Business
UN plastics plans are unscientific and unrealistic
News release from the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada
“We must focus on practical solutions and upgrading our recycling infrastructure, not ridiculous restrictions that will harm our health care system, sanitary food supply, increase costs and endanger Canadians’ safety, among other downsides.”
This week Ottawa welcomes 4,000 delegates from the United Nations to discuss how they will oversee a reduction and even possible elimination of plastics from our lives. The key problem is no one has ever figured out how they will replace this essential component of our modern economy and society. The Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada (CCMBC) has launched an information campaign to discuss the realities of plastic, how it contributes massively to our society and the foolishness of those who think plastics can be eliminated or greatly reduced without creating serious problems for key industries such as health care, sanitary food provision, many essential consumer products and safety/protective equipment, among others. CCMBC President Catherine Swift said “The key goal should be to keep plastics in the economy and out of the environment, not eliminate many valuable and irreplaceable plastic items. The plastics and petrochemical industries represent about 300,000 jobs and tens of billions contribution to GDP in Canada, and are on a growth trend.”
The UN campaign to ban plastics to date has been thwarted by reality and facts. UN efforts to eliminate plastics began in 2017, motivated by such terrible images as rivers with massive amounts of floating plastic and animals suffering from negative effects of plastic materials. Although these images were dramatic and disturbing, they do not represent the big picture of what is really happening and do not take into account the many ways plastics are hugely positive elements of modern society. Swift added “Furthermore, Canada is not one of the problem countries with respect to plastics waste. Developing countries are the main culprits and any solution must involve helping the leading plastics polluters find workable solutions and better recycling technology and practices.”
The main goal of plastic is to preserve and protect. Can you imagine health care without sanitary, flexible, irreplaceable and recyclable plastic products? How would we keep our food fresh, clean and healthy without plastic wraps and packaging? Plastic replaces many heavier and less durable materials in so many consumer products too numerous to count. Plastics help the environment by reducing food waste, replacing heavier materials in automobiles and other products that make them more energy-efficient. Many plastics are infinitely recyclable and innovations are taking place to improve them constantly. What is also less known is that most of the replacements for plastics are more expensive and actually worse for the environment.
Swift stated “Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has been convinced by the superficial arguments that plastics are always bad despite the facts. He has pursued a campaign against all plastics as a result, without factoring in the reality of the immense value of plastic products and that nothing can replace their many attributes. Fortunately, the Canadian Federal court overturned his absurd ban on a number of plastic products on the basis that it was unscientific, impractical and impinged upon provincial jurisdiction.” Sadly, Guilbeault and his Liberal cohorts plan to appeal this legal decision despite its common-sense conclusions. Opinion polls of Canadians show that a strong majority would prefer this government abandon its plastics crusade at this point, but history shows these Liberals prefer pursuing their unrealistic and costly ideologies instead of policies that Canadians support.
The bottom line is that plastics are an essential part of our modern society and opposition has been based on erroneous premises and ill-informed environmentalist claims. Swift concluded “Canada’s record on plastics is one of the best in the world. This doesn’t mean the status quo is sufficient, but we must focus on practical solutions and upgrading our recycling infrastructure, not ridiculous restrictions that will harm our health care system, sanitary food supply, increase costs and endanger Canadians’ safety, among other downsides.” The current Liberal government approach is one that has no basis in fact or science and emphasizes virtue-signaling over tangible and measurable results. Swift noted “The UN’s original founding purpose after World War II was to prevent another world war. Given our fractious international climate, they should stick to their original goal instead of promoting social justice warrior causes that are unhelpful and expensive.”
The CCMBC was formed in 2016 with a mandate to advocate for proactive and innovative policies that are conducive to manufacturing and business retention and safeguarding job growth in Canada.
SOURCE Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada
Business
‘Context Of Chemsex’: Biden-Harris Admin Dumps Millions Into Developing Drug-Fueled Gay Sex App
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 Old Border Czar VS The New Border Czar pic.twitter.com/9Ie8JRsroR
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 12, 2024
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.”
Business
Broken ‘equalization’ program bad for all provinces
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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