shorter time scale, and new governments frequently hobble or completely eliminate the previous government’s long term projects for ideological reasons while claiming that they haven’t shown results and therefore are useless.
It happens all the time, and it is a large part of “this is why we can’t have nice things”.
This is my biggest fear with Carney and the Liberals: they refuse to do anything about the political NGOs in Alberta funded by US Foundations, nor do they require NFP organizations to be transparent about how they are funded. There are no socialist “think tanks” or “institutes” because there is no USA backdoor funding for them.
The fact that everyone is cool with Jamil Jirvani, once a US-based and educated fraudster, being a sitting MP and travelling to Washington to collude with long time friend JD Vance during USMCA and CUSMA talks is incredibly disturbing and really makes me wonder if we really have a multiparty system in Canada at all.
everyone is cool with Jamil Jirvani
I think almost no one was cool with that. Heck, you might read a more Conservative take on the negative reactions he received: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/liberals-attack-jamil-jivani-help-trump-offer
Funny how the government can do tlvery unpopular things it didn’t campaign on like the surveillance bill C22, but when it comes to caring about the climate (which it did campaign on), it just isn’t “viable”. Just more neolib bullshit.
Would you prefer something bigger, more ambitious and cancelled in four years?
I want to see something where funding is allocated now with no way to claw back the funding.
Offer huge rebates for solar installations on residences or commercial buildings, with ties to maximum $/kw install costs so its not just more profit.
Offer more funding for clean energy projects with requirements they’re under construction by the time they leave office.
Cancel tax breaks offered to o&g companies now, and force whoever comes in to justify adding the breaks back in.
Don’t drop your ZEV policy, but state it will be in force. Make car companies do the r&d now so they’ll be locked in anyway by the time you leave office.
Enshrine the right to the healthy environment for children in our charter, so any changes that damage that in the future will be challengeable legally.
To argue that he’s doing what he can, and if he doesnt toe the line of moderate (ie way too little action) well lose and things will rebound is ridiculous. There’s a non-zero chance things will rebound anyway. Take action that can’t be undone NOW, and make it harder for pp to undo.
More ambitious than nothing? Yes absolutely
To call the current plan and actions “nothing” is either ignorant or disingenuous. Either way, it’s an incredibly silly thing to say.
What are our currentnplans and actions then? Expanding oil and gas is a already a net negative when it comes to climate action and I honestly don’t see the feds doing much else.
The largest thing, imo, is expanding the electrical grid. All of our talk about green transition is nonsense if we don’t have a grid or system which can support the transition. None of the Trudeau era plans really grappled with this fairly obvious problem, because in my humble opinion, Trudeau was more concerned with sounding good than doing good.
The Darlington nuclear project is among the first of the announced national projects; North America’s first small scale nuclear reactor. Really useful for Canada especially where we have a lot of remote communities without easy access to other energy inputs. (You should see how much is power in the North is diesel and other really dirty fuels.)
If memory serves, the Alberta pipeline MOU comes with the world’s (possibly just North America’s) largest carbon capture mechanism, which is incredibly useful if we want to down the road join into the EU CBAM with other countries, which would be a climate change game changer.
The next tranche of major projects is supposed to include a major wind one for the North Atlantic (again, really useful and targeted transition as a lot of power used there is oil/gas for heating.)
On Conservation, Carney has announced plans to effectively double our protected Conservation both marine and land.
Also, just today, Carney announced an MOU that doubles BC’s clean power capacity while also upholding our northern tanker ban, which while not really climate change is really reassuring to hear as that ecosystem is fragile and very much at risk.
Again, is there more that could be done? Sure. But, instead of my temporary feel goods, I much prefer a plan and mandate that I think can effect long lasting change. These are the moves that position Canada for a durable green transition, without relying on a trump ex machina to win the Left the election every time. Carney’s approval rating is uniquely high in the G7 I think in large part because he’s doing a good job of straddling the line between the Right and Left on climate. That compromise means that I won’t see everything I want but neither will my Conservative friends.
Edit: Oh, and I completely forgot allowing tens of thousands of affordable Chinese EVs into the Canadian market over the strenuous objections of Conservative premier Doug Ford.
This is serious cope. The nuclear and wind projects were planned before Carney, the only difference I am aware of is that he’s promised these projects more federal dollars and loosening regulations to try to speed those things along.
If memory serves, the Alberta pipeline MOU comes with the world’s (possibly just North America’s) largest carbon capture mechanism, which is incredibly useful if we want to down the road join into the EU CBAM with other countries, which would be a climate change game changer.
Direct air carbon capture is vaporware. Literally no proven scale-able methods exist. The cost of any serious carbon sequestration would be high enough that the only reason you would do it over just building renewables and reducing oil and gas usage is to funnel green energy dollars to oil and gas companies.
Oh, and I completely forgot allowing tens of thousands of affordable Chinese EVs into the Canadian market over the strenuous objections of Conservative premier Doug Ford.
I am in favor of this but let’s not forget the fact that Carney removed the EV mandate from domestic manufacturers and the only reason the tariffs were dropped was because China responded with counter tariffs on canola.
Any of the climate gains from these green energy projects is effectively neutered by expanding oil and gas production. It makes no sense to be giving more of our money to these companies when the rest of the world is doing their best to transition away from them. In fifteen years when we have an oil pipeline and China has monopolized the EV and battery market, will we admit that we fucked up? Or will we do what the USA is doing and double down further on O&G while banning green energy projects because they threaten oil profits?
yes, dividing his patrons’ profits.
In a market system, a carbon tax is the best way to punish carbon emission. Buuuut it was politically unpopular :(
I think we have a decent industrial carbon tax, right? Which kinda has a similar-ish effect as the consumer carbon tax, though slightly less efficient.
In a market system, a carbon tax is the best way to punish carbon emission
So pickup truck sales and air travel did not skyrocket after 2019?
Canadians all drive small cars and don’t do fly away vacations any more?
Carbon tax just ended up being pay to burn. Meanwhile, Ontario is increasing highway speeds 10% which increase fuel use 20%.
“Politically unpopular” is doing a lot of work behind the scenes here. Who believes people just organically came to the opinion that they don’t want to receive a tax rebate when industry pollutes, and that they’d rather the pollution just go on instead of that?
Wait til you find out how much climate change is going to cost to live through!
