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Canada’s Forest Sector Responds to Misleading Report

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The legacy media is widely distributing an article outlining a report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council claiming Canada’s forestry sector emits even more carbon than Alberta’s oilsands.  Not wishing to undergo the same vilification as the oil sector, the Forest Products Association of Canada is quickly countering the report with this article.

Article Submitted by the Forest Products Association of Canada

Earlier today, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Nature Canada jointly released a misleading and damaging report on Canada’s GHG emissions. Derek Nighbor, President and CEO, Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) issued the following statement in response:

Last week, economists from the Royal Bank of Canada confirmed their expectation that Canada will enter a recession in the first quarter of 2023. This presents unique challenges for working families in rural and northern Canada where economic prospects are often limited to a few key industries like agriculture, energy, mining, and forestry.

In hundreds of these communities across the country – from Prince George, BC to Corner Brook, NL – the forest sector is a central economic driver and provides jobs to over 200,000 Canadians. Beyond its economic contributions, Canadian forestry is known globally for its responsible harvest practices, high quality products, and its ability to help build a lower carbon economy. Canadian foresters also play an essential role in mitigating growing fire risks, protecting carbon rich wetlands, building with renewable, carbon-storing wood products, and creating environmentally friendly products from what would otherwise be wood waste.

Nordic countries show us how boreal forests can be managed to maximize carbon storage, even in a warming climate. Although their forests are much smaller, Finland and Sweden harvest six to eight times the timber volume per forested hectare than Canada does. At the same time, the net annual increase in stored carbon in Sweden’s forest is so large it reduces national GHG emissions by 70%. These Nordic governments have done something that Canada has not. In developing their climate plans, these leaders have worked with key industries like forestry to build sector-specific plans to maximize environmental and economic outcomes.

While we were disappointed to see another misleading report on forestry issued by the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Nature Canada, we were not surprised. Both NRDC and Nature Canada fundraise on their anti-Canadian forestry campaign rhetoric.

It’s worth noting that staff in NRDC’s New York, Washington, and San Francisco offices suggest they care about Canada’s forests and Canadian workers, even as they actively lobby multiple US states to encourage state legislators to restrict Canadian forest products coming into those states. For reasons that are difficult to understand, Nature Canada has chosen to be a willing partner.

Let’s be clear. Canada has a forest carbon problem that is caused by the worsening natural disturbance patterns we are seeing through drought, pest outbreaks, and catastrophic wildland fire. It’s a growing problem impacting forest health and resiliency, human health and community safety, and we urgently need constructive solutions – not deliberately misleading attacks.

FPAC continues to call on the federal government to follow the Nordic examples and work with our sector to develop a comprehensive plan for Canadian forestry, even as we contribute to the federal National Adaptation Strategy (NAS), which is a key deliverable and discussion matter at the upcoming COP 27 global climate conference next month in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Canadian forestry needs an NAS that minimizes climate-driven disturbance by actively reducing disturbance risk and supporting forest operations that maximize long-term carbon storage performance. This means increased timber harvests that value carbon and forest health – and the creation of new markets for low-grade wood fibre, including via thinning and residual biomass. It also means more forestry – not less. Forestry that will accelerate economic reconciliation with Indigenous communities, keep communities safer from fire risks, support biodiversity conservation and important ecosystem values, and provide good-paying jobs and careers in the rural and northern Canadian communities that desperately need them.

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‘Context Of Chemsex’: Biden-Harris Admin Dumps Millions Into Developing Drug-Fueled Gay Sex App

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Owen Klinsky

The Biden-Harris administration is spending millions funding a project to advise homosexual men on how to more safely engage in drug-fueled intercourse.

The University of Connecticut (UCONN) in July announced a five-year, $3.4 million grant from the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) for Assistant Professor Roman Shrestha to develop his app JomCare — “a smartphone-based just-in-time adaptive intervention aimed at improving access to HIV- and substance use-related harm reduction services for Malaysian GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex,” university news website UCONN Today reported. “Chemsex,” according to Northern Irish LGBTQ+ nonprofit the Rainbow Project, is the involvement of drug use in one’s sex life, and typically involves Methamphetamine (crystal meth), Mephedrone (meth), and GHB and GBL (G).

Examples of the app’s use-cases include providing a user who has reported injecting drugs with prompts about ordering an at-home HIV test kit and employing safe drug injection practices, UCONN Today reported. The app is also slated to provide same-day delivery of HIV prevention drug PrEP, HIV self-testing kits and even a mood tracker.

“In Malaysia, our research has indicated that harm reduction needs of GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex are not being adequately met,” Shrestha told UCONN Today. “Utilizing smartphone apps and other mHealth tools presents a promising and cost-effective approach to expand access to these services.”

Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia and is punishable by imprisonment, according to digital LGBTQ+ rights publication Equaldex. Drug use, including of cannabis, is illegal in Malaysia, and drug trafficking can be a capital offense.

The NIH disbursed $773,845 to Shrestha in July to conduct a 90-day trial testing the efficacy of JomCare among 482 chemsex-involved Malaysian gays. It also provided Shrestha with $191,417 in 2022 to “facilitate access to gender-affirming health care” for transgender women in the country.

“Gender-affirming care” is a euphemism used to describe a wide range of procedures, including sometimes irreversible hormone treatments that can lead to infertility as well as irreversible surgeries like mastectomies, phalloplasties and vaginoplasties.

Shrestha has a track record of researching mobile health (mHealth) initiatives for foreign homosexuals, co-authoring a 2024 study entitled, “Preferences for mHealth Intervention to Address Mental Health Challenges Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in Nepal.”

The proliferation of LGBT rights has been a “foreign policy priority” under the Biden-Harris administration, a State Department spokesperson previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation, with President Joe Biden instructing federal government department heads to “to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons.”

“Around the globe, including here at home, brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) activists are fighting for equal protection under the law, freedom from violence, and recognition of their fundamental human rights,” a 2021 White House memorandum states. “The United States belongs at the forefront of this struggle — speaking out and standing strong for our most dearly held values.”

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 12 that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would collaborate to establish a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with Musk claiming the agency would feature a leaderboard for the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.” Some DOGE cuts could come from LGBTQ+ programs, such as a grant from the United States Agency for International Development to perform sex changes in Guatemala and State Department funding for the showing of a play in North Macedonia entitled, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”

“The woke mind virus consists of creating very, very divisive identity politics…[that] amplifies racism; amplifies, frankly, sexism; and all of the -isms while claiming to do the opposite,” Musk said at an event in Italy in December 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It actually divides people and makes them hate each other and hate themselves.”

Shrestha and the NIH did not respond to requests for comment. When reached for comment, a UCONN spokeswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation that, “specific questions about the grant and the decision to award it to our faculty member should be directed to the NIH, since that’s the funding agency.”

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Broken ‘equalization’ program bad for all provinces

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From the Fraser Institute

By Alex Whalen  and Tegan Hill

Back in the summer at a meeting in Halifax, several provincial premiers discussed a lawsuit meant to force the federal government to make changes to Canada’s equalization program. The suit—filed by Newfoundland and Labrador and backed by British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta—effectively argues that the current formula isn’t fair. But while the question of “fairness” can be subjective, its clear the equalization program is broken.

In theory, the program equalizes the ability of provinces to deliver reasonably comparable services at a reasonably comparable level of taxation. Any province’s ability to pay is based on its “fiscal capacity”—that is, its ability to raise revenue.

This year, equalization payments will total a projected $25.3 billion with all provinces except B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan to receive some money. Whether due to higher incomes, higher employment or other factors, these three provinces have a greater ability to collect government revenue so they will not receive equalization.

However, contrary to the intent of the program, as recently as 2021, equalization program costs increased despite a decline in the fiscal capacity of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. In other words, the fiscal capacity gap among provinces was shrinking, yet recipient provinces still received a larger equalization payment.

Why? Because a “fixed-growth rule,” introduced by the Harper government in 2009, ensures that payments grow roughly in line with the economy—even if the gap between richer and poorer provinces shrinks. The result? Total equalization payments (before adjusting for inflation) increased by 19 per cent between 2015/16 and 2020/21 despite the gap in fiscal capacities between provinces shrinking during this time.

Moreover, the structure of the equalization program is also causing problems, even for recipient provinces, because it generates strong disincentives to natural resource development and the resulting economic growth because the program “claws back” equalization dollars when provinces raise revenue from natural resource development. Despite some changes to reduce this problem, one study estimated that a recipient province wishing to increase its natural resource revenues by a modest 10 per cent could face up to a 97 per cent claw back in equalization payments.

Put simply, provinces that generally do not receive equalization such as Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan have been punished for developing their resources, whereas recipient provinces such as Quebec and in the Maritimes have been rewarded for not developing theirs.

Finally, the current program design also encourages recipient provinces to maintain high personal and business income tax rates. While higher tax rates can reduce the incentive to work, invest and be productive, they also raise the national standard average tax rate, which is used in the equalization allocation formula. Therefore, provinces are incentivized to maintain high and economically damaging tax rates to maximize equalization payments.

Unless premiers push for reforms that will improve economic incentives and contain program costs, all provinces—recipient and non-recipient—will suffer the consequences.

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