Juno News - Is Freeland getting thrown under the bus？

00:00:00 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30 Thank you.

00:01:00 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:19 north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew

00:01:29 lawton show on true north on this thursday july 11th the final episode of the week but

00:01:34 don't worry if you are going to be an andrew lawton withdrawal which i don't think anyone

00:01:38 is in fact i think you probably prefer it's the old absence makes the heart grow fonder thing but

00:01:43 if for whatever reason you want more of me i'll be back tomorrow with off the record uh with i

00:01:48 actually don't know who's on this week. I think my colleague William Macbeth is on, I believe

00:01:51 Isaac Lamoureux as well. So either way, we'll find out tomorrow. I'll be just as surprised as

00:01:57 you are apparently. But anyway, hope you're having a great week so far. Oh boy, we've got a lot to get

00:02:04 through today. We're going to be talking about the state of universities. We're going to be talking

00:02:08 about the state of Justin Trudeau's very disastrous net zero commitments. And I also want to talk

00:02:13 about this rather bizarre war of words that took place this morning at the Assembly of First

00:02:19 Nations conference, including what I would call quite a slanderous and demonstrably false claim

00:02:24 about Aaron Gunn, who's been on the show a number of times and is now a conservative candidate.

00:02:30 But let's start off with how there is no mercy available to those who have been shills for 1.00

00:02:37 Justin Trudeau. So if you're to look at this government right now and find someone who is

00:02:42 more pro-Trudeau than Trudeau even, who are you going to name? You're going to name Christia

00:02:46 Freeland. This has been the most loyal foot soldier of Justin Trudeau. It's been his conciliary.

00:02:51 It's been the reality that anytime he has been facing this internal strife, Christia Freeland

00:02:57 is the one that goes out and is the Trudeau defender in any circumstance whatsoever. It's

00:03:02 why I've never been too fearful of a Christia Freeland premiership because I think that if

00:03:09 Trudeau goes down in flames, she goes down with him because she is so inextricably linked

00:03:13 to the Trudeau brand. So my, my, my, where has the loyalty from the PMO been in repayment of

00:03:21 the loyalty Chrystia Freeland has showed herself? This is from the Robert Fyfe, not from the Robert

00:03:27 Fyfe, it's from Robert Fyfe. Well, it is the Robert Fyfe, I guess, at the Globe and Mail. PMO

00:03:32 officials worry Freeland's economic messaging has been ineffective as party struggles.

00:03:39 I don't know if we have a graphic of the first paragraph, but I'll read it for you anyway.

00:03:43 Senior officials in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office are concerned that Finance Minister

00:03:47 Chrystia Freeland has not been effective in delivering an upbeat economic message as the

00:03:53 Liberal government struggles to reconnect with Canadians amid low approval ratings, sources say.

00:03:59 Oh my, so that 20-point lead that Pierre Pauly of the Conservatives have over Justin Trudeau,

00:04:05 it's not Trudeau's fault. The PMO is saying it's Chrystia Freeland for not giving an upbeat

00:04:10 message about the budget to Canadians. Oh boy. It continues. There is an increasingly tense

00:04:16 relationship. Apparently, PMO under Trudeau has centralized decision-making, has a tight grip on

00:04:22 government messaging, and now they say that post-by-election loss, there is a need to blame

00:04:29 Chrystia Freeland for this. Now, this is normally the type of story you'd have to take with a grain

00:04:34 of salt. It cites unnamed sources in the PMO. He said, we know that unnamed sources to the Globe

00:04:38 and Mail are the way that the Justin Trudeau PMO likes to communicate. You may recall about four

00:04:43 years ago, the very same thing happened with Bill Morneau. When the liberals were getting ready to

00:04:48 thrust Bill Morneau out the window to defenestrate him, as the verb goes, they started leaking all

00:04:54 of these anti-Morneau stories about, oh, PMO sources say this and that. And it was notable

00:04:59 on Twitter when I looked up, I don't know if it's Sharon or Sharon, but Sharon or Sharon

00:05:05 Core, who used to be Bill Morneau's chief of staff, has tweeted out a few. One of them

00:05:10 here, I guess it was about time for the sequel. That's one of her comments. What else do we

00:05:15 have up there? I like to think of this as a PMO summer tradition. And then there was

00:05:20 a third one I saw. These were all in like rapid succession. I guess a playbook has been

00:05:25 created. So a little bit sassy and snarky, but I think deservedly so, because she saw

00:05:30 this same routine used against her former boss, Bill Morneau, and now it's being used against

00:05:37 Chrystia Freeland. So there is a gender aspect of this that's interesting to point out, because you

00:05:42 may recall the liberals under Justin Trudeau have not exactly liked strong independent women

00:05:47 cabinet ministers for all that long. We saw Selena Cesar Chavez, who was in caucus. We saw Jane

00:05:53 Philpott in cabinet, Jody Wilson-Raybould in cabinet, and now perhaps Chrystia Freeland.

00:05:58 So Chrystia Freeland has been out there just taking the slings and arrows on Trudeau's behalf,

00:06:03 not realizing that her back was just wide open for that big, giant, shiny red knife that has 0.58

00:06:09 sunny ways encrusted in it with diamonds. And that knife is going into her back. To mix my 1.00

00:06:14 metaphor, she's being thrown under the bus. She's being defenestrated. She is being made the

00:06:19 scapegoat of Justin Trudeau's failings. Now, I think there are a lot of things that we can point

00:06:24 to with Chrystia Freeland very critically. I think her loyalty to Justin Trudeau has been

00:06:29 one of the biggest criticisms because she's not an unintelligent person, and she has decided that

00:06:34 she wants to stay on the sinking ship. She is the, of lore, the violinist on the deck of the

00:06:41 Titanic, willing to just, you know, keep playing as it goes down. But now they're not even giving

00:06:46 her that chance. And it's fascinating because if you read this story further, you see that this is

00:06:52 just PMO spin. This is a PMO leak. This is an orchestrated leak. It isn't just some rogue

00:06:57 staffer. It's the government trying to get a message out that is making Chrystia Freeland 0.94

00:07:02 the problem. So remember, the polling issues predated the budget. And the polling issues go

00:07:09 beyond people saying, well, I don't know if there's a positive enough message on the economy

00:07:15 of the country. Like that is trying to simplify to the point of reductivism what the problems are

00:07:21 plaguing this government. Now, just to put some contrast on here, I want to play a clip of Pierre

00:07:26 Poliev speaking this morning at the AFN. Now, it wasn't entirely a rosy reception. He had some

00:07:32 people that stood up and turned their backs to him as he was speaking, some indigenous leaders

00:07:37 and indigenous chiefs. But this was the message that he gave nonetheless. I'm not here to run

00:07:44 your life. I don't want to run anybody's life. I want to run a small government with big citizens

00:07:49 free to make their own decisions and live their own lives. This is especially true for First 0.95

00:07:55 Nations peoples. Every one of you in this room is a leader. Every one of you knows your communities

00:08:01 better than Ottawa does and certainly better than I do. You draw on thousands of years of experience

00:08:07 while Canada has only been here for a century and a half. That's why we will get the government

00:08:13 gatekeepers the federal government gatekeepers out of your way so you can do what's best for

00:08:18 your members my promise to all canadians is that a common-sense conservative government

00:08:23 will axe the tax build the homes fix the budget and stop the crime this is my general commitment

00:08:29 but it is of particular importance to first peoples acts the tax means cancelling a carbon tax

00:08:35 that is making food and groceries more unaffordable for everyone but especially for first nations

00:08:41 people.

00:08:42 Because of the remote and colder weathers that you must confront, this tax is particularly

00:08:49 cruel and unjust, and that is why I support the Chiefs of Ontario and their judicial review

00:08:56 to counter this unjust tax burden.

00:09:00 But I have good news.

00:09:01 When I am Prime Minister, the Chiefs of Ontario will not have to spend any more money on lawyers

00:09:06 because I will axe the tax, and when I say it, I mean it.

00:09:11 That is a message that is, again, not all that dissimilar. In fact, it's pretty much identical

00:09:16 to the message he gives when he's speaking to non-Indigenous people, but he's giving it an

00:09:20 applicability to them. He's talking about why it matters to them more, and did he win over everyone

00:09:25 in the room? No, but he did, at a couple of points, get applause during his speech, when, again, the

00:09:31 relationship between the Conservatives and Indigenous groups has not always been a positive

00:09:35 one, politically speaking. So there is, I think, a great contrast when you say that, oh, well,

00:09:41 the problem that the conservatives have, or the problem that the liberals have relative to the

00:09:46 conservatives is that Christopher Freeland didn't give a positive enough economic message. It's the

00:09:50 liberals not realizing that they are fundamentally not offering what right now their most viable

00:09:55 alternative is, which is a hopeful message, a clear message, and one that people are willing

00:10:01 to embrace and willing to adopt. Now, this is again, a tremendous, tremendous failing on the

00:10:06 part of the liberals to look for, have Justin Trudeau look in the mirror and realize that he

00:10:11 is not offering that. People do not believe him. He's trying to point around and blame every single

00:10:17 person in the room, but himself, including Christian Freeland, including Christian Freeland,

00:10:24 blame everyone in the room, but himself for his party and him being so unpopular. And again,

00:10:30 the liberal NDP coalition on this is remarkably similar. Jagmeet Singh, who is the leader of the

00:10:36 NDP, but basically he's like the deputy liberal prime minister at this point, he just went off

00:10:42 on the conservatives using his opportunity to speak to First Nations people, not to provide a 0.98

00:10:47 positive message, a hopeful message, but just to crap on the party that he believes is so evil and 0.99

00:10:54 dastardly. This was what he said. He talks a lot about freedom, but what he really wants 0.99

00:11:01 is freedom for himself. For him, when he says freedom, freedom means not respecting treaty

00:11:10 obligations. For him, freedom means not respecting your rights. For him, freedom means not getting

00:11:18 your free, prior, and informed consent.

00:11:22 After all, he's a guy that said

00:11:25 indigenous people need a stronger work ethic,

00:11:29 not compensation for the atrocities committed

00:11:31 in residential schools.

00:11:36 All right?

00:11:39 He's a guy that said that chiefs like you

00:11:42 have too much power.

00:11:44 That's literally what he said.

00:11:46 He's a guy who speaks to anti-indigenous organizations

00:11:51 very recently, not years ago, but very recently,

00:11:55 denying the truth of residential schools.

00:11:58 He's a guy who right now has let a very well-known

00:12:03 residential school denier, Aaron Gunn, run for his party.

00:12:08 That's who he really is.

00:12:11 When someone shows you who they are, you got to believe them,

00:12:13 especially when they show you again and again and again.

00:12:20 Now, Jennifer L., who's an Indigenous woman herself and very active politically,

00:12:26 I think she leans right, but she's certainly not a dyed-in-the-wool partisan by any stretch.

00:12:31 I've seen her make criticisms of the Conservatives and of other parties.

00:12:34 She had an analysis on X that I wanted to share a little bit of,

00:12:38 in which she talks about Jagmeet Singh, who she says is very popular among Indigenous leaders generally.

00:12:43 But she says Jagmeet emphasized a lot on listening and started off good, then got lost in the weeds complaining about Pierre.

00:12:49 Dunks are okay, but it was too much and noticeably he sounded desperate.

00:12:54 And again, I think the desperation is clear with that sideswipe against Aaron Gunn.

00:12:59 Now, Aaron's been on the show in the past.

00:13:01 Jagmeet Singh called him a residential school denier.

00:13:05 A residential school denier and used that as a dunk in some way on Pierre Polyev.

00:13:09 Now, the thing is, and I'll read a statement that I got from the Conservatives on this.

00:13:14 Once again, Jagmeet Singh is fabricating stories and trying to distract Canadians from his own track record of abandoning hardworking Canadians and propping up a Liberal government that has continued to leave First Nations on the sidelines.

00:13:27 Aaron Gunn has been clear in recognizing the truly horrific events that transpired in residential schools, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is simply false.

00:13:37 Gunn is looking to join Pierre Pauliev in repealing Trudeau's radical anti-resource laws to quickly greenlight good projects so First Nations and all Canadians bring home more powerful paychecks.

00:13:48 Now, by the way, I don't even know the claim, the source of the claim.

00:13:52 One of our reporters is looking into it now, and he's going to ask the NDP to show their work on this.

00:13:57 The only thing that I could think remotely he could be talking about is Aaron Gunn saying that Canada is not a genocidal nation.

00:14:04 And if that makes you a residential school denier, my goodness, you'd have to lock up the majority of the country because most people who live in this country, who are proud of this country, believe that Canada is not a genocidal nation.

00:14:15 And if you did, you'd be recommending all of our leaders go up before the Hague, which is not what's happening.

00:14:20 So Aaron Gunn, who gets criticized for saying, hey, he's proud to be Canadian, is now called a residential school denier by Jagmeet Singh.

00:14:29 By the way, Jagmeet Singh, who is propping up the liberal government that accused itself of genocide.

00:14:36 So that means that he is propping up a genocidal government.

00:14:39 What does that say about him?

00:14:40 What does that say about Jagmeet Singh?

00:14:42 That he is literally the lone political entity keeping a government that has confessed to perpetrating genocide against indigenous people in power.

00:14:52 Why is he not facing criticism for that?

00:14:54 My goodness.

00:14:55 Well, this is the sort of bend over backwards wokeness that we see transpiring across the

00:15:01 country, not just in the political class, but also in academic institutions.

00:15:05 We spoke a little bit earlier on in the week with a gentleman who was looking at just diversity

00:15:11 hiring and why no one is providing any evidence.

00:15:18 The problem goes much deeper than that.

00:15:20 In a piece from The Hub this week by Professor Zachary Patterson, there is a far left, or he says, extremist left ideology supplanting core curricula and infusing every aspect of academia.

00:15:33 Now, it sounds a bit defeatist, but he says, no, no, no, it can be saved.

00:15:38 The piece in The Hub, Canada Must Reclaim Its Wayward Universities, Here's How, written by Concordia University Professor Zachary Patterson.

00:15:45 Zach, it's good to have you on the show.

00:15:47 Thanks for coming on today.

00:15:49 Thanks very much for having me, Andrew.

00:15:50 Now, Zach and I were hanging out back at the ARC Forum in London a few months back that Jordan Peterson had hosted, the ARC Forum.

00:15:59 We had a great time doing it. I think it was in Ottawa. I saw you more recently here.

00:16:03 But you offer the rare hopeful message for heterodox people about academia right now.

00:16:09 And I wanted to have you on. What's the first step to fixing this?

00:16:14 Yeah, so I'm going to try to give you a first step.

00:16:17 the article itself was trying to give a sense of the lay of the land of the possibilities

00:16:22 of what's available to policymakers in the domain of universities in Canada. So it looks at,

00:16:30 you know, federally, provincially, university level. And so I'll just give you that for now,

00:16:36 Andrew, maybe you have other questions. Well, let me start with the free speech

00:16:41 aspect alone, because there was this flurry of discussion a few years ago, you had Ontario

00:16:45 notably come out during the 2018 election and say, we're going to mandate free speech at

00:16:50 universities. Every university is going to have to have a statement of academic principles

00:16:54 affirming its support for academic freedom. And what happens? Every university comes out

00:16:59 with a statement and nothing else changes. So the problem there is that you can have people that

00:17:04 want to do the right thing or want to say they're doing the right thing, but it doesn't translate

00:17:09 down to administrations that are still doing the same things that are, I would say, censoring

00:17:14 heterodox opinions. We've seen the utter contrast post-October 7th when you can't say that a woman 0.99

00:17:21 is a biological human female, but you can say death to the Jews on campus. 0.99

00:17:27 Right. So there's a couple of things there, Andrew. The first is, so these laws that were 0.98

00:17:34 put in place, the Quebec government did, Alberta as well, asking universities to commit to free

00:17:40 speech and academic freedom and those types of things the the issue around those is that typically

00:17:44 what happens and what has happened in both those cases is that universities are left first of all

00:17:48 to come up with their own policies sometimes even to come up with their own definitions and also

00:17:54 obviously to enforce those things so there's there's a kind of a conflict of interest there

00:17:58 and so often what happens is the wording that you get in from the universities is what they

00:18:04 it's often referred to as i'm all for academic freedom but and so there are lots of different

00:18:09 things that uh you know can intervene there if it's a harmful speech if it's hateful if it makes

00:18:14 some people feel bad and so that's one of the the downsides of of that i've forgotten the second

00:18:19 thing i wanted to say about academic freedom so explain then what you think the policy tools

00:18:26 could be that would have some more teeth okay so this comes back to the previous point one of the

00:18:33 things is not having a mechanism to make sure that academic freedom is enforceable or enforced

00:18:39 is a problem. So the universities have to do it themselves. What's happened in the United

00:18:42 Kingdom is they have the Higher Education Academic Freedom Act, I think it's called. They have kind

00:18:47 of an academic freedom czar. So universities are supposed to respect academic freedom.

00:18:53 And if they don't, then people at the university can reach out to this czar,

00:18:57 and it's an ombudsperson of sorts, and they can evaluate what happened. And if there are extreme

00:19:03 problems with it, the universities themselves can be fine. So I think this is something that's

00:19:07 probably necessary if we want to take something like academic freedom seriously and that's um you

00:19:13 know that's one important pillar of this type of approach and then after that there's many different

00:19:19 interventions that can happen like i say either at the provincial or the federal or even at the

00:19:23 university level one of the most severe things that a government could do and again we've heard 1.00

00:19:28 people talk about doing this but we've never seen it put into action in canada is defunding them

00:19:33 These are, by and large, public institutions, certainly the ones where I'd say government has an ability to do anything at all.

00:19:39 It would be the public institutions, and they rely on government for a huge amount of money, federal and provincial, but predominantly provincial.

00:19:46 And there's nothing stopping a premier from saying, if you do not support academic freedom, your funding is gone.

00:19:53 That how responsive do you think universities would be to that?

00:19:58 I think I think they'd be pretty responsive to it, Andrew.

00:20:01 Like you say, in the column when I talk about these different types of approaches, these are what I call incentive-based approaches.

00:20:08 So basically, respect for academic freedom and what I call the foundational principles of the university.

00:20:14 And those are contingent upon all kinds of different funding streams.

00:20:18 So there's direct funding, there's funding from the funding agencies.

00:20:21 There's being able to get student loans for tuition for universities contingent upon their respecting these things.

00:20:31 And there are some that are a little bit more, a little bit, I don't want to say subtler, but there are some that are less heavy-handed.

00:20:39 You mentioned the more incentive-based approaches.

00:20:42 I don't know if they would be as responsive to that.

00:20:45 The reason I say that is because a lot of these are institutions that seem to be very ideological.

00:20:51 And you have to navigate this on your own through your work at Concordia.

00:20:54 But I know you've also been involved with a group that I'm a member of, the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.

00:21:00 you've heard from your colleagues and administrators because there's a fear

00:21:04 that administrators could be just fearful of the woke mob but I think I'm

00:21:09 increasingly of the mind and I'm curious for your thoughts on this that

00:21:11 administrators are part of it the administrators actually believe what

00:21:15 they're doing so evidence suggests that they are administrators are more

00:21:20 ideological even than their rank-and-file professors that's from what I

00:21:24 understand and so one of the things that I talk about in the piece also is

00:21:29 provincial governments have a series of different responsibilities towards

00:21:34 universities they decide the you know how the the charters or how the

00:21:39 universities are founded and as well as how they're governed and you know there

00:21:44 are things like being able to appoint boards of directors members of boards of

00:21:47 directors and so they can have a role at that level which you know might have an

00:21:53 influence on the political suasion of the people who are in charge the

00:21:56 administrators. So let's go to the question that unfortunately tends to put a sour note on these

00:22:04 sorts of discussions, but you may take us in a different direction. Are you an optimist that

00:22:08 this can and will be fixed, that this can and will be addressed? Well, I think we have to try.

00:22:15 And I think it's the obligation, basically, of governments to take this very seriously. Like

00:22:23 mentioned before, universities in Canada particularly are almost exclusively privately

00:22:27 funded. When doing research for these series of columns, I discovered that higher education

00:22:33 receives 30 percent more funding than the Department of National Defense or of National

00:22:37 Defense in general. So there's a lot of money that's going to universities. And there also

00:22:42 seems to be a big difference between what it is that universities want to be doing and what the

00:22:49 public thinks about what they want to be doing. If you look at issues like affirmative action,

00:22:52 decolonization all these types of things that the uh you know a recent report came out from

00:22:56 eric kaufman looking at the degree to which the public was in favor of these approaches and

00:23:02 policies and for the most part a large majority is not so basically there's a lot of money coming

00:23:07 from the public purse going to universities that are supporting uh policies or causes maybe if you

00:23:12 want uh that aren't endorsed by the public itself of the provinces you look at i think ontario

00:23:19 Alberta and Quebec were the three has one had any more success than the others would you say

00:23:24 I think it's hard to say Quebec's was a bit more it was stronger because they actually provided a

00:23:31 definition of academic freedom in a way that the other universe the other country provinces didn't

00:23:36 and so they asked the universities themselves to you know come up with their own I think Alberta

00:23:41 might have had something about the Chicago principles I think Ontario did as well but

00:23:45 But again, Ontario, they put the policy in place, and then they never looked at it again.

00:23:51 And like universities, some of them didn't even really do it.

00:23:54 Yeah.

00:23:55 So, I mean, I don't think we have a choice to, if someone doesn't have a choice,

00:24:00 those who are responsible for it don't have a choice, but to try to do something.

00:24:04 I don't know how hopeful I am, but I like to try to see the right side of things.

00:24:10 You touched on another aspect of this, and I wanted to visit this with you,

00:24:13 because we dealt with this last week with Kaylin Ford,

00:24:17 who's the head of the Alberta Classical Academy

00:24:18 in, well, Alberta.

00:24:20 And you had said that one possible, not a fix,

00:24:23 but a mechanism that could be deployed

00:24:25 is eliminating the monopoly

00:24:26 that university education faculties have

00:24:29 on licensing teachers.

00:24:31 Because a lot of the wokeness we see in education

00:24:34 is happening far before students

00:24:36 get to university or college.

00:24:37 It's happening with students in their K-12 education.

00:24:41 And all of the teachers are coming

00:24:42 from a select handful of education faculties and what's interesting in that is that i had never and

00:24:49 i said this to kaylin i had never really in my life thought that there could be a different way

00:24:53 and then i as i got older and started learning about this i realized well yeah why should you

00:24:57 need to have an education degree to be a teacher when you could be a subject matter expert and you

00:25:02 could be qualified that way so why would that help in your view well i think i mean mostly it's

00:25:08 because from what my understanding of the education schools is that they really are

00:25:12 purveyors and influenced by these ideologies, and they have been for a long time, since the 1960s,

00:25:19 and it was kind of, they were the first departments to undergo the sway of these ideologies.

00:25:26 And so they've been there for a long time, they've had a lot of influence, and of course they have

00:25:30 influences on the teachers, and the teachers are teaching the students, and I see it with my own

00:25:35 children and so i think if there was some way to break that monopoly uh people who had masters or

00:25:41 phd's like you say subject experts um maybe they could just go around that and that there would be

00:25:46 less power that was invested in the education schools or departments to be able to push an

00:25:53 agenda all right the piece in question in the hub canada must reclaim its wayward universities

00:25:59 here's how not quite a road map but a lot of the a whole menu of the options and i think

00:26:04 the first step is diagnosing which you've done quite well uh professor zachary patterson always

00:26:08 good to see you thanks for coming on today thanks very much andrew i appreciate it all right thank

00:26:13 you uh and again we're doing we're going around the world here we're covering everything we're

00:26:17 covering education we're covering indigenous issues we're talking about jagmeet singh we're

00:26:21 doing it all uh but we have to cap things off with a look at one of the most profound examples

00:26:26 of virtue signaling by the state of putting this lofty ideological goal ahead of anything resembling

00:26:32 science or facts or evidence, and that is the commitment to what is increasingly becoming a

00:26:38 very dangerous net zero goal. Now, this is not being a quote-unquote climate denier. It's

00:26:44 certainly not for being anti-science. It's about looking at the facts. We have had a couple of

00:26:49 major international agreements that have dealt with fossil fuel use and emissions. We had Kyoto

00:26:55 back in 1997. We had the Paris Accord back in 2015. Since both of those, we've seen fossil

00:27:01 fuel consumption go up. We've seen emissions go up. The entry into a carbon tax by Canada that

00:27:07 has continued to increase has not stopped emissions from increasing. And we're wondering

00:27:13 if you've been naive and just expected the government knew what it was doing. You've

00:27:16 probably been wondering why. Well, the reality is that this is just not working. And what we have

00:27:24 from our friend Kenneth Green, who has written a piece in the Toronto Stunt about this,

00:27:28 is a call on the government to abandon what is increasingly an unfeasible and damaging

00:27:33 net zero plan. This has not worked. It's requiring a massive phase out of fossil fuels without

00:27:39 an alternative. And that is the so critical part of this. Dr. Kenneth Green joins us once again.

00:27:45 Always good to see you, Ken. Thanks for coming on today.

00:27:47 Always good to be with you, Andrew.

00:27:49 So this number has just become so arbitrary. We have to reduce by 2050. They'll occasionally say

00:27:54 2040 we have to go net zero here we we've got to reduce emissions by this amount and and none of

00:28:00 it really matters in a way because they're not doing any of it we're not seeing any record here

00:28:05 but the policy mechanisms that are supposed to get us there are causing some real harms are they not

00:28:11 yes they are and and another one of the arbitrary targets we have is the uh 1.5 degrees c limiting

00:28:17 warming to 1.5 degrees c which actually drives all of the other ones beneath it um the the regulations

00:28:24 on the energy sector are actually causing significant economic harm in Canada and also

00:28:30 in the United States and around the world, because energy is intrinsic to producing

00:28:35 economic growth and economic productivity, and it's economic productivity and growth

00:28:41 that lead to prosperous and thriving societies. And so these regulations, which are increasing

00:28:47 the cost of energy to manufacturers, to producers, to consumers, to homeowners, are all basically

00:28:55 causing economic suppression and therefore lowering people's quality of life.

00:29:01 In some cases, the regulations themselves are also causing economic, leading to environmental

00:29:06 harm separate from climate change, for example.

00:29:10 So with plastics regulations, Canada has a goal of phasing out, reaching zero plastic

00:29:16 waste by 2030 the studies show that the substitutes people are using for plastics are actually causing

00:29:22 more harm to the environment they generate more amounts of waste that have to be managed and they

00:29:27 pose health risks to people different than than plastics do so uh the regulatory the crusade for

00:29:34 or jihad for net zero 2050 um is leaving a considerable amount of damage in its wake

00:29:41 and the one thing that i i find so fascinating about this is that no one is talking about and

00:29:48 i shouldn't say no one you are but no one in the government is talking about energy demands we have

00:29:53 a lot of very ambitious goals even if we go all in on electric vehicles and this will require

00:29:58 energy and i've yet to see anyone even so much as have a discussion about where that's going to come

00:30:03 from even when people talk about renewables it's all very theoretical they have not actually

00:30:08 provided a roadmap of matching energy needs which will only increase but even at the current level

00:30:13 with alternative energy well energy needs are are huge not only in canada but in the united

00:30:20 states but but around the world and especially in developing countries that that have are still

00:30:25 using uh wood and dung for uh cooking fires and things and so the global energy uh demand is

00:30:32 is massive and it will only expand with population, with global population.

00:30:38 And but the question you ask is a really valid one, which is how are we going to match the demand

00:30:43 with supply? And this is an area where governments, I believe, especially governments who are in the

00:30:50 Western governments and those who are in the net zero school of thought and the climate

00:30:54 are concerned about basically have climate change as their center of their existence.

00:30:59 this is where i believe they're actually mostly insincere because they actually don't intend to

00:31:05 supply the demand so they promise but they don't intend to deliver and they and historically that's

00:31:10 what has happened which is they promise you an alternative or a better version we don't it's you

00:31:15 know it's not that we don't want you to have energy we want you to generate it with this way

00:31:18 wind or solar instead of fossil fuels um it's not that we don't want you to have your refrigerator

00:31:23 we want you to have this super hyper efficient refrigerator it's not that we don't want you to

00:31:27 have a barbecue but it has to be an electric barbecue uh but they the thing is they just

00:31:31 never when the time comes for them to give you that alternative the electric car that matches

00:31:35 your vehicle you don't get it they don't give it to you and uh the prices prices never come down

00:31:42 to match the pre-existing competitive sources so these things just don't manifest and i think

00:31:47 that's that's actually a goal which is they want to actually reduce humans access to energy because

00:31:53 they want to control people more rigidly and have them do less things they don't want you flying

00:31:59 uh around in airplanes that's that's for not for the commoners that's for the elites

00:32:04 um they don't want you living in sprawling at bigger houses or independent houses or even

00:32:08 individual houses um they want to constrain people's behavior and constrict humanity

00:32:14 because of that is their philosophy is that human activity is detrimental to the world

00:32:19 is killing the world there's i mean the the other thing you have to look at as well is i think the

00:32:26 moving goal posts on this and the goal posts have not just moved on on the target and on when but

00:32:30 even whenever the un cop uh summits on this come up uh you'll always have these uh radical groups

00:32:36 that will say no no net zero isn't good we need absolute zero so they're actually against things

00:32:41 that industry can do to mitigate emissions they're against things like carbon capture they're against

00:32:46 carbon you know all of these alternatives and and when you hear people talk about absolute zero and

00:32:51 again it's not just fringe people it's some some legitimate people they actually are anti-industry

00:32:56 i mean they're anti-human they want us to all just be sitting in dark rooms alone and that is

00:33:01 that is the goal and that's why whenever you hear you know occasional proposals from some city

00:33:05 council in you know quebec say to to ban wood stoves i mean it's actually quite revealing about

00:33:11 the just the state of contempt they have for western 21st century life it's not even western

00:33:16 21st century life it's the life since humans harnessed fire and learned how to cook their food

00:33:21 humans used need energy to and use energy to transform things into the substances that keep

00:33:27 them alive materials things that keep them alive and so yeah the goalposts shift constantly that's

00:33:33 something that of course uh is is uh well known and of course the all the subsidiary goals shift

00:33:38 as well which is now it's not enough for the west to give the developing countries a billion dollars

00:33:42 a year now they have to give them a trillion dollars a year now they have to give them two

00:33:45 trillion dollars a year in order to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions um it is a never-ending

00:33:50 shifting goal post and it has been since kyoto in 1997. um but again of course we're seeing some of

00:33:55 that here at home as well which is uh you know back uh over the last 20 years it was it was

00:34:01 you have to phase out coal we want you to phase out coal and you can use natural gas

00:34:05 and now the new call is no natural gas either just wind and solar and when the wind and solar

00:34:11 if that would ever happen it was all wind and solar then they would no doubt find a way to say

00:34:15 well yeah but no wind because it's you know windows are causing killing birds and uh it is

00:34:21 a ratchet to zero it's a ratchet to extremism and it's it's a it is it is in fact a um a rejection

00:34:28 of the idea of human nature as being an empowered species humanity as being an empowered species

00:34:34 that can change the world by the use of energy and materials it's a rejection of fundamental

00:34:40 rejection of the of the acceptability of having human beings on your planet now i'm from ontario

00:34:48 so obviously my experience is different than it is for other people because we have an ontario

00:34:53 hydroelectric we also have nuclear and but but it's nuclear is probably the greatest way to expose

00:34:59 the utter hypocrisy from a lot of the emissions hawks because these people that want low emission

00:35:04 energy sources you bring up nuclear and all of a sudden no no no not like that absolutely that's

00:35:09 and that's what i say is you can you can you can recognize their actual goals by what they do

00:35:14 which is the rejection of nuclear power which was known of course as a non very low greenhouse gas

00:35:20 gas-submitting activity, and it's been safely used for 60 years or actually 80 years, maybe,

00:35:29 the rejection of nuclear power, absolute rejection and continued rejection of it, does show their

00:35:34 complete and utter insincerity about the reality of what they want to achieve.

00:35:39 They don't want to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions at the least cost while

00:35:43 giving, still maintaining humanity's energy profile, and they have rejected that every

00:35:49 single time in favor of socialist measures that control and redistribute wealth. That's the other

00:35:55 thing, which is you don't get to reward too many cronies if you're really relying on nuclear power.

00:36:00 And you don't get to play the subsidy game very much because nuclear power doesn't require a lot

00:36:04 of subsidies. Yeah. And I mean, it's low cost as well. It's accessible. I mean, obviously,

00:36:11 there's a significant upstart cost. But yeah. And the one thing I guess I'll say on this is that

00:36:16 when you see electricity shortages in Alberta, when you see other things like this, it forces

00:36:24 people to realize that some of these discussions are a bit of a luxury item. And that when people

00:36:29 are living through some minus 40 degree winter, it forces them to realize that, okay, maybe I don't

00:36:36 want to just shut things down entirely. So I do think that for the non-activist, there is a bit

00:36:41 of a realization coming that some of these things are just infeasible. I think that's true. That's

00:36:46 true. I think for the non-activists, for the non-committed believers, I think people are

00:36:50 looking at the effects of the climate policies on their wallet, on their house, on their wallet,

00:36:55 on their safety, in their cars and in their houses and against the climate, basically. Safety from

00:37:03 fires, safety from storms. And they're seeing these climate policies are not desirable and not

00:37:11 giving them anything of benefit. They're not giving them a benefit, but they're certainly

00:37:15 imposing a cost that people are increasingly seeing, taking a bite out of their paycheck

00:37:20 every month. And I think there's a loss of appetite for these extreme plans, not only in

00:37:26 Canada, but also around the world, where some governments that are shifting right are vowing

00:37:31 to move away from net zero. At 2050, much of us not go to absolute zero. No one is ever going to

00:37:37 absolute zero carbon emissions because it's impossible. But I think there is a waning of

00:37:44 enthusiasm for this. In polls, climate change doesn't come up very highly compared to people's

00:37:51 other needs for what they think is important, such as affordable housing, good education,

00:37:57 healthcare, healthcare, and healthcare. I think climate has never polled very well amongst the

00:38:04 normal people who are not activists, which is I think why we have actually seen the activists

00:38:10 held down in terms of their ambition, the scope of their ambitions for so many years,

00:38:15 since 1997, to oppose draconian regulations, draconian taxes, draconian limitations on

00:38:21 energy for energy use, bans on fossil fuels and things like that, because people are not

00:38:27 buying the extreme rhetoric.

00:38:29 They look out the window.

00:38:30 That's the thing, right?

00:38:31 Because one of my former colleagues or a former climatologist used to say, don't look away

00:38:36 from the weather report on your phone and look out the window.

00:38:39 Does the world look like it's being destroyed?

00:38:43 Are you seeing the disasters that you're hearing about constantly, all of the wildfires, floods, and droughts?

00:38:50 Is that happening near you?

00:38:52 And people are looking at it going, you know, I'm just not seeing it.

00:38:55 The air is cleaner than it's ever been before in Canada and the U.S. in terms of normal pollutants, conventional pollution.

00:39:04 Quality of life is good.

00:39:05 Safety is high.

00:39:06 So, you know, I think people are losing enthusiasm for these issues, and it's only a matter of time until that's reflected in the vote.

00:39:12 I always like when the delegate for the Maldives at the UN Climate Summit will say, you know, we're going to be underwater any minute now.

00:39:18 And then you look and realize that the Maldives has opened like 30 beachfront resorts in the last year.

00:39:23 And you're saying, well, you're not behaving like a country that's drowning.

00:39:28 Yeah, they're actually growing in land mass.

00:39:30 That's one of the things that was the funniest things of all about the climate change and the low-lying islands thing.

00:39:35 that it turns out when sea levels come up the islands grow because they're they're actually

00:39:39 partly live live ecosystems and so a lot of these islands that were supposed to be

00:39:44 be underwater by now have actually expanded in their in their land area and the coral reefs of

00:39:49 course are which were supposed to be dead 20 years ago and uh it's dead and extinct 20 years ago are

00:39:55 just exploding in uh with with uh vigor uh so you know australia was just saying we're going to come

00:40:02 I'm like, oh, we're going to lose our economy because we're going to lose our coral reefs.

00:40:05 It's not happening.

00:40:06 And they're not behaving as if they think it's going to happen.

00:40:08 Yeah.

00:40:09 Oh, it's the same.

00:40:09 You get the fear mongering about polar bears in the north and their population's thriving.

00:40:13 So, well, it's a great piece in the Toronto Sun.

00:40:16 Dr. Kenneth Green, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

00:40:18 Always a pleasure, sir.

00:40:19 Have a great weekend.

00:40:20 Thank you, Andrew.

00:40:20 You too.

00:40:21 Take care.

00:40:21 All right.

00:40:21 Thanks a lot, Ken.

00:40:22 That does it for us for today.

00:40:24 We'll be back.

00:40:25 Maybe we need to do.

00:40:25 Okay, here's what we got to do.

00:40:26 I got to get the True North leadership team on board with this.

00:40:29 We'll do a fact-finding exploration to the Maldives.

00:40:32 If you want to send me to the Maldives,

00:40:33 it could take like two, three, four weeks.

00:40:36 You let me know.

00:40:37 It's going to be expensive,

00:40:38 but it's in the name of science.

00:40:40 So Sean, do you want to come to the Maldives?

00:40:42 We'll do some real investigating there.

00:40:44 I'll do a show every day

00:40:45 and I'll basically point at the water

00:40:48 and we'll see if it's moving.

00:40:50 And I might actually need to stay in the water all day

00:40:53 just to see if it rises.

00:40:55 And if I'm like drowning by the end of the day,

00:40:57 then we'll believe.

00:40:58 But yeah, I'll do it for a few weeks.

00:41:01 All right, Sean, you're on board.

00:41:03 You know, my wife might need to come as well. 0.98

00:41:05 This is it.

00:41:06 All right, True North, we'll set up a domain name.

00:41:09 Send truenorth to themaldives.com in the name of science.

00:41:13 All right, I've had my fun for the day.

00:41:15 I'll have to do like the Mayor Quimby backdrop

00:41:18 if I just decide to go there anyway

00:41:20 and pretend I'm not there from Simpsons.

00:41:22 There's a reference for you.

00:41:24 Anyway, have a great weekend, everyone.

00:41:25 We will see you on Monday with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North.

00:41:30 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:41:33 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Martin Show.

00:41:36 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:41:55 We'll be right back.

00:42:25 We'll be right back.

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Juno News - July 11, 2024

Is Freeland getting thrown under the bus？

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