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Business

“It’s going to be OK!” Sweet message of hope from one small business to all the others

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This message from the owner/operator of “Sweet Capone’s” has started to circulate in Central Alberta.  

It captures the essence of the struggle facing all small businesses today.  

It’s worth sharing with all those you know who are fighting to keep their business alive when they may not be able to flip the sign from “closed” to “open”.

I have often wondered what it was like for my grandparents and great grandparents. To have lived through, and endured the struggles that a world war presented. It couldn’t have been easy – to navigate the waves of fear and to not succumb to the panic that creeps in when uncertainty hits. They had to ration food and other goods. Here in Canada and living in the middle class of society no less, I am beyond fortunate. Emergency rationing of food and other items is not something I have ever had to do.

I also have not had to experience the painful dread of knowing that one, or all of my sons would be drafted and shipped off to fight in a war – when they are barely old enough to shave…. and never knowing if it would be the last time I would get to hold them close.

I also have not known a society where most of the male figures are away fighting or deceased, and women are left to keep things going on the homefront – both in and out of the home.

I have not known the terror of a dictatorship, and with it, have had all of my rights and freedoms completely stripped away. I have not known annihilating persecution, segregation and the many unspeakable horrors that many cultures have experienced in the face of war. Even to this day.

I have not lived through obliteration where my home and everything I valued has been demolished and torn apart.

I have not known these things. But what I do know is this: previous generations survived all of these things and went on to create a society in which they thrived. Expanded. Flourished. They must have, or else you and I would not be here otherwise. Our previous generations have shown us that weathering adversity produces good fruit. Opportunities open up where they once did not exist. Weaknesses are identified and stronger solutions are put in place. New inventions and ideas sprout fourth and become endearing to our way of life. We identify what we can live with – and conversely, what we can live without. We develop a deeper sense of appreciation through loss, and draw closer to one another in times of strife.

A dear friend of mine said today, “history is like a pond. Ripples only exist on the surface and get harder to detect with distance.” I think he is so right. We forget what previous generations went through and did for us when we allow fear to send us running in the opposite direction.

That pond? Those ripples? They didn’t just start on their own. Our grandparents and the generations before them, they jumped into the water. They dove into it, perhaps even head first! And when they did that, they sent out ripples of resilience, determination and strength that would one day reach us. If we stop running in fear and instead turn around and dip a toe in those calming waters, something amazing will happen. We will be refreshed, renewed and repurposed. And even greater still, we will create ripples of our own that will serve as messages of hope for all the generations to come after us.

As for us here at Sweet Capone’s, we will stay open and are happy to serve you in any capacity until we are unable. We love you, believe in you, and can’t wait to see the ripples that we will produce together when all is said and done!

Stay safe and see you soon!

Love Carina and Joel Moran (owners)

I understand panic – Dr. Abdu Sharkawy

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Business

Saskatchewan becomes first Canadian province to fully eliminate carbon tax

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Saskatchewan has become the first Canadian province to free itself entirely of the carbon tax.

On March 27, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the removal of the provincial industrial carbon tax beginning April 1, boosting the province’s industry and making Saskatchewan the first carbon tax free province.

“The immediate effect is the removal of the carbon tax on your Sask Power bills, saving Saskatchewan families and small businesses hundreds of dollars a year. And in the longer term, it will reduce the cost of other consumer products that have the industrial carbon tax built right into their price,” said Moe.

Under Moe’s direction, Saskatchewan has dropped the industrial carbon tax which he says will allow Saskatchewan to thrive under a “tariff environment.”

“I would hope that all of the parties running in the federal election would agree with those objectives and allow the provinces to regulate in this area without imposing the federal backstop,” he continued.

The removal of the tax is estimated to save Saskatchewan residents up to 18 cents a liter in gas prices.

The removal of the tax will take place on April 1, the same day the consumer carbon tax will reduce to 0 percent under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s direction. Notably, Carney did not scrap the carbon tax legislation: he just reduced its current rate to zero. This means it could come back at any time.

Furthermore, while Carney has dropped the consumer carbon tax, he has previously revealed that he wishes to implement a corporation carbon tax, the effects of which many argued would trickle down to all Canadians.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) celebrated Moe’s move, noting that the carbon tax was especially difficult on farmers.

“It puts our farming community and our business people in rural municipalities at a competitive disadvantage, having to pay this and compete on the world stage,” he continued.

“We’ve got a carbon tax on power — and that’s going to be gone now — and propane and natural gas and we use them more and more every year, with grain drying and different things in our farming operations,” he explained.

“I know most producers that have grain drying systems have three-phase power. If they haven’t got natural gas, they have propane to fire those dryers. And that cost goes on and on at a high level, and it’s made us more noncompetitive on a world stage,” Huber decalred.

The carbon tax is wildly unpopular and blamed for the rising cost of living throughout Canada. Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne.

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Automotive

Electric cars just another poor climate policy

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From the Fraser Institute

By Bjørn Lomborg

The electric car is widely seen as a symbol of a simple, clean solution to climate change. In reality, it’s inefficient, reliant on massive subsidies, and leaves behind a trail of pollution and death that is seldom acknowledged.

We are constantly reminded by climate activists and politicians that electric cars are cleaner, cheaper, and better. Canada and many other countries have promised to prohibit the sale of new gas and diesel cars within a decade. But if electric cars are really so good, why would we need to ban the alternatives?

And why has Canada needed to subsidize each electric car with a minimum $5,000 from the federal government and more from provincial governments to get them bought? Many people are not sold on the idea of an electric car because they worry about having to plan out where and when to recharge. They don’t want to wait for an uncomfortable amount of time while recharging; they don’t want to pay significantly more for the electric car and then see its used-car value decline much faster. For people not privileged to own their own house, recharging is a real challenge. Surveys show that only 15 per cent of Canadians and 11 per cent of Americans want to buy an electric car.

The main environmental selling point of an electric car is that it doesn’t pollute. It is true that its engine doesn’t produce any CO₂ while driving, but it still emits carbon in other ways. Manufacturing the car generates emissions—especially producing the battery which requires a large amount of energy, mostly achieved with coal in China. So even when an electric car is being recharged with clean power in BC, over its lifetime it will emit about one-third of an equivalent gasoline car. When recharged in Alberta, it will emit almost three-quarters.

In some parts of the world, like India, so much of the power comes from coal that electric cars end up emitting more CO₂ than gasoline cars. Across the world, on average, the International Energy Agency estimates that an electric car using the global average mix of power sources over its lifetime will emit nearly half as much CO₂ as a gasoline-driven car, saving about 22 tonnes of CO₂.

But using an electric car to cut emissions is incredibly ineffective. On America’s longest-established carbon trading system, you could buy 22 tonnes of carbon emission cuts for about $660 (US$460). Yet, Ottawa is subsidizing every electric car to the tune of $5,000 or nearly ten times as much, which increases even more if provincial subsidies are included. And since about half of those electrical vehicles would have been bought anyway, it is likely that Canada has spent nearly twenty-times too much cutting CO₂ with electric cars than it could have. To put it differently, Canada could have cut twenty-times more CO₂ for the same amount of money.

Moreover, all these estimates assume that electric cars are driven as far as gasoline cars. They are not. In the US, nine-in-ten households with an electric car actually have one, two or more non-electric cars, with most including an SUV, truck or minivan. Moreover, the electric car is usually driven less than half as much as the other vehicles, which means the CO₂ emission reduction is much smaller. Subsidized electric cars are typically a ‘second’ car for rich people to show off their environmental credentials.

Electric cars are also 320440 kilograms heavier than equivalent gasoline cars because of their enormous batteries. This means they will wear down roads faster, and cost societies more. They will also cause more air pollution by shredding more particulates from tire and road wear along with their brakes. Now, gasoline cars also pollute through combustion, but electric cars in total pollute more, both from tire and road wear and from forcing more power stations online, often the most polluting ones. The latest meta-study shows that overall electric cars are worse on particulate air pollution. Another study found that in two-thirds of US states, electric cars cause more of the most dangerous particulate air pollution than gasoline-powered cars.

These heavy electric cars are also more dangerous when involved in accidents, because heavy cars more often kill the other party. A study in Nature shows that in total, heavier electric cars will cause so many more deaths that the toll could outweigh the total climate benefits from reduced CO₂ emissions.

Many pundits suggest electric car sales will dominate gasoline cars within a few decades, but the reality is starkly different. A 2023-estimate from the Biden Administration shows that even in 2050, more than two-thirds of all cars globally will still be powered by gas or diesel.

Source: US Energy Information Administration, reference scenario, October 2023
Fossil fuel cars, vast majority is gasoline, also some diesel, all light duty vehicles, the remaining % is mostly LPG.

Electric vehicles will only take over when innovation has made them better and cheaper for real. For now, electric cars run not mostly on electricity but on bad policy and subsidies, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, blocking consumers from choosing the cars they want, and achieving virtually nothing for climate change.

Bjørn Lomborg

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