Juno News - September 09, 2023


Why haven’t Trudeau’s carbon taxes prevented wildfires？


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

180.79922

Word Count

742

Sentence Count

36

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.080 I'm here at the Conservative Party of Canada 2023 convention in Quebec City.
00:00:05.260 More than 2,500 Conservative members descending on this convention centre from across the country.
00:00:11.620 And not all of them, I should say, are Conservatives.
00:00:14.320 One of the attendees this morning was Stephen Gilbeau.
00:00:18.040 You may remember him as the gentleman who scales buildings in Toronto in the interest of climate justice
00:00:24.200 and also eventually became a Cabinet Minister.
00:00:26.580 He came to accuse the Conservatives of not having an adequate plan for the climate.
00:00:32.460 Now, he was gracious enough to spend some time talking to reporters
00:00:35.700 and I asked him why it was incumbent on Canadians to live in energy poverty
00:00:40.780 when Canadians could get rid of the entirety of their emissions and barely blip on the global picture.
00:00:47.980 Canada's carbon emissions are less than 2% of the world's.
00:00:51.020 If every Canadian were to give up their cars and shut their electricity off,
00:00:54.600 it would make no difference compared to what China and other big powerhouses are.
00:00:58.900 So why are you content putting Canadians into energy poverty when it doesn't even solve a global problem?
00:01:05.060 If you look at what's happening in Canada, Canada is a success story when looking at investment in clean technologies.
00:01:12.160 In fact, Alberta is a Canadian success story when looking at investment in clean technologies and renewable energy.
00:01:21.260 70% of the investments we've seen in the last year in renewable energy has been in Alberta.
00:01:26.820 I find it baffling that the Premier would put a stop to $30 billion worth of clean technology investment in her province.
00:01:37.520 Canada is an energy powerhouse.
00:01:39.000 If I can go to China, if I can go to India and say we all have to work together to fight climate change
00:01:45.320 because we're all in this together, it's because we're doing our homework here.
00:01:48.940 We're doing what we need to do to tackle climate change and climate pollution.
00:01:52.780 As you heard, his answer is effectively that Canadians need to lead by example
00:01:56.580 so that when he goes to China, he can show them all the great things Canada is doing.
00:02:01.100 Except China is not doing that.
00:02:03.000 We actually see China ramping up coal production, ramping up industrialization, and its emissions continuing to increase.
00:02:10.720 So again, Canadians are the ones who are dealing with the consequences of what is oftentimes very radical environmental policy
00:02:17.460 in pursuit of aims that are not being shared by the people who are the source of what the Liberal government in Canada says is the problem.
00:02:24.680 But Stephen Gilboa went further to that.
00:02:26.300 He accused the Conservative inaction on climate, or at least his perception of that,
00:02:31.180 as facilitating the wave of hurricanes and wildfires that we've seen.
00:02:36.060 Now, obviously, wildfires are a concern.
00:02:39.040 Oftentimes, we can't easily link them to climate change.
00:02:42.000 Just this week, for example, a gentleman was charged criminally with arson in connection to Quebec wildfires.
00:02:48.940 But I asked him, if we go along with this narrative that climate inaction from Conservative politicians is responsible for these events,
00:02:55.700 while the Liberals have been in government for eight years now, they have a very sweeping national carbon tax.
00:03:02.140 I decided to ask him why that hasn't stopped it.
00:03:04.800 You mentioned extreme events like wildfires and hurricanes.
00:03:07.260 Why has your carbon tax not stopped those things, if that is the answer to these problems?
00:03:11.160 This question, which I've heard in the House of Commons by many Conservative Party members, including Pierre Poyev,
00:03:17.760 is yet another example of the fundamental disbelief that you have in climate science, and in science, full stop.
00:03:26.040 We won't solve climate change overnight, and we certainly won't solve climate change with empty slogans.
00:03:31.700 It's going to take years of hard work to tackle this environmental crisis.
00:03:35.440 And the fact that you believe that somehow we can flick a switch on a wall and everything's going to be fine,
00:03:40.960 just shows how the total ignorance that you and many others have when it comes to the issue of climate change.
00:03:47.860 As you can hear there, he turns it around and blames those who deny science as being the problem.
00:03:53.180 There's no switch to flip, yet even so, the Liberals seem to put a lot of stock in the idea that we can tax our way out of this problem.
00:04:00.300 Well, all we can do is tax more Canadians into energy poverty.
00:04:03.620 For True North, from Quebec City, I'm Andrew Lawton.