Smith and Trudeau - is it war between them？
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
176.29308
Summary
In this episode, I discuss the Prime Minister's climate change strategy, and why it's not working. I also talk about the housing crisis in Alberta, and how it's directly related to the Trudeau government's climate policies.
Transcript
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Trudeau is built, if he's looking for a legacy, clearly he wants to be the prime minister who
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conquered climate change, or at least as far as Canada's role within it is. And, you know,
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that was part of, I guess, what anybody would look for. They didn't expect Smith and Trudeau
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to come out hand in hand and say, wow, we've mended fences and we're going to work together.
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But if there was a chance you were going to see perhaps a little compromise, a little room,
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a little ability to say that we can move on some of these targets, that was it. And
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it's quite clear he's not going to budge an inch, and nor is Premier Smith.
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And, you know, it's when you read a bit further down in the story, so to speak, that
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and you look at some of the things that the prime minister says, you realize how contrived this is.
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Pick this up from, I think, the CBC. They reported Mr. Trudeau as saying, people know,
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even here in Alberta, as if we're too thick to understand anything really, but even here in
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Alberta, we understand that the only way to build a strong economy for the future is to protect the
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environment. That's actually 180 degrees the wrong way around. You want to see a really poor
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environment, go to a really poor country. If you want to protect the environment, you have to build
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a strong economy. And this is the kind of tripe that he trots out, but back east, they won't,
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Well, and his obsession with the climate and such, we're seeing that with the housing,
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for example. I mean, I'm just kind of sidetracking a bit, but it still helps, you know, reflect
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where the Trudeau government's coming from. They acknowledge we have a housing crisis. I mean,
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rents are flying through the roof, real estate prices. At the same time, they have half a million
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immigrants a year they plan to bring in, though they don't know where they're going to put them.
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I had Shane Wenzel from Shane Holmes on before, and he pointed out, I think, new builds for houses,
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if you follow all of the new restrictions and things to be green. I'm paraphrasing,
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but it was, I believe, $75,000 a house. It's going to add to the cost of a dwelling. So their
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views conflict, and they cause trouble for themselves, but their stubbornness on this
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climate file will not allow them to move on it.
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No, and especially with the interest rate hike today up to 5%, highest in 22 years,
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who can afford a house? You know, who can afford to start a mortgage now?
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Obviously, prices of houses will come down, because in the end, you do the math, you sell
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the house for what you can get for it, and if the mortgage is high, then you won't be able to ask
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We'll see. Give it time. Get Mike Thomas in here.
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But that is another example of where you, and you find this so frequently with this government,
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that the policies conflict with each other. If it is so important to bring down carbon emissions,
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why would you increase the number of people coming into this unit of geography that you want to,
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where you want to reduce emissions? Because every individual person generates carbon emissions.
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They need a place to live. Their house will generate carbon emissions.
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They need to get around, whether they go by car, by train, whatever, they're going to generate carbon
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emissions. The mere act of living here generates carbon emissions. So if you increase the population
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by a significant fraction, you're working against your whole strategy of reducing carbon emissions.
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What are these people supposed to do? You know, as I said, as I was saying with the home prices,
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I mean, those things are luxuries. If you want to have the solar panels and all of these
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fantastic green notions, you need that money has to come from somewhere. If you have a great deal
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of royalties coming in or a lot of highly employed people, very well paid, they'll take on those
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luxuries, but they're taking away our means of making the money to do it while making the demands
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for us to pay for these changes. It has to come to a crash.
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Well, I mean, just look at the electric vehicles, right? Most of them are priced way out of range
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of most car buyers, right? And then you get them and you got the charger you have to buy.
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You can only do a couple hundred kilometers on it at the best of times. God knows if we'll even start
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in minus 40 Calgary night. You know, you can't drive to Vancouver without stopping a couple times
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and sitting there and getting it all powered up. You know, these are all obstacles that are being
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placed in front of you and they still want you to buy the electric vehicle, right? It's the same
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The thing that concerns me about the homes is that speaking specifically of Alberta now
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and the demand that they meet zero carbon emissions in the electrical generating industry by 2035.
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I believe it is impossible. It takes 10 years to get the approvals to build a two-inch pipeline
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across a field. So how long is it going to take, before they even begin the basic design of the
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facilities, to get the permission, approval, the environmental permissions,
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to build the new sites where we are going to generate electricity from what? Sun, wind, maybe nuclear?
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Have we got a design for a nuclear reactor yet?
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So, you know, I see, and I have not got this as a direct quote from her, but I believe from what
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she's saying that Danielle Smith foresees the future if we just give in to Ottawa, we'll be
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facing brownouts and blackouts in 10 years' time if Ottawa insists on zero emissions because we simply
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do not have time to build the new structures. Even if we had the money, which I guess we probably
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could find if we had to, there isn't time the way we do things in this country to get all the
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approvals lined up and the stuff ordered, contracted, constructed, put into service.