Western Standard - MORGAN： Gondek’s climate emergency is already over

00:00:00.000 On the night of November 15th, Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek and the majority of the city's

00:00:03.900 council boldly declared a climate emergency. On Tuesday, November 16th, Gondek proved the

00:00:10.020 declaration to be little more than empty virtue signaling as she welcomed the entry of the new

00:00:14.860 ultra-affordable Lynx Air into Calgary. Now, Lynx Air plans to set up shop in Calgary and is going

00:00:22.120 to be putting 46 new Boeing 737s into the air, providing low fare service for travelers. The

00:00:28.600 airline headquarters will be in Calgary and they anticipate employing hundreds of Calgarians.

00:00:34.040 Sounds like good news. Gondek called the announcement a big one and said it means

00:00:39.080 new and diverse jobs. It means inter-regional movements. It means a boost to our tourism

00:00:44.440 and more opportunities and greater access for Calgarians who travel for business and pleasure.

00:00:51.580 I agree with Gondek. This is good news for Calgary, but how does this gel with Gondek's words when it

00:00:57.220 comes to declaring a climate emergency? Casual travelers, pleasure travelers? I mean, these are

00:01:03.800 optional things and they're going to be burning up our earth. I mean, according to Gondek, climate

00:01:09.160 change is such a huge issue and so pressing it needed to be the first major order of business for

00:01:14.100 as Calgary's new mayor. When the second order of business is to embrace the expansion of casual air

00:01:19.880 travel and the significant emissions that come along with it, it appears Gondek's trying to suck and blow 0.99

00:01:24.980 at the same time. Air travel is one of the world's biggest contributors to climate change and emissions.

00:01:31.000 Just ask one of the 40,000 people who flew to Glasgow last month to attend a conference to fight climate

00:01:36.060 change. About 2.4% of emissions come from aviation. When you couple that with other gases and water vapor

00:01:44.100 trails, aviation's been considered to be responsible for 5% of global warming. People are always being

00:01:49.060 let your vacation close to home rather than fly. I mean, to bring down the cost of flying is only

00:01:55.300 going to bring about more induced demand as progressive activists like to say. They say if

00:01:59.480 we have the service, we're going to use it so more people will fly. So if Gondek truly cared about

00:02:04.600 climate change, she'd be decrying the expansion of this earth-killing industry. She'd say, thanks,

00:02:09.380 but no thanks, and make an example of these environmental miscreants. I mean, what better way to establish

00:02:14.720 yourself as a climate crusader who's going to put the world's climate interests ahead of the

00:02:18.760 almighty dollar? It's good news to see the temperature signaling when the reality hits the

00:02:25.000 road. We're better off if she's two-faced on environmental issues rather than staying true 1.00

00:02:30.140 to her promised crusade. In this case, we should be grateful that her promises were just talked. I

00:02:35.040 mean, the economy's hurting, and this airline will do Calgary some good. It just exposes the hypocrisy

00:02:40.440 of these climate emergencies. And this isn't Gondek's first reality check in her first few weeks as the

00:02:46.320 mayor. You know, we had a recent move coming to Calgary. Gondek's response to the entry of

00:02:52.140 Amazon's cloud computing hub in Alberta has been oddly muted. I mean, isn't this exactly the sort

00:02:58.180 of industry Gondek and others have claimed they want for Calgary? Amazon's going to be spending

00:03:01.960 billions and employing hundreds within Alberta with this hub. Shouldn't Gondek have been popping 0.77

00:03:06.300 champagne corks from the rooftops over this? You'd think they'd be just head over heels. Well,

00:03:10.500 they've been quiet. I suspect the reason that she isn't celebrating Amazon's announcement is that

00:03:15.760 the hub actually isn't going to be within Calgary's city limits and therefore within the reach of the

00:03:20.660 city tax man. I noticed most of the press covering the Amazon expansion speaks to the hub being in the

00:03:25.300 Calgary area rather than in the city itself. Well, the hub's going to be probably predominantly

00:03:30.300 employing Calgarians. It's going to be probably just like the Amazon distribution hub, and they'll put

00:03:35.260 it right on the outskirts of the city. There's a reason for that. Investors are keen on Alberta,

00:03:41.260 but less so with the city of Calgary itself due to the high taxes and city council known to have an

00:03:46.460 anti-business attitude. I mean, Ninchy has set a pretty terrible example on what council thinks of

00:03:50.920 business. Developments just outside of the city limits have proven this over the years rather

00:03:55.440 clearly. Even if the data hub is within Calgary's city limits, it's not going to be downtown. The

00:04:02.000 downtown that's almost empty, almost 50% is brutal. Years of public art installations and bike lanes

00:04:07.360 haven't turned the city core into this blissful paradise attracting tech campuses as some had

00:04:12.240 hoped. The reality needs to be faced is dollars and cents win in the end. Companies, sure, they always

00:04:17.780 say they're going to target green bicycle-friendly cities in their mission statements, but you can bet

00:04:21.620 when they're making decisions in the boardroom, tax and regulatory costs are the items highest on the

00:04:26.760 agenda. Then it's finding staff and a number of other things. They really don't care if there's bike

00:04:31.260 lanes. When she was city councilor, Gondek railed about developments outside of the city limits,

00:04:35.640 such as Crossiron Mills Super Mall. She even flirted with the term protectionism when speaking of how

00:04:39.780 the city should conduct itself with major projects nearby the city. She wants them stopped. She wants

00:04:45.440 to force them into the city. Perhaps she no longer believes that her feelings don't really matter.

00:04:50.360 Capital is going to flow to friendlier jurisdictions, and she's going to need to emulate those other 0.99

00:04:55.240 jurisdictions rather than complain about them if she wants to draw that investment into the city. 1.00

00:04:59.760 Gondek already insulted Calgary's oil and gas sector in saying we must move beyond them.

00:05:06.840 It's one of her first orders of business. Never mind that the bulk of the city's commercial revenues

00:05:10.640 are still coming from the few remaining oil and gas companies still hanging around in Calgary's

00:05:14.960 moribund downtown. At best, we can hope to retain the energy companies that we already have.

00:05:20.280 I can't see other hydrocarbon-based companies being enthusiastic with the prospect of setting up shop

00:05:25.240 in a city governed by a mayor and council so openly hostile to them. I will offer a tip for Gondek.

00:05:31.820 There's a great market to be tapped for head offices that just opened up, and that market

00:05:35.660 is in Quebec. We can bring those people here. Quebec's premier, Francois Legault,

00:05:41.720 ominously stated he wants to identify CEOs within the province who don't speak French,

00:05:46.620 and he's going to convince them to learn. How intrusive is this witch hunt for non-French

00:05:51.580 business leaders going to get? And how aggressive will his efforts to convince them

00:05:55.800 to switch languages be? I imagine there's a number of CEOs who are both offended and afraid

00:06:01.500 of where Legault is going with things. What better time could there be to reach out to these business

00:06:06.020 leaders and try to draw them into Calgary? We could provide a stable home for these CEOs and

00:06:12.160 companies that they represent. The city could be a safe haven for business leaders fleeing the

00:06:17.540 crippling linguistic and ethnic insecurity demonstrated by Quebec's political leaders.

00:06:22.160 I mean, let's face it, they got the most racist legislation in the developed world, and we overlook

00:06:26.500 it. These would be the diverse new businesses for Calgary and wouldn't be part of that oil and gas

00:06:31.280 sector that Gondek so loathes. Could Gondek be so pragmatic, though? Is she starting to face the

00:06:37.680 realities of what attracts businesses and what doesn't? I'm not too optimistic, but there is

00:06:42.160 hope. I mean, one good sign that Gondek's already been learning lessons is in how quickly she

00:06:48.140 abandoned her consideration for the world's climate emergency when a new business appeared

00:06:52.740 on the doorstep. Maybe a sense of pragmatism will overtake Gondek's idealism before she can

00:06:57.980 do too much more damage to Calgary's ailing economy.

Western Standard - November 17, 2021

MORGAN： Gondek’s climate emergency is already over

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