Join us as we kick off the new year with a special guest from Friends of Science Communications Director, Communications Manager, Michelle Sterling, and Opinion Editor, Nigel Hannaford, as they discuss the Canadian Shooting Sports Association's campaign to protect hunting and fishing rights, the Office of Superintendent of Financial Institutions' new climate risk assessment model, and the impact of climate change on pension funds in Canada.
00:02:15.080Yeah. So, boy, where to begin? Well, we know where to begin. We will get started with a fantastic column that just went up in the Western Standard by Ms. Sterling there. Yes, of course. And I'm not used to looking at the remote guests. So, I mean, it's fantastic. And talking about, well, who's telling your pension plan what to buy? Perhaps in a nutshell, Michelle, kind of let us know what this is about.
00:02:41.900well there's an organization called the office of the superintendent of financial institutes
00:02:48.380and most people never even really hear about it or know about it but it supervises and regulates
00:02:54.800all the banks financial institutes and even the pension funds in canada and just before christmas
00:03:01.500they closed the consultation period where they had created what they call a standardized climate
00:03:09.580climate science scenario, which was intended for banks and financial institutes to use
00:03:16.040this very complex mathematical formula to determine what climate risk their investment
00:03:26.320The only problem is that they're using a totally implausible scenario as the baseline, which
00:03:33.780is known in the climate biz as rcp 8.5 it's implausible for a number of reasons one it has
00:03:43.460three to six billion more people on earth by 2100 than even the un estimates it would use
00:03:50.740more coal than exists on the planet and it would also use more oil than is presently deemed to be
00:03:58.020even recoverable not to mention it's very unlikely that it could be recovered within that time frame
00:04:06.420you know the investment market isn't there for it the infrastructure isn't there for it
00:04:11.140so by doing that it really distorts the future meaning that it gives a presentation of extremely
00:04:17.940hot you know this is where the climate emergency comes from so this should definitely not be the
00:04:24.580baseline for climate modeling scenarios for all of the financial institutes in canada and pension
00:04:31.620funds you know because by doing this of course it's going to sway investment away from um
00:04:40.580fossil fuels which are the income earning um elements in the markets these days and always
00:04:48.260have been right so it's going to try now the other there are two other complications one is that
00:04:53.780there's a bill that senator rosa galvez has pushed forward which is called bill 2 s 243
00:05:02.500and it's being lobbied with her by all a huge bevy of green groups you know engos they're all
00:05:10.820on board with it and they want to literally like choke off financing to the fossil fuel industry
00:05:16.580and they want a dedicated climate risk expert to be put on all boards and anyone who's been
00:05:23.300active in the fossil fuel or energy industries in the past five years would not be permitted
00:05:30.260to be on a board of directors so you know imagine you're getting somebody
00:05:34.740like a stephen gilbo character who would be put on a board in place of someone um like um
00:05:44.820you know brett wilson let's say you know someone who actually knows the energy markets
00:05:50.820right so that's insane and and then um the the other factor is that three big environmental
00:05:59.700groups have been consulting with the office of the superintendent of financial institutes and
00:06:05.940trying to push them into this mandatory climate risk reporting and they are shift tensions which
00:06:11.940is an offshoot of tides make way and tides of course was very connected to the funding of the
00:06:18.420tar sands campaign um and lots of foreign money had poured into their um perhaps not now but it
00:06:26.020was uh very clear that there's lots of foreign money pouring in there before um environmental
00:06:32.980defense uh which at some points has been funded for 30 of their revenue by the government of
00:06:39.940canada actually but also has received significant foreign funding and ecojustice the uh enviro legal
00:06:47.460firm which has shut down a number of pipelines in canada and continues to be really a lawfare
00:06:54.980nuisance organization and tried to have us thrown in jail at one point why because we put up billboards
00:07:04.340michelle if i understood you correctly in your column uh this this office of superintends the
00:07:11.140financial funds reports to uh reports to the federal government through the minister of finance
00:07:17.060So there's, you know, they'll probably say, no, no, we never get told exactly what to do or say, but there is a connection there that's clearly linked.
00:13:59.680They call themselves the Strathmere Group.
00:14:02.280And they all met and set up their messaging with media influencers prior to the election, the 2015 election.
00:14:13.260And they basically set a media campaign in motion.
00:14:17.820And they said that they have something like 358,000 members in their organizations combined.
00:14:25.420At that time, they had $50 million in the kitty.
00:14:28.040um and uh you know that's very very influential so well i guess what they did in back in 2015
00:14:36.840they would just uh set up a a campaign office and they would phone everybody and just ask if you
00:14:43.560were planning to vote ndp would you consider voting liberal for just for this election if
00:14:49.340that would be enough to unseat the conservative and i think that they were successful in that
00:14:53.860endeavor in about two dozen ridings across the country. Sorry, Corey, I don't mean to take over
00:14:58.980there. It was quite all right. No, I was just moving along. There's a lot to unpack in there
00:15:04.940and still a lot to unpack tonight. I mean, again, getting back to that basis of when they're putting,
00:15:09.940you know, ESG type principles and things like that ahead of getting a return on our pensions.
00:15:14.640I mean, that's what should wake up Canadians. I mean, a lot of it seems sort of distant to them
00:15:19.240or you know out of sight well bear in mind this is going to directly impact the viability of your
00:15:24.600retirement plan if if we allow this to dominate their investment choices rather than getting a
00:15:30.680return which i think most canadians would rather have a return i think it was a very powerful and
00:15:35.240important article that she published this morning very much so yeah so uh really thank you oh pleasure
00:15:41.400You know, in 2015, I think it was, there's a law firm out of Toronto, Kosky Minsky, they issued a report saying that climate denial is no longer an option. And that was issued to all the pension fund beneficiaries in Canada, or sorry, all the pension fund trustees in Canada.
00:16:00.420and we did two reports at the time rebutting this report because exactly that point that
00:16:08.720you know you want to have your pension fund invested in what will make you money over the
00:16:14.300long term consistently make you money well wind and solar for instance is made from oil gas and
00:16:20.680coal so if you're invested in energy stocks in oil gas and coal no matter if the renewables market
00:16:27.540is up or down, you're still going to make money because it's needed for that. The reverse is not
00:16:32.700true. And now we see that the renewables market is collapsing. And ironically, in 2018, the CEO
00:16:39.820of Iberdrola out of Spain said that the global renewables industry is heading for a global Enron
00:16:47.920style meltdown. And we're seeing that now. We're seeing that because the price of energy has gone
00:16:54.440up plus the materials prices like copper have really skyrocketed why partly because everyone
00:17:01.080in the world is rushing to meet net zero so you know now they can't afford to produce these even
00:17:07.000though they keep claiming oh it's the cheapest form of power it's not and that market is collapsing
00:17:12.840they they just can't make them anymore well that column and many others i'll segue up uh further
00:17:20.040under kind of our next subject are up on the westernstandard.news. By the way, guys, be sure
00:17:24.740to take out a subscription to get your unfettered access to all of those up there. And you can also
00:17:29.740look in past columns and articles as well online, which is what we'll talk a little bit about. We
00:17:34.260had a whole raft of year-end review columns that came out and some really fantastic ones. Nigel,
00:17:40.620as the opinion editor, you got to curate. I got to cheer for my writers. Yeah, you know,
00:17:46.120it is so easy and and michelle i think you would probably agree it is very easy to go out and damn
00:17:51.560the darkness and just complain but you know some of our writers were able to look into the uh into
00:17:59.080the 12 months that had just gone by and see some signs of hope that the things that irritated us
00:18:04.760most at the end of 2022 are actually you know they were taking some hits there were a few
00:18:11.240torpedoes in the side and um linda for example linda slobodin she's uh she writes out of manitoba
00:18:19.880but she's right on top of the uh the the issues right across western canada and she i won't read
00:18:27.400them all because there's too many but she's got one two three four probably about ten pieces of
00:18:33.640good news that she was able to put together in the uh in one article things like uh how
00:18:41.240Canadian parents are taking on the gender bullies at schools.
00:19:03.380It's a real word, and it just means a total and absolute change from the inside out.
00:19:07.680But basically, he was saying that Smith has learned a lot of politics since the days when she famously crossed the floor, and now she's much more about, you know, about loyalty to the, well, I guess, loyalty, first of all, to Alberta, he wrote, and to what Canada is, could be at its best.
00:19:37.080I mean, Michelle, you had a great piece then on greenwashing, which is just, can you just in a few words summarize this stupid, trivial campaign?
00:19:48.260I don't want to prejudice your thoughts on this, but the stupid, trivial campaign that Ottawa has got going to try and make us more green friendly.
00:22:56.080There was some great reading through the holidays and still there.
00:22:59.140That's where we remind everybody you can get in there and find these things.
00:23:02.060So let's get on to other foolishness, though, a little less so into the world of academia.
00:23:06.980Yes, one of our top educational institutions in the world, Harvard University.
00:23:14.900The president of it, Ms. Gay, resigned over plagiarism.
00:23:22.100And I mean, I think she resigned with a boot against her butt.0.85
00:23:24.900They just couldn't run cover for her anymore on this whole issue.
00:23:28.320But what I want to talk a little more about is how the media is running cover for her now.
00:23:32.680And that Associated Press headline that's been picked up by some Canadian outlets now, and I'll read it verbatim, Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleagues, plagiarism.
00:23:47.120So apparently plagiarism is not actually a problem unless a conservative points it out.
00:23:51.200Yeah, well, so it's like fiddling the petty cash, isn't it? You know, if a conservative finds you've been fiddling the petty cash, well, harumph, you shouldn't be going after people over inconsequential things like that, except that plagiarism is not inconsequential, is it?
00:24:05.480Like it's the theft of somebody else's hard work, somebody else's intellectual property that you have taken, made it your own, and leveraged it into the presidency of Harvard, which until recently was one of the great universities in the world.
00:24:24.980They probably think they still are, but quite frankly, you know, if this is the kind of thing they tolerate.
00:24:29.980But let's not forget why this woman found herself in the crosshairs in the first place.
00:24:35.480When pro-Hamas groups on the campus at Harvard University were condemning Israel and making the board, the Senate of Harvard University look weak and silent, by comparison, she was finally called to testify at a congressional hearing.
00:24:58.540They asked her why she didn't speak up, and she couldn't find it in herself to actually condemn Hamas, and importantly, she couldn't find it in herself to say that people calling for genocide against the Jews fell outside the protective umbrella of free speech at Harvard University.
00:25:21.800It was absurd. Everybody should search that clip out. They really should, because it's almost too much to believe until you watch, because it wasn't just her. There were a couple of others among them, and it was just bizarre.
00:25:32.420Well, I mean, what's happened to the universities across this continent, it's not new.
00:25:38.760Back in 1989, a commentator by the name of Chester Finn said that he called them islands of oppression,
00:25:48.780universities, campuses, islands of oppression in a sea of freedom.
00:25:54.560And when you listen to your kids and their friends coming back home for the holidays,
00:26:00.480and how's it going and they lament how it's going but they can't actually say what they think they
00:26:07.980just have to parrot the lines that the left gives out during the lectures in order to pass the mark
00:26:14.360and then they can go leave them with a degree i mean this this is what we're this is what we're
00:26:19.200paying a lot of money for and it fosters mistrust and it's a bad example you know when you're reading
00:26:24.520anything i mean i look at michelle's background of books going on you know and you're a prolific
00:26:29.640writer and you put out the pieces as well on and contribute to them on Friends of Science.
00:26:34.520And I mean, using other people's work as a basis, if you give it a citation, I mean,
00:26:39.320that that's proper research. There's nothing wrong with that. It's when you just take it as
00:26:44.340if it was your own that we have an issue. And I mean, your organization wouldn't put up with
00:26:50.520you putting something like that up for very long, I imagine. Well, no, but you know, the greater
00:26:57.400problem with her testimony was, you know, in the context of the United States, they don't have
00:27:03.660a hate speech rule, like their freedom of speech is much freer than here. But she was being questioned
00:27:10.760about the policy on campus, you know, and this is a campus that until recently had been, well,
00:27:17.920it probably still is, protecting people for pronouns and microaggressions. But when you
00:27:23.840actually have Jewish students being harassed, physically harassed, and their lives endangered,
00:27:29.600and being confronted and bullied by the pro-Hamas demonstrators, that's not kosher,
00:27:40.400shall we say, on any campus. That's complete violation of the whole theory of academic
00:27:47.600freedom, because the whole principle of academic freedom is to have open civil debate. You know,
00:27:53.120that's one of the things that we stand for friends of science as well open civil debate which means
00:27:58.560if you have these very strong opposing views very emotional issues you still have to debate them
00:28:05.920in an open and civil manner and not bully harass or endanger other people and that's what she was
00:28:13.840not standing up for in her testimony she was talking about well it depends on the context
00:28:19.200Well, no, it doesn't, because you've got rules and values and mission statements at Harvard, and they're all about academic freedom and the necessity for respectful research and integrity in research.
00:28:53.060I mean, you've got to wonder, though, too, that, unfortunately, you know, this is, people get their information from the media.
00:29:00.340They get their interpretations from the media.
00:29:03.260Is the headline writer for the Associated Press a Harvard graduate, perchance?
00:29:06.680Why is the media running cover for this?
00:29:09.980This is, I mean, there's rarely actually issues that are kind of black and white with somebody who did something wrong.
00:29:15.740I mean, we can, you know, the degree of punishment is debatable and things like that.
00:29:19.340But most people can agree plagiarism is wrong and refusing to condemn the harassment of people based on their ethnicity is wrong.
00:29:27.460So those we've got established, yet we've got a media sort of bending over backwards to say, well, maybe almost like her, maybe it's the context.
00:29:34.520Yeah, you know, I think you've got other examples relatively recently where the CBC just can't bring itself, to use the word terrorist, to describe people who descend on a peaceful rock conflict and, you know, kill, rape, murder, torture, you know, and bring terror.
00:29:55.620They find some other fighters or this.
00:29:59.100So you've got a media that has a very selective view of the truth.
00:30:04.760And I think that where it goes back, there may be other sources.
00:30:08.580And if somebody else has got a different idea, Corey, and they want to write in, I'm happy to hear.
00:30:14.720But this is, I think this is what's going on in the journalism schools today.
00:30:19.700they don't teach the kids to get both sides of the story and write it up in a
00:30:25.960fair way and let the reader make up their own mind they tell the kids that
00:30:31.340they have to present information in context and try and steer the reader to
00:30:38.880a proper understanding of the truth well who you know defines the truth in
00:30:46.640that scenario what is the proper context and how does the reader even know that he's getting it so
00:30:53.600there's a there's a term used in quebec a journaliste engage that's probably a bad
00:30:58.560pronunciation but it means an activist journalist and that's what we've got in the media overwhelming
00:31:06.160anybody under the age of 50 check their pulse for for active journalism because that's what's
00:31:12.560being taught and i think that's how these things happen yes sorry no that's okay you know i i think
00:31:18.560it also goes back to pension funds believe it or not because the whole source of esg environment
00:31:26.640social and governance and dei or die um you know diversity equality inclusion these all stem from
00:31:37.120the united nations principles for responsible uh investment which is a transnational unelected
00:31:44.480unaccountable body um that is made up of mostly of pension funds and financial uh investment firms
00:31:54.160and institutional investors i mean and they sit on about a hundred trillion dollars in assets
00:32:01.280under management these are the guys who are pushing esg and by extension diversity equity
00:32:09.520and inclusion and so you know they are there it's a voluntary organization but once you sign up one
00:32:18.400of those six principles is that you must comply or explain so i suspect that a lot of the pension
00:32:25.120funds of these academic institutions and many of these big news outlets are invested in some mutual
00:32:33.040fund or such like associated with this organization the unpri and therefore they are being told that
00:32:41.440this is what you must do you must comply with these rules and so they do and i think that's
00:32:47.680really skewing public policy we know for sure it's skewing markets and investments around the world
00:32:54.160and people are completely unaware of it i mean i was at a presentation that i gave once to a group
00:33:00.080of stock brokers and a couple of guys were there from toronto and big stock firms and they'd never
00:33:07.440heard of it you know i i felt like wow how did i find out about it but connected to this also
00:33:13.440is another group called the um carbon disclosure project carbon disclosure project is a rockefeller
00:33:19.840offshoot and they invite cities and corporations to voluntarily divulge their carbon footprint and
00:33:27.600their energy use their water use and such like they fill out a big voluntary form then they get
00:33:33.040all these questionnaires in they give them to accenture or pwc or some other accounting firm
00:33:39.840which aggregates them they issue reports with literally a black and white list and
00:33:45.760that report goes to the institutional investors of the unpri who pick and choose what to invest in
00:33:53.440and so of course clean tech you know apple microsoft facebook they've all been presented
00:34:01.440as clean tech and not dirty um because they're not fossil fuel industries and they've taken over the
00:34:08.000top tier of the stock market when in fact none of those could operate without oil gas and coal but
00:34:15.200that the investment markets have been skewed because of these guys and i'll be quiet now sorry
00:34:21.760i'm starting to be like cory with all my rants right all right i mean that's what we're here
00:34:27.280about you know just to kind of finish i mean there's a lot of mistrust growing in media and
00:34:30.960it's unfortunate uh opinion is an important part of media but it needs to be a clear delineation
00:34:38.160there's the you're the opinion editor i am an opinion writer we make that clear this show is
00:34:43.360was an opinion show. It's when it gets into the news copy, and people can't tell the difference.
00:34:48.180And as I said, with activist reporters, that becomes problematic. I mean, I've seen Dave
00:34:51.540chew out reporters for when he's seen them insert, and that's our news editor, you know,
00:34:55.200opinion into their news copy. So, you know, when the time comes, you get to be a columnist,
00:34:59.820you can do that. Till then, for the facts. And it's when that line gets blurred, people lose
00:35:06.800trust in all of it. And I think it does a disservice to everybody. They say a columnist
00:38:20.500And I got to fly with Aeroflot back in 87, I think it was, from Helsinki to Moscow and then Moscow to Leningrad, as it was then.
00:38:29.660And, okay, if you want no frills and scary creaking airplanes with carpets peeling up and, you know, okay, Aeroflot capped the list, but you expected that of them.
00:38:45.160Perhaps you could weigh in, Michelle, with air travel and, you know, what is going on with these airlines these days?
00:38:52.400Well, you know, I really feel sorry for the airline industry, because if you think back prior to lockdowns and COVID, this was an amazing industry that ran pretty much like clockwork, like hundreds of thousands of different elements have to be coordinated to get you on the plane with your correct food in the right seat.
00:39:16.560you know and that the plane checks out that you know the mechanics have gone over it the
00:39:21.540flight crew is all there at the right time and they're all fresh and ready to go I mean think
00:39:27.660of the logistics and that was completely destroyed because of lockdowns you know because you know
00:39:35.680at one point during lockdowns in Europe I think they were and they may still be doing it they
00:39:40.440they were flying empty planes between airports simply to keep their landing
00:39:45.420rights because I don't understand all the details behind that but you know
00:39:50.460there when you have a contract to land then you have to bring a plane in
00:39:54.780because you've got a service crew waiting there I assume so that crew
00:39:58.440needs to service the plane and so you can imagine how the financial
00:40:04.500devastation of it and and some of the things that have happened out of it and
00:40:09.000and uh kate wand who's on twitter and social media on youtube she did a series of interviews
00:40:16.680with robert lyman about how the aircraft industry was being forced into becoming part of a carbon
00:40:25.240trading program in return for financial bailouts because of the lockdowns so they've really been
00:40:34.520compromised you know and now we see that the world economic forum and uh some of the european
00:40:40.520governments are really clamping down on air travel at all you know they're saying no more flights
00:40:47.160under of two hours uh in europe that used to be what a lot of people did for the weekend they just
00:40:53.560jump in a plane and fly over to another country nope now you've got to take the train so you know
00:40:59.160these are they're destroying that sort of star network of connections that people used to have
00:41:05.880where you could jump on an air canada flight and then lufthansa and then
00:41:09.960alitalia whoever you know but you could always get somewhere now those gaps are huge and and
00:41:16.440the people who are trying to deal with angry passengers you know you ever got the impression
00:41:25.080Michelle, that if this whole climate change thing runs its natural course, everybody in the world is going to be doing a whole lot less traveling except the people who are at the very point of the pyramid.
00:43:04.140I mean, things have kind of come full circle, though.
00:43:05.780I mean, we expect a lot for very little out of airlines now, too.
00:43:08.140I mean, the amount that people travel, you know, even when I was young, it was only the rich or you only did it if you had to typically.
00:43:15.540I mean, people so casually now, hey, I'm just going to pop up to Vancouver for the weekend or I'm going to take the family to Toronto.
00:43:21.540You didn't do it that casually, but that's why it's also gotten so no frills.
00:43:25.380Now you've got to pay to check your luggage.
00:43:26.700Now you're getting, if you're lucky, you're getting a bag of peanuts.
00:43:29.680You know, the older days of flying Ward Air when you had good silverware and a steak are long gone.
00:43:35.420That was responding to consumer demand as well.
00:43:37.680I mean, what do you want? Do you want cost effective flights? Well, they're going to be pretty rigorous experiences, or if you want the luxury style, going business class. Yeah, and you're getting so I mean, the industry has really changed a lot in the last few years and had to adapt to a lot.
00:43:53.860well also a lot of regulations have been imposed and a lot of you know sort of consumer regulations
00:44:01.120too like that require that the customer always be satisfied when you know when there are big
00:44:07.360weather events especially like during Christmas Easter times like that when you know hundreds of
00:44:12.500thousands of people are flying well you know if there's a big snowstorm and you're all snowed in
00:44:17.560at the airport i'm sorry but your plane is not leaving because we don't want you to die so you
00:44:24.840know don't be mad about it don't demand anything you should be thanking us for keeping you safe
00:44:30.440but no that's you know what do you think air canada up down sideways well it seems to be
00:44:35.960a mixed reviews on it i i haven't flown with them in years so i can only go in you know recent
00:44:41.240reviews but my past experiences with them were always thumbs down on my part i see well i'm
00:44:45.960I'm going to give them a sort of a, like that, you know?