Economy
Feds ‘net-zero’ agenda is an anti-growth agenda

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute
By Chris Sankey
Canada’s goal should not be to eliminate fossil fuels, but to carry out a steady and manageable reduction of emissions
The federal government is pushing an aggressive emissions reduction strategy that could devastate the Canadian economy and threaten our way of life. This isn’t just about the oil & gas industry. Port-related industries, transportation, infrastructure, health and education, and countless other sectors will be collateral damage. As will the standard of living of everyday Canadians.
One need only peek behind the curtain to understand the current course of federal policy.
Ottawa’s anti-fossil fuels agenda appears to be rooted in the ideas of two ideologically driven behind-the-scenes entities: Senators for Climate Solutions (SFCS) and Clean Energy Canada (CEC).
A group of 44 Canadian Senators, led by Sens. Mary Coyle and Stan Kutcher (both of Nova Scotia), launched SFCS in the fall of 2022. The Senators also recruited a team of interns from GreenPAC, a Toronto-based environmental lobby group, to help get SFCS up and running. GreenPAC Executive Director Sarah Van Exan told blog The Energy Mix at the time that the group had recently assigned its first-ever Senate intern to the office of Sen. Coyle.
“We saw the chance to lend critical capacity—with communication, coordination, and policy research—to help them get established,” Van Exan told The Energy Mix in an email. “The group’s cross-partisan aim and determination to put a climate lens on legislation, advance climate solutions, and hold the government’s feet to the fire is exciting.”
This team of ‘climate-minded’ Senators draws lightly on expertise from Western Canada, let alone calling on experienced energy experts from Alberta. Of the dozen experts listed on the SFCS website, just two – University of Calgary Geosciences professor Sara Hastings-Simon and Vancouver Island farmer Andrew Rushmere – are based in Western Canada.
12 years earlier, Clean Energy Canada was established as a subsidiary of the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby, BC. The group is the brainchild of Merran Smith, a figure The Province once described as “the spawn of the tendrilous and pervasive eco-activist group Tides Canada and [SFU].” Smith first came to prominence in the early 2000s while campaigning to protect coastal BC’s Great Bear Rainforest, rubbing elbows with the likes of Tzeporah Berman (an anti-pipeline acticist so extreme she was booted from the Alberta NDP’s Oil Sands Advisory Group). Other members of the team include BC Green Party alum Evan Pivnick and Electric Vehicle (EV) evangelist Meena Bibra. According to its own website, CEC’s mission is to “accelerate the transition to a renewably powered economy” via “inform[ing] policy leadership.”
Are these the sorts of people the Trudeau Government should be listening to on climate matters?
Let me give you a few stats and you be the judge. I recently had a chance to listen to Adam Waterous, the CEO of the Waterous Energy Fund and former Global Head of Investment Banking at Scotia Waterous. He is, I may add, an incredibly intelligent businessman who lives and breathes energy.
Adam shared some surprising facts about EVs. For instance, he mentioned that it takes five times the amount of oil to build an EV than it does to build a conventional gas-powered vehicle. In order offset this difference, a person must drive an EV 120,000 kms using the electrical grid. Meaning, every time we build an EV demand for oil goes up, not down. Further, an EV battery does not last the lifetime of the vehicle itself, crapping out in as little as 8 years. This expands the EV’s carbon footprint even further as producing a single EV-grade battery emits over seven tonnes of C02e emissions. All told, an EV has roughly double the production footprint of a conventional vehicle.
Still convinced we are saving the planet?
The BC provincial government is forging ahead with a set of policies that its own modelling shows will make BC’s economy $28 billion smaller in 2030 than it would be absent these policies. (To put this number into context, this is roughly what the province spends on health care each year). This will set prosperity back more than a decade. This remarkable finding emerges from looking beyond the government’s glossy reports to the raw modelling results of the estimated economic impact of CleanBC policies that are studiously ignored in its public communication materials.
Similarly, Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) estimates the cost of achieving a net zero electricity grid by 2050 to be nearly $200 billion, while the AESO Net-Zero Emissions Pathways report estimates that accelerating this timeline to 2035 could add an extra $45 to $52 billion. (That is without factoring in the costs of co-generation or the full distribution system and integration costs). Moving to net zero by 2050 will also eliminate 10,000 direct jobs in the oil and gas sector and an estimated 2.7 million jobs in total.
All provinces, and every Canadian household, will be impacted by the federal emissions reduction strategy. However, no province will be impacted more than Alberta. The currently federal modelling used to develop the clean electricity regulations (CER) does not properly represent Alberta’s Electricity Market and thus is unable to adequately forecast the economics of energy production. Canada’s proposed emissions intensity limit effectively requires natural gas backed power plants to sequester an annual average of 95% of all associated emissions through CCUS or other technologies (CCUS) or other technologies. As of writing, no natural gas generation with CCUS modifications has ever hit this mark.
The CERs create significant investment risk for (CCUS) projects as the physical standard for the technology is unproven. Adding insult to injury, the federal government is proposing a 20-year end-of-life for natural gas facilities built prior to January 2025. This will result in some of the cleanest gas plants in the world being shut down decades before they run their useful life; all while Asia continues to burn coal at a record pace.
Canada is about to enter a world of self-inflicted economic pain at precisely the time that Indigenous communities are finally starting harness their resource wealth. We finally made it to the corporate table where we have a seat, a say and ownership – and now the federal government wants to take it all away. How is that for bad timing?
Without reliable and affordable energy, Canadians will be left choosing between shelter, food and keeping the lights on. I don’t know about you, but I will not follow those politicians and organizations driving our climate policies to extremes, into ankle deep water, but I will listen to and follow serious people like Adam Waterous.
The goal for Canada should not be to eliminate fossil fuels. The goal needs to be a steady and manageable reduction of emissions. We must get our ethical and clean energy out to the world. Our economic future depends on it.
Chris Sankey is a former elected Councilor for Lax Kw’alaams Band, businessman and Senior Fellow for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
2025 Federal Election
Mark Carney is trying to market globalism as a ‘Canadian value.’ Will it work?

From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
A campaign to appeal to national sentiment is a strange gambit for Liberals – committed as they are to the replacement of the nation with globalist policies.
The storm over Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs over the Canadian border crisis has been baked into a vote-winning meme by Canada’s Liberal Party. Yet with an election only weeks away on April 28, can a sentimental appeal to a vanished Canada secure a win for Mark Carney?
Trump’s tariffs were expected to hit Canada on Wednesday’s “Liberation Day,” refueling a furor over Canadian sovereignty which has led some to say this is “shaping up to be the trade war election.”
Responding to the tariffs, which ultimately never came to fruition in the way the Liberals were warning, a meme war broke out with Carney responding to harsh reality with a feelgood slogan.
Elbows up, Canada. pic.twitter.com/0gJ2opnPjZ
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) March 22, 2025
“Elbows up!” is the new Current Thing in Canada, a media craze designed to stir nationalist indignation in elderly voters who may even remember the 1950s origin of the phrase.
The elbows refer to those of Gordie Howe – a 1950s hockey legend from Saskatchewan – a conservative province – and from a time when Canada was populated by Canadians.
It bears all the hallmarks of an “astroturf” campaign – intended to look authentic, but in reality a manufactured mass belief for marketing purposes.
“Elbows up” seeks to inspire a fighting mood against the threat – or promise – of tariffs on Canadian trade with the U.S.
Carney will ‘cave’
It is a classic example of the manipulation of popular feeling into political allegiance. How will the feelings of aging voters affect the imposition of tariffs? Not at all. Nor will the Canadian Prime Minister be able to stop them.
Insider reports say that Carney will “quietly cave” to Donald Trump over the issue, if the U.S. president does indeed go forward with them.
Prepare for the Carney ‘cave’ on trade with the USA
Ian Bremmer is the boss of Gerry Butts and Mark Carneys wife’s at Eurasia Group. He just told US decision makers that:
“I expect Ottawa will quietly fold shortly after the vote….”
Ian, sitting daily with Carneys inner… https://t.co/PVQIeUzuFQ
— David Knight Legg (@KnightLegg) March 27, 2025
Silence over ‘devastating’ Chinese tariffs caused by Trudeau
Why? Carney has no alternative. He has already “caved” – to China – over the same issue. “Devastating” Chinese tariffs took effect over a week ago in Canada, as Global News reported:
Canadian agricultural producers are warning of devastating impacts from new Chinese tariffs that began Thursday (March 20th), which they say will compound the economic strain from the U.S. trade war.
The tariffs are severe, and will have a dramatic impact – as China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner behind the United States.
“China has imposed a 100 per cent levy on Canadian canola oil and meal, as well as peas, plus a 25 per cent duty on seafood and pork,” the outlet reported.
These tariffs cannot be corrected by hockey memes, and are a response to tariffs placed on Chinese goods by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Liberal Party – seeking election over outrage on tariffs – has created a tariff crisis, whose costs will be borne by the people who vote for them.
There are no “elbows up” against China. In fact, their tariffs have been greeted with silence from Carney, who has said U.S.-Canada relations are at an end.
Corruption, drug cartels in Canada
Anger at Donald Trump obscures the serious problems which prompted his suggestion that Canada could be absorbed into the United States. “Elbows Up” is a cool way of making Canadians look past the fact that the crisis they inhabit has been created by the Liberals and their globalist agenda.
On February 1, Trump issued an executive order “Imposing duties to address the flow of illicit drugs across our northern border.”
Terry Glavin, writing in January for Canada’s National Post, dismissed Trump’s earlier claims of a crisis over Canadian “border security and drug trafficking” as a “pretext” for his “…declared objective of exerting ‘economic force’ to annex Canada as the 51st American state.”
Yet this too appears to be a fantasy inspired by national sentiment – which simply ignores reality.
As LifeSiteNews reported, Canada’s second bank has laundered over 18 trillion dollars in the U.S. and Canada for Mexican and Chinese drug cartels. The world’s largest fentanyl factory was discovered in Vancouver in February.
Canada a ‘failed state’?
The serious issue of corruption by Chinese Triads combines with a picture of impotent Canadian law and border enforcement to suggest that Canada may be, as Glavin warned, “approaching failed-state status.” When the memes wear off, this is the reality faced by Canadian voters.
Canadians have complained since 2017 that life is too expensive to have a family.
Now “a generation” cannot afford a home, and many struggle to pay for groceries. Help is at hand, however.
Their Liberal government supports Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) – killing the elderly, poor and ill as healthcare – whilst promoting radical “gender” ideology to help sterilize children.
Will Carney come to the rescue?
Carney is a committed “Net Zero” fanatic, and is the kind of “Catholic” who fervently supports abortion.
His moral integrity is demonstrated further by the fact that his $25 billion “green” investment fund was located in Bermuda to dodge Canadian taxes.
As the Canadian Catholic Register cautions, “[Carney] is a well-connected globalist with deep ties to institutions such as the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, Bank for International Settlements, and the Financial Stability Board.”
Globalist ‘Canadian’ values
National identity is a strange appeal to make on behalf of a party which appears to be working hard to replace Canadians with immigrants, and which is now lead by a globalist technocrat.
It is the values of globalism, of course, which are presented to voters as “Canadian values”: open borders, LGBTQ “rights,” “gender” surgery and hormones for children, and the Net Zero deindustrialization program strongly supported by the Liberal leader Mark Carney.
How long can this appeal to save the nation of Canada from foreign influence convince Canadians to vote for more of the same? The Liberal Party has led Canada into crisis, presiding over corruption so severe that its police, judicial and border authorities are deemed incapable of being trusted by the USA.
This is not a charge made solely by the Trump administration, but also under Biden – with Antony Blinken pressing the matter of the insecurity of the Canadian border as far back as 2022. In the coming weeks, the real issues which have consigned Canada to a fond memory may well shrink the Liberal lead reported by the polls.
What do the polls say?
With some headlines trumpeting an “eight point lead” for the Liberals, others show a narrower advantage for the globalist Carney – and one leading firm has them tied with the Conservatives.
Abacus Data’s March 30 poll had both parties neck and neck at 39%. Abacus, who describe themselves as “Canada’s most sought-after, influential, and impactful polling firm,” “…were one of the most accurate pollsters conducting research during the 2021 Canadian election.”
A second poll shows a narrower lead, and a clear bonus for Carney for simply not being Justin Trudeau.
338 Canada showed a four point lead for the Liberals on March 31, and its graph clearly illustrates that their lead relies on disaffected NDP voters – and the collapse of the Bloc Quebecois vote.
Reality enters the chat
With the issues at home now overtaking Trump and his tariffs, the cost of living and those allied to mass migration such as housing are returning to the forefront of voters’ minds. The issue of reality – and who is the real Mark Carney – may well overtake the fake nationalism of “Elbows up.”
A campaign to appeal to national sentiment is a strange gambit for Liberals – committed as they are to the replacement of the nation with globalist policies – and of its people through mass immigration. Carney has been powerless to halt Chinese tariffs. He is powerless to halt those of Donald Trump.
If Canadians can see beyond cringe hockey memes these two issues are clearly a reaction to the actions and inaction of a Liberal-led Canada. This is the reason that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is campaigning on the harm done to Canadians by the “lost Liberal decade.” If Canadians can be persuaded by the argument presented by reality, it seems unlikely they will vote for another – whatever the polls may say.
Business
‘Time To Make The Patient Better’: JD Vance Says ‘Big Transition’ Coming To American Economic Policy

JD Vance on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” discussing tariff results
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Hailey Gomez
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday on Newsmax that he believes Americans will “reap the benefits” of the economy as the Trump administration makes a “big transition” on tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,679.39 points on Thursday, just a day after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs against nations charging imports from the U.S. On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Schmitt asked Vance about the stock market hit, asking how the White House felt about the “Liberation Day” move.
“We’re feeling good. Look, I frankly thought in some ways it could be worse in the markets, because this is a big transition. You saw what the President said earlier today. It’s like a patient who was very sick,” Vance said. “We did the operation, and now it’s time to make the patient better. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We have to remember that for 40 years, we’ve been doing this for 40 years.”
“American economic policy has rewarded people who ship jobs overseas. It’s taxed our workers. It’s made our supply chains more brittle, and it’s made our country less prosperous, less free and less secure,” Vance added.
Vance recalled that one of his children had been sick and needed antibiotics that were not made in the United States. The Vice President called it a “ridiculous thing” that some medicines invented in the country are no longer manufactured domestically.
“That’s fundamentally what this is about. The national security of manufacturing and making the things that we need, from steel to pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and so forth, but also the good jobs that come along when you have economic policies that reward investing in America, rather than investing in foreign countries,” Vance said.
WATCH:
With a baseline 10% tariff placed on an estimated 60 countries, higher tariffs were applied to nations like China and Israel. For example, China, which has a 67% tariff on U.S. goods, will now face a 34% tariff from the U.S., while Israel, which has a 33% tariff, will face a 17% U.S. tariff.
“One bad day in the stock market, compared to what President Trump said earlier today, and I think he’s right about this. We’re going to have a booming stock market for a long time because we’re reinvesting in the United States of America. More importantly than that, of course, the people in Wall Street have done well,” Vance said.
“We want them to do well. But we care the most about American workers and about American small businesses, and they’re the ones who are really going to benefit from these policies,” Vance said.
The number of factories in the U.S., Vance said, has declined, adding that “millions of workers” have lost their jobs.
“My town [Middletown, Ohio], where you had 10,000 great American steel workers, and my town was one of the lucky ones, now probably has 1,500 steel workers in that factory because you had economic policies that rewarded shipping our jobs to China instead of investing in American workers,” Vance said. “President Trump ran on changing it. He promised he would change it, and now he has. I think Americans are going to reap the benefits.”
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