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Heritage Foundation president tells Davos: Future Trump admin must reject all WEF ideas

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Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos

From LifeSiteNews

By Andreas Wailzer

The Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts said that everyone in the next administration must ‘compile a list of everything that’s ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum’ and object to ‘all of them, wholesale.’

The president of the conservative Heritage Foundation in said in his appearance at Davos that the next Republican administration needs to reject ā€œeverything that’s ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum.ā€

Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank in the U.S., said during aĀ panel discussionĀ called ā€œWhat to Expect from a Possible Republican Administration?ā€ that ā€œthe kind of person who will come into the next conservative administration is going to be governed by one principle and that is destroying the grasp that political elites and unelected technocrats have over the average person.ā€

ā€œAnd if I may, I will be candid and say that the agenda that every single member of the administration needs to have is to compile a list of everything that’s ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum and object [to] all of them, wholesale.ā€

ā€œAnyone not prepared to do that and take away this power of the unelected bureaucrats and give it back to the American people in unprepared to be part of the next conservative administration.ā€

Trump admin will ā€˜trust the science’ and reject push of gender ideology

Roberts said that the idea that the WEF is defending ā€œliberal democracyā€ and the suggestion that Trump would be a ā€œdictatorā€ are both ā€œlaughable.ā€

ā€œWhoever is the next conservative president is going to take on the power of the elites,ā€ he declared.

ā€œPolitical elites tell the average people on three or four or five issues, that the reality is X, when in fact reality is Y.ā€

Roberts went on to list five things as examples that President Trump will take on if he is elected:

ā€œTake immigration: elites tell us that open borders and even illegal immigration are okay, the average person tells us in the United States that both rob them of the American way of life.ā€

ā€œThirdly, I guess the favorite at the World Economic Forum, is climate change. Elites tell us that we have this existential crisis with so-called ā€˜climate change,’ so much so that climate alarmism is probably the greatest cause for [the] mental health crisis in the world. The solutions, the average person knows, based on climate change are far worse and more harmful and cost more human lives, especially in Europe during the time that you need heating, than to the problems themselves.ā€

ā€œThe fourth: China. The number one adversary not just to the United States but to free people on planet Earth. Not only do we at Davos not say that, we give the Chinese Communist Party a platform. Count on President Trump ending that nonsense.ā€

ā€œAnd fifth, another supernational organization, the World Health Organization, is discussing foisting gender ideology upon [the] Global South. These are practices that are under review if not being rejected, by countries in Northern Europe.ā€,

ā€œThe new president, especially if it is President Trump, will, as you like to say, ā€˜trust the science.’ He will understand the basic biological reality of manhood and womanhood.ā€

ā€œI think President Trump, if in fact he wins a second term, is going to be inspired by the wise words of Javier Milei, who said that he was in power not to guide sheep but to awaken lions,ā€ Roberts concluded.

Roberts: ā€˜I’ll probably never be invited back’ to the WEF

In a video published on his X account shortly before his appearance in Davos, Roberts said that ā€œfor too long, the self-appointed globalist elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland have lorded over you and me.ā€

ā€œAnd you’ll never guess, the president of the Heritage Foundation was invited this year to go, and against my preference, I’m going, on your behalf, to read those people the riot act.ā€

ā€œTheir time of lording over us has come to an end, whether it’s COVID lockdowns, riding over there in their beautiful fancy private jets while lecturing us at the same time, sometimes while on the plane, that climate change is an existential threat.ā€

ā€œI’m going to talk about all of it. I’ll probably never be invited back, but considering I never wanted to go in the first place, I look forward to it.ā€

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Business

Is Government Inflation Reporting Accurate?

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The Audit David Clinton's avatar David Clinton

Who ya gonna believe: official CPI figures or your lyin’ eyes?

Great news! We’ve brought inflation back under control and stuff is now only costing you 2.4 percent more than it did last year!

That’s more or less the message we’ve been hearing from governments over the past couple of years. And in fact, the official Statistics Canada consumer price indexĀ (CPI) numbers do show us that the ā€œall-itemsā€ index in 2024 was only 2.4 percent higher than in 2023. Fantastic.

So why doesn’t itĀ feelĀ fantastic?

Well statistics are funny that way. When you’ve got lots of numbers, there are all kinds of ways to dress ā€˜em up before presenting them as an index (or chart). And there really is no one combination of adjustments and corrections that’s definitively ā€œrightā€. So I’m sure Statistics Canada isn’t trying to misrepresent things.

But I’m also curious to test whether the CPI is truly representative of Canadians’ real financial experiences. My first attempt to create my own alternative ā€œconsumer price indexā€, involved Statistics Canada’s ā€œDetailed household final consumption expenditureā€. That table contains actual dollar figures for nation-wide spending on a wide range of consumer items. To represent the costs Canadian’s face when shopping for basics, I selected these nine categories:

  • Food and non-alcoholic beverages
  • Clothing and footwear
  • Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels
  • Major household appliances
  • Pharmaceutical products and other medical products (except cannabis)
  • Transport
  • Communications
  • University education
  • Property insurance

I then took the fourth quarter (Q4) numbers for each of those categories for all the years between 2013 and 2024 and divided them by theĀ total population of the countryĀ for each year. That gave me an accurate picture of per capita spending on core cost-of-living items.

Overall, living and breathing through Q4 2013 would have cost the average Canadian $4,356.38 (or $17,425.52 for a full year). Spending for those same categories in Q4 2024, however, cost us $6,266.48 – a 43.85 percent increase.

By contrast, the official CPI over those years rose only 31.03 percent. That’s quite the difference. Here’s how the year-over-year changes in CPI inflation vs actual spending inflation compare:

As you can see, with the exception of 2020 (when COVID left us with nothing to buy), the official inflation number was consistently and significantly lower than actual spending. And, in the case of 2021, it was more than double.

Since 2023, the items with the largest price growth were university education (57.46 percent), major household appliances (52.67 percent), and housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels (50.79).

Having said all that, you could justifiably argue that the true cost of living hasn’t really gone up that much, but that at least part of the increase in spending is due to a growing taste for luxury items and high volume consumption. I can’t put a precise number on that influence, but I suspect it’s not trivial.

Since data onĀ spendingĀ doesn’t seem to be the best measure of inflation, perhaps I could build my own basket of costs and compareĀ thoseĀ numbers to the official CPI. To do that, I collected average monthly costs forĀ gasoline,Ā home rentals, a selection of 14Ā core grocery items, and taxes paid by the average Canadian homeowner.¹ I calculated the tax burden (federal, provincial, property, and consumption) using the average of the estimates of two AI models.

How did the inflation represented by my custom basket compare with the official CPI? Well between 2017 and 2024, the Statistics Canada’s CPI grew by 23.39 percent. Over that same time, the monthly cost of my basket grew from $4,514.74 to $5,665.18; a difference of 25.48 percent. That’s not nearly as dramatic a difference as we saw when we measured spending, but it’s not negligible either.

The very fact that the government makes all this data freely available to us is evidence that they’re not out to hide the truth. But it can’t hurt to keep an active and independent eye on them, too.

1 After all, taxes are certainly a major part of our cost of living, right? And even though you could argue that tax payments deliver benefits like ā€œfreeā€ healthcare, well transportation expenses also deliver benefits (like the ability to get to work).

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2025 Federal Election

Carney’s Hidden Climate Finance Agenda

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From Energy Now

By Tammy Nemeth and Ron Wallace

It is high time that Canadians discuss and understand Mark Carney’s avowed plan to re-align capital with global Net Zero goals.

Mark Carney’s economic vision for Canada, one that spans energy, housing and defence, rests on an unspoken, largely undisclosed, linchpin: Climate Finance – one that promises a Net Zero future for Canada but which masks a radical economic overhaul.

Regrettably, Carney’s potential approach to a Net Zero future remains largely unexamined in this election. As the former chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), Carney has proposed newĀ policies,Ā offices,Ā agencies,Ā  andĀ bureausĀ required to achieve these goals.. Pieced together from his presentations, discussions, testimonies and book, Carney’s approach to climate finance appears to have four pillars: mandatory climate disclosures, mandatory transition plans, centralized data sharing via the United Nations’ Net Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU) and compliance with voluntary carbon markets (VCMs). There are serious issues for Canada’s economy if these principles were to form the core values for policies under a potential Liberal government.

About the first pillar Carney has beenĀ unequivocal: ā€œAchieving net zero requires a whole economy transition.ā€ Ā This would require a restructuring energy and financial systems to shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy with CarneyĀ insistingĀ repeatedly in his book that ā€œevery financial [and business] decision takes climate change into account.ā€ Climate finance, unlike broaderĀ sustainable financeĀ with its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) focus would channel capital into sectors aligned with a 2050 Net Zero trajectory.Ā Carney states: ā€œCompanies, and those who invest in them…who are part of the solution, will be rewarded. Those lagging behind…will be punished.ā€ Ā In other words, capital would flow to compliant firms but be withheld from so-called ā€œhigh emittersā€.

How will investors, banks and insurers distinguish solution from problem? Mandatory climate disclosures,Ā aligned withĀ the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), would compel firms to report emissions and outline their Net Zero strategies.Ā Canada’s Sustainability Standards BoardĀ has adopted these methodologies,Ā despite concerns they would disadvantage Canadian businesses. Here, Carney repeatedly emphasizes disclosures as the cornerstone to track emissions data required to shift capital away from ā€œhigh emittersā€. Without this, he claims, large institutional investors lack the data on supply chains to make informed decisions to shift capital to businesses that are Net Zero compliant.

The second pillar, Mandatory Transition Plans would require companies to map a 2050 Net Zero trajectory for emission reduction targets. Failure to meet those targets would invite pressure from investors, banks, or activists, who may pursue litigation for non-compliance. The UK’sĀ Transition Plan Task Force, now part of ISSB, provides this standardized framework.Ā Carney, while at GFANZ, advocated using transition plans for a ā€œmanaged phase-outā€ of high-emitting assets like coal, oil and gas, not just through divestment but by financing emissions reductions. ā€œAs part of their transition planning, [GFANZ] members should establish and apply financing policies to phase out and align carbon-intensive sectors and activities, such as thermal coal, oil and gas and deforestation, not only through asset divestment but also through transition finance that reduces real world emissions. To assist with these efforts GFANZ will continue to develop and implement a framework for the Managed Phase-out of high-emitting assets.ā€ Clearly, the purpose of this is to ensure companies either decarbonize or face capital withdrawal.

The third pillar is the United Nations’ Net Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU), a centralized platform for emissions and transition data.Ā Carney insistsĀ these data be freely accessible, enabling investors, banks and insurers to judge companies’ progress to Net Zero. As CarneyĀ noted in 2021: ā€œPrivate finance is judging…banks, pension funds and asset managers have to show where they are in the transition to Net Zero.ā€ Hence, compliant firms would receive investment; laggards would face divestment.

Finally, voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) allow companies toĀ offset emissionsĀ by purchasing credits from projects like reforestation. Carney, who launched theĀ Taskforce on Scaling VCMsĀ in 2020, has insisted on monitoring, verification and lifecycle tracking. Ā At aĀ 2024 Beijing conference, he suggested major jurisdictions could establish VCMs by COP 30 (planned for 2025 in Brazil) to create a global market. If Canada mandates VCMs, businesses especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would face much higher compliance costs with credits available only to those that demonstrate progress with transition plans.

These potential mandatory disclosures and transition plans would burden Canadian businesses with material costs and legal risks that constitute an economic gamble which few may recognize but all should weigh. Do Canadians truly want a government that has an undisclosed climate finance agenda that would be subservient to an opaque globalized Net Zero agenda?


Tammy Nemeth is a U.K.-based strategic energy analyst. Ron Wallace is an executive fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Canada West Foundation.

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