On this week's show, we have a special guest on the show to talk about the Chinese Communist Party Working Board, which is a group of senior members of the Communist Party of China. We discuss the role of the working board, its origins, and its role as a tool for China to influence Canadian politics. We also talk about some of the contradictions within Canadian government policy regarding China and global warming.
00:00:00.000Yeah, they seem to be taking definitely a lot softer line on China than they are here in Alberta where they're, you know, they're playing hardball with Premier Smith over the electrical grid, even though that China, you know, their grid is absolutely enormous, but they get about 63% of their electricity from coal.
00:00:20.760They burn about half the world's coal doing it. And in fact, most of that coal that actually goes to China flows through Vancouver. The port of Vancouver is one of the largest coal exporting ports, definitely in North America, but also in the world.
00:00:37.680So it is a little bit ironic. And he's a vice chair on this panel, right next to the man that used to be the chief of staff for Xi Jinping, who's like number six on the Communist Party hierarchy, and who's in charge of administering Hong Kong.
00:00:57.360And we all know how that's going. You know, people in Hong Kong are rushing to get out basically because of all the repression that's going on. So it does seem a little bit odd, you know, that Monsieur Gideau would take this title, that he would even accept a title on this working board, even if it is ceremonial or regardless of even what it hopes to achieve.
00:01:22.140Yeah, this body is, I don't know how much of you guys have seen of this, but it's, it's an apparatus of the Communist Party, the Chinese CCP, and Gilboa has an official position on it now.
00:01:36.420I mean, and all this takes place in the background of very, very serious allegations of Chinese Communist interference in Canadian elections.
00:01:47.880Does he, is he just not seeing what we're seeing? Is he just like, I mean, in politics, it can be hard to get perspective of yourself. It happens. But I have a hard time seeing how Gilboa and the liberals don't take one look at this and say, at the very least, this is a bad look that we're going coddling the Chinese talking to them real nice and gentle about global warming while we're trying to crush Alberta and Saskatchewan here.
00:02:16.840But we're going to go coddle the Chinese and join, as a senior member, an apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party.
00:02:24.840Yeah, I mean, it is absolutely insane. What is Gilboa thinking? You say, I think it's quite possible that he is a sort of a hair-shirted idealist.
00:02:34.940Probably it doesn't see the conflict, but there are enough people in the Prime Minister's office and in the Privy Council office who would absolutely see that this is a crazy thing.
00:02:45.280They would have been warned, and they're doing it anyway.
00:02:47.400I just want to sort of emphasize something that Sean just said there about the absolute irony.
00:02:53.860They, the liberal government, will not allow Alberta to export natural gas to China so that China doesn't have to build so many coal power generating stations.
00:03:05.820But they've got nothing to say about Roberts Bank, where this coal is going offshore to China, to generating stations, and apparently polluting the atmosphere.
00:03:16.240I would add, too, Nigel, Seattle won't touch it.
00:03:20.600So the reason a lot of that coal is coming through Vancouver is because the American ports on the West Coast won't touch it because they're shipping coal for electricity to China.
00:03:32.100You know, when you look at these kinds of contradictions within government policy, never mind within the world at large, but just within government policy, you have to wonder what is the animating spirit within that government?
00:03:48.320Yeah, Gilbo comes by here not that long ago to Alberta, and he refused to meet with senior senior energy executives who ostensibly will have something to do with his grand plans for Alberta's energy grid, but just not interested in meeting with them.
00:04:06.800But he'll, he'll go meet with communist butchers who are actively involved in undermining Canadian democracy.