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Trudeau gov’t to appeal federal court ruling that overturned ban on single-use plastics

Published

11 months ago

5 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky 

‘Our government intends to appeal the Federal Court’s decision and we are exploring all options to continue leading the fight against plastic pollution,’ Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced

The Trudeau government is set to appeal the recent decision which ruled the plastics ban to be “unreasonable and unconstitutional.”

On November 20, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced that the Liberal government under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will appeal the Federal Court’s ruling which overturned its ban on various plastics.

“Our government intends to appeal the Federal Court’s decision and we are exploring all options to continue leading the fight against plastic pollution,” Guilbeault said in a joint statement with Minister of Justice and Attorney General Arif Virani.

“We will continue working with provinces, territories, civil society, and industry to tackle this growing problem,” the statement continued.

Guilbeault’s comments come in response to a November 16 ruling by the Federal Court that determined that the Trudeau government overstepped its authority by classifying plastic as “toxic” and banning all single-use plastic items, like straws.

The decision came after a lawsuit filed a little over a year ago by Alberta and Saskatchewan. The ruling declared that listing all plastics on the List of Toxic Substances was too broad and “poses a threat to the balance of federalism as it does not restrict regulation to only those (plastics) that truly have the potential to cause harm to the environment.”

The court further reminded the Trudeau federal government of the autonomy of the provinces, saying, “Cooperative federalism recognizes that the provincial government and federal government are coordinate – the provinces are not subordinate to the federal government. A federal head of power cannot be given a scope that would eviscerate a provincial legislative competence.”

Essentially, the ruling overturned Trudeau’s 2022 law which outlawed manufacturing or importing plastic straws, cutlery, and checkout bags on the grounds of government claims that plastic was having a negative effect on the oceans. In reality, most plastic pollution in the oceans comes from a few countries, like India and China, which dump waste directly on beaches or rivers.

If not for the Federal Court’s ruling, the sale of these plastic products would have also been illegal by the end of this year.

“Canadians are rightly calling for action, because the rate of plastic pollution is unsustainable, threatening irreversible harm to the health of our natural world and humanity,” the memo claimed. “The accumulation of plastic pollution worldwide is nothing short of a crisis that has brought countries together to propose ambitious global solutions to this problem.

While Guilbeault claims to be responding to Canadians’ desire to reduce pollution, his statement, posted to X (formerly Twitter), has been received with ridicule from Canadians.

“Cope harder, Steven. Your air travel alone causes more pollution than plastic straws,” a Canadian Armed Forces combat veteran wrote.

“Hypocrites! Trudeau is responsible for the lions share of this [pollution],” another declared.

Another pointed out that banning plastics, such as plastic grocery bags may not actually reduce pollution, saying, “I think plastic bags are quite useful. I carry stuff home in them, then I am able to use them as garbage bags, saving me from buying bags to do so. Also, they stop us from needing to chop down trees to make paper bags. Now I have to buy Glad kitchen catcher garbage bags. How does this help the environment again?”

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All politicians—no matter the party—should engage with natural resource industry

Published on October 17, 2024

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

When federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault recently criticized Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for hosting a fundraiser that included an oil company executive, he raised an interesting question. How should our politicians—of all parties—engage with Canada’s natural resource sector and the industry leaders that drive our natural resource economy?

Consider a recent report by the Chamber of Commerce, entitled Canada’s Natural Wealth, which notes that Canada’s natural resources sector contributed $464 billion to Canada’s economy (measured by real GDP) and supported 3 million jobs in 2023. That represented 21 per cent of the national economy and 15 per cent of employment.

Within the natural resources sector, mining, oil and gas, and pipeline transmission represent 45 per cent of all GDP impact from the sector. Oil and gas production accounted for $71 billion in GDP in 2023. If you throw in the support sector for oil and gas production, and for manufacturing petroleum and coal products, that number reaches nearly $100 billion in GDP.

Shouldn’t any responsible leader want to regularly consult with industry leaders in the natural resource sector to determine how they can facilitate expansion of the sector’s contribution to Canada’s economy?

The Chamber also notes that the natural resource sector is a massive contributor to Canada’s balance of trade, reporting that last year the “sector generated $377 billion in exports, accounting for nearly 50% of Canada’s merchandise exports, and a $228 billion trade surplus (that is, exports over imports) —critical for offsetting trade deficits (more imports than exports) in other sectors.”

Again, shouldn’t all government leaders want to work with industry leaders to promote even more natural resource trade and exports?

The natural resource sector also accounts for one out of every seven jobs in Canada’s economy, and the wages offered in the natural resource sector are higher than the national average—annual wages in the sector were $25,000 above the national average in 2023. And workers in the sector are about 2.5 times more productive, meaning they contribute more to the economy compared to workers in other industries.

One more time—shouldn’t all of Canada’s political leaders, regardless of political stripe, want to work with natural resource producers to create more high-paying jobs for more Canadians?

Finally, the Chamber of Commerce report suggests that some environmental policies require swift reform. Proliferating regulations have made investing in Canada a “riskier and more costly proposition.” The report notes that carbon pricing, Clean Fuel Regulations, proposed Clean Electricity Regulations, proposed federal emissions cap and proposed methane regulations all deter investment in Canada. Which means less economic opportunity for many Canadian workers.

With so much of Canada’s economic prosperity at stake, it’s not improper—as Guilbeault and others suggest—for any politician to meet with and seek political support from Canada’s natural resource industry leaders. Indeed, to not meet with and listen to these leaders would be an act of economic recklessness and constitute imprudent leadership of the worst kind.

Author:

Kenneth P. Green
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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Business

Data Center Demand: The Biden-Harris Energy Transition Will Just Have To Wait

Published on October 16, 2024

By

A nuclear power plant

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By David Blackmon

Google has made big news in the energy space over the past week, and all of it conflicts with the Harris-Biden goals of a glorious future powered entirely by windmills, solar arrays and presumably some combination of Unicorn fur and fairy dust.

Last week, the Washington Post ran a major story detailing the fact that Nebraska’s Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) will be forced to keep two coal-fired power generation units running for years longer than previously planned to accommodate the electricity needs of new data centers being built in the area by Google and Meta. Originally scheduled to be shuttered at the end of 2023, the units will now remain active through 2026, and local residents and activists expressed skepticism they will be shut down even then.

“A promise was made, and then they broke it,” the Post quotes local resident Cheryl Weston as saying. “The tech companies bear responsibility for this. The coal plant is still open because they need all this energy to grow.”

Well, yes, they do. Given the way supposed deadlines and promises related to this government-forced energy transition have been consistently extended and broken, Weston’s skepticism seems well-grounded.

By now, most everyone is aware of the enormous new demand the proliferation of data centers is placing on the U.S. regional power grids. The new demand from Big Tech is being added to an electric system already strained by huge demands from crypto mining, EV charging and general population growth and economic expansion.

This demand growth threatens to overwhelm the ability of power companies to build new electric generating capacity rapidly enough to keep up. This is especially true for companies operating in areas that restrict such new generating capacity to be “green,” i.e. intermittent wind and solar.

In the Washington Post’s story, the OPPD attributes the need to keep the coal units running on the slow development of anticipated new wind and solar capacity. But that avoids the reality that these data centers and other big power demand hogs require reliable generation, 24 hours a day, 7 days every week. The limitations of intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar, even when combined with current backup battery tech, leaves companies like Google and Meta demanding more reliable, consistent generation.

This reality is not limited to the Omaha area. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google and parent company Alphabet are also backing a new company engaged in the development of a new generation of modular nuclear reactors as a means of securing its future electricity supplies. In a deal with nuclear startup Kairos Power, Google commits to buying power from seven Kairos reactors when they go live in the coming years.

“The end goal here is 24/7, carbon-free energy,” Google/Alphabet senior director for energy and climate Michael Terrell said. “We feel like in order to meet goals around round-the-clock clean energy, you’re going to need to have technologies that complement wind and solar and lithium-ion storage.”

These developments involving Google and Meta come on the heels of other recent stories detailing efforts by tech giants to secure their future power needs. In early October, Constellation Energy announced it will reactivate its Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to feed the power needs of nearby data centers under development by Microsoft. Constellation announced a similar deal in July to power data centers owned by Amazon from other nuclear facilities it operates.

The securing of their own power supplies could well become a requirement for big tech companies in some regions, as regulators and grid managers become increasingly concerned about their potential to drain regional grids of needed capacity to keep the lights on for everyone else. Bloomberg recently reported on comments by Thomas Gleeson, Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, warning data center developers they should plan to provide at least part of their own power needs if they wish to connect to the grid in a timely fashion.

What it all means is that demand for reliable, 24/7 power supplied by nuclear, natural gas and even coal is going to continue rising for the foreseeable future. The glorious energy transition will just have to wait for reality.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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