Alberta
Alberta, Ontario premiers blast gov’t minister for remarks on slashing federal funds for new roads
From LifeSiteNews
Danielle Smith suggested that Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault ‘return to the real world’ and Doug Ford said his province will build roads on its own.
Premiers Danielle Smith of Alberta and Doug Ford of Ontario tore into Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault after he said the federal government would no longer fund any road construction projects and instead funnel the savings to “climate change” projects that promote people walk instead of drive.
“So now our Environment Minister wants to cut federal funding for roads … because we should all just walk more,” Smith wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday in reaction to a news report about the minister’s comments.
“Does this minister understand that most Canadians don’t live in downtown Montreal? Most of us can’t just head out the door in the snow and rain and just walk 10km to work each day.”
Smith then said to Guilbeault, “Can we return to the real world Minister @s_guilbeault?”
So now our Environment Minister wants to cut federal funding for roads…because we should all just walk more.
Does this minister understand that most Canadians don’t live in downtown Montreal? Most of us can’t just head out the door in the snow and rain and just walk 10km to… pic.twitter.com/gkX5TTtd91
— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) February 13, 2024
Guilbeault made the comments on Tuesday at a transit conference in Montreal, saying, “Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure.”
“Of course we will continue to be there for cities, provinces and territories to maintain the existing network, but there will be no more envelopes from the federal government to enlarge the road network,” he added.
Smith has been battling the minister for the last few months over his extreme climate change policies that seek to destroy Alberta’s oil and gas sector.
Guilbeault’s reasoning for stopping funding to build roads was that according to an “analysis” his office did the current network is “perfectly adequate to respond to the needs we have” and that investing in public transit can help them achieve his “goals of economic, social and human development without more enlargement of the road network.”
On Wednesday, Guilbeault tried to backtrack on his Tuesday comment about roads, saying he was only referring to the federal government’s plan to stop funding only some road projects.
Ford says he is ‘gobsmacked’ by Guilbeault’s road defunding comments
Ford said his province would continue to build roads on its own.
“I’m gobsmacked. A federal minister said they won’t invest in new roads or highways,” Ford wrote on X.
“He doesn’t care that you’re stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I do. We’re building roads and highways, with or without a cent from the feds.”
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also took a shot at Guilbeault, saying the federal government would no longer fund new road projects and that the minister is “out of touch” with “reality.”
“Millions for ArriveCan, not one more federal dollar for new roads. Guilbeault wants us all to walk everywhere. The Trudeau government gets more out of touch with reality every day,” Moe wrote Wednesday on X.
The reality is that Canada, the second largest country in the world by land mass, has only one four-lane highway that connects the West Coast to the East. However, the TransCanada highway past Manitoba goes down to only two lanes.
To date, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spent about $30 billion in promoting public transit as well as approximately $400 million to promote walking, e-bikes, roller blades, cycling, and other transportation means, which for most of the year due to winter are not feasible for most.
Also, the Trudeau government has attacked gasoline and diesel cars, even though Guilbeault said on Tuesday that “(w)e must stop thinking that electric cars will solve all our problems.”
Just before Christmas, Guilbeault announced the “Electric Vehicle Availability Standard.” The plan is to mandate that all new cars and trucks by 2035 be electric, which would in effect ban the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-only powered vehicles after that year.
Smith noted that when it comes to Trudeau’s EV mandate, “Ottawa is trying to force increased demands on the electricity grid while simultaneously weakening Alberta’s and other provinces’ grids through their federal electricity regulations.”
Since taking office in 2015, Trudeau has continued to push a radical environmental agenda like the agendas being pushed the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals.”
The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.
The reality of Trudeau’s push for so-called renewable energy showed itself just over a month ago after Alberta’s power grid faced near certain collapse due to a failure of wind and solar power. Many called out the Trudeau government’s green energy agenda that is attempting to phase out carbon-based power in favor of “renewables” as the reason for the near failure.
Alberta
Media melts down as Danielle Smith moves to end ‘transitioning’ of children in Alberta
From LifeSiteNews
After Alberta’s Danielle Smith put forth legislation to protect kids from being gender ‘transitioned,’ the Canadian media went on a predictable melt down, citing ‘experts’ who blatantly lie to advance the LGBT agenda.
A year after announcing her intention to combat transgender ideology and protect children, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has tabled three pieces of UCP (United Conservative Party) government legislation:
- The Education Amendment Act 2024 will require parental consent for “socially transitioning” children under the age of 16 (changing a child’s name or “preferred pronouns”). The bill also gives parents an “opt-in” option for any sexual or content at school. Smith has emphasized that the Alberta Teaching Profession Commission has the power to discipline teachers if they decide to break the law.
- The Health Statues Amendment Act 2024 will ban the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, as well as prohibit sex change surgeries on minors.
- The Fairness and Safety in Sport Act will ban trans-identifying men from female sports teams.
Together, these three bills represent the most definitive pushback against gender ideology in Canada by any premier. Smith’s decision to announce her intent to pursue such legislation and then wait has turned out to be politically savvy—it has given the UCP government a good look at the LGBT response, and during that time the U.K.’s Labour government has successfully fought to maintain a similar ban in the courts and publicly rebutted many of the scare tactics used by LGBT activists.
Smith and the UCP are thus walking into this debate with eyes wide open, and are clearly certain that the public is on their side (it is) and that the legislation can survive the court challenges surely coming from LGBT activists. The policies are clearly popular with the UCP party’s base, who handed Smith a staggering 91.5% approval rating in her leadership review at UCP gathering in Red Deer last Saturday.
The party also passed 35 policy resolutions, including several that indicate the UCP’s willingness to go further in fighting transgender ideology, with resolutions that would restrict “exclusively female spaces” like bathrooms and changerooms to females and designating transgender surgeries as “elective cosmetic procedures” not funded by the taxpayer. The motions received near-unanimous support.
The Canadian press, unsurprisingly, is working hard to present policies that the vast majority of Canadians support as an attack on fundamental norms (albeit norms that only surfaced in the last few years and were never presented to voters). Global News ran the headline: “Alberta unveils 3 sweeping bills affecting trans and gender-diverse youth.” It is important to note that the press accepts the premises of transgender ideology as the starting point for their reporting, with heavy usage of nonsensical phrases like “gender-diverse youth,” which implies that there are many genders.
In fact, Global News and other Canadian outlets trotted out talking points that have been definitively rebutted by the U.K.’s Cass Review and multiple medical studies—in fact, even the New York Times has been reporting on the permanent harms of puberty blockers over the past several years. An example from Global News:
Alberta parents of gender-diverse youth like Haley Wray believe the new laws will give kids less choice — especially when it comes to health-care that is not permanent but instead, gives kids time to work through their identity struggles.
‘Hormone blockers are a very valuable tool,’ Wray said, explaining they have a very small window of effectiveness to pause, but not prevent, puberty. ‘It is reversible because nothing changes. And what that does is it allows youth and families to have that that pause, that break to explore further, validate, understand what this means and know that permanent changes aren’t happening.’
Wray believes the proposed legislation will make the province a less safe place for tens of thousands of Alberta kids who aren’t straight. It’s why, Wray says, a growing number of families with transgender children are now grappling with whether Alberta is a place they can stay. ‘I know people who have, and I know people who genuinely feel like there is likely nowhere to go,’ she said.
This is incorrect. Puberty blockers cause permanent damage, and children may be rendered permanently sterile after taking them for a relatively short period of time. Puberty is not something that can be “paused,” and it frequently causes irreversible rather than reversible damage. Smith and her government understand this, which is why they have decided to pass this legislation—not, as nearly every press outlet claimed, to “target trans youth,” but to protect them.
The CBC chimed in with sentences like this one:
Terms like ‘biological female’ and ‘biological male’ can be used to imply that transgender people are still their assigned sex at birth, despite their identity.
To translate: a scientifically accurate and precise statement is now an ideological one, but inherently ideological language invented by the transgender movement over the past decade is, in fact, technically accurate. People can identify as anything they want; it is irrelevant to their biology. The CBC presents pointing this out as some sort of propagandistic attack on vulnerable people.
Fortunately, Smith appears to know what she’s doing here. She’s taken her time to ensure that the legislation she has put forward will pass, and that it is defensible in court. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who has just led the Saskatchewan Party to its fifth straight majority government, is of a similar mind—he’s promised to put forward legislation protecting female spaces as a matter of first priority. It took long enough, but Canada’s conservatives are finally starting to move.
Alberta
Alberta calling for federal election! Premier Smith demands feds scrap dangerous oil and gas production caps
Premier Danielle Smith, Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz and Minister of Energy and Minerals Brian Jean issued the following statement on the proposed federal oil and gas production cap:
“This production cap will hurt families, hurt businesses and hurt Canada’s economy. We will defend our province, our country and our Constitutional rights.
“Make no mistake, this cap violates Canada’s constitution. Section 92A clearly gives provinces exclusive jurisdiction over non-renewable natural resource development yet this cap will require a one million barrel a day production cut by 2030.
“The evidence is overwhelming. Three reports from reputable firms have shown that these regulations will sucker-punch Canada’s economy, a million barrels cut every day according to S&P Global, $28 billion a year in lost GDP according to Deloitte, and up to 150,000 lost jobs according to the Conference Board of Canada.
“The losses to GDP mean billions a year will disappear from the economy. Billions that won’t be going towards new schools, hospitals and roads, all for a reckless ideological scheme that will not reduce global emissions.
“Ultimately, this cap will lead Alberta and our country into economic and societal decline. The average Canadian family would be left with up to $419 less for groceries, mortgage payments and utilities every month. Canadian parents and workers will suffer while Justin Trudeau outsources the duty to provide safe, affordable, reliable and responsibly produced oil and gas to dictators and less clean producers around the world. We could be the solution. Instead, Ottawa would rather sacrifice our ability to lead.
“Tweaks won’t work. This cap must be scrapped. Alberta’s government is actively exploring the use of every legal option, including a constitutional challenge and the use of the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act. We will not stand idly by while the federal government sacrifices our prosperity, our constitution and our quality of life for its extreme agenda.”
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