The article references an internal memo from a senior public servant at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan – the federal government department that deals with resource issues such as energy). NRCan Assistant Deputy Minister Mollie Johnson, a senior bureaucrat, is the memo’s author, and in it she notes that the department has been looking into questions on how, amongst other things, the “Net Zero by 2050” campaign will affect affordability for consumers.
“how, amongst other things, the “Net Zero by 2050” campaign will affect affordability for consumers.”
Now, the National Observer provides a customary green dodge on the legitimate question about the costs of Net Zero by 2050, noting that this is the kind of question oil and gas industry players focus on. The National Observer goes on to insist that the real issue is that the costs of the climate crisis are soaring – they do not really specify what costs except to point to weather events and suggest these are getting worse and that the costs of them are becoming unmanageable (both are untrue – we will address in a future blog).
It is as if they are saying “How dare energy companies and their lobbyists have the nerve to ask questions about how government policy will affect their interests! How dare Mollie Johnson suggest questions concerning a policy’s impact on affordability might be appropriate for government officials to consider before advancing the policy!”
To the environmental activists and their friends at the National Observer, the very act of daring to raise one’s hand and ask about the radical green agenda that is Net Zero by 2050, to ask ‘how much will it cost?’, is simply unacceptable. Indeed, to the activists, raising such questions is so unacceptable that asking such questions should be forbidden.
And these green propagandists consistently fall back on the usual apocalyptic rhetoric about a “climate emergency” or “climate crisis”.
ADM Mollie Johnson of NRCan appears to be doing what you would hope a public servant would do: asking how much a policy will cost the taxpayer. Thank you Ms. Johnson!
But in this time of ideological green fervor, in the cult of climate action, you cannot dare ask such heretical and vulgar questions as how policy will affect the economic well-being of citizens.
I encourage all of our readers to do just that. Call your local utility, or bank or insurance company, or a mining company, or any other company that is currently espousing a commitment to Net Zero by 2050 – and ask them how much it will cost. How much will it cost in terms of direct taxpayer dollars? How many jobs will this cost? How much in lost tax revenue will it cost the government when the jobs are gone?
My bet is they can’t answer your question.
They don’t know.
Yet they still commit to Net Zero by 2050.
Net Zero Part 4 will be published on Todayville Thursday, June 10
An 18 year veteran of the House of Commons, Dan is widely known in both official languages for his tireless work on energy pricing and saving Canadians money through accurate price forecasts. His Parliamentary initiatives, aimed at helping Canadians cope with affordable energy costs, led to providing Canadians heating fuel rebates on at least two occasions.
Widely sought for his extensive work and knowledge in energy pricing, Dan continues to provide valuable insights to North American media and policy makers. He brings three decades of experience and proven efforts on behalf of consumers in both the private and public spheres. Dan is committed to improving energy affordability for Canadians and promoting the benefits we all share in having a strong and robust energy sector.
An 18 year veteran of the House of Commons, Dan is widely known in both official languages for his tireless work on energy pricing and saving Canadians money through accurate price forecasts. His Parliamentary initiatives, aimed at helping Canadians cope with affordable energy costs, led to providing Canadians heating fuel rebates on at least two occasions.
Widely sought for his extensive work and knowledge in energy pricing, Dan continues to provide valuable insights to North American media and policy makers. He brings three decades of experience and proven efforts on behalf of consumers in both the private and public spheres. Dan is committed to improving energy affordability for Canadians and promoting the benefits we all share in having a strong and robust energy sector.
People criticize capitalism. A recent Axios-Generation poll says, “College students prefer socialism to capitalism.”
Why?
Because they believe absurd myths. Like the claim that the Soviet Union “wasn’t real socialism.”
Socialism guru Noam Chomsky tells students that. He says the Soviet Union “was about as remote from socialism as you could imagine.”
Give me a break.
The Soviets made private business illegal.
If that’s not socialism, I’m not sure what is.
“Socialism means abolishing private property and … replacing it with some form of collective ownership,” explains economist Ben Powell. “The Soviet Union had an abundance of that.”
Socialism always fails. Look at Venezuela, the richest country in Latin America about 40 years ago. Now people there face food shortages, poverty, misery and election outcomes the regime ignores.
But Al Jazeera claims Venezuela’s failure has “little to do with socialism, and a lot to do with poor governance … economic policies have failed to adjust to reality.”
“That’s the nature of socialism!” exclaims Powell. “Economic policies fail to adjust to reality. Economic reality evolves every day. Millions of decentralized entrepreneurs and consumers make fine tuning adjustments.”
Political leaders can’t keep up with that.
Still, pundits and politicians tell people, socialism does work — in Scandinavia.
“Mad Money’s Jim Cramer calls Norway “as socialist as they come!”
This too is nonsense.
“Sweden isn’t socialist,” says Powell. “Volvo is a private company. Restaurants, hotels, they’re privately owned.”
Norway, Denmark and Sweden are all free market economies.
Denmark’s former prime minister was so annoyed with economically ignorant Americans like Bernie Sanders calling Scandanavia “socialist,” he came to America to tell Harvard students that his country “is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
Powell says young people “hear the preaching of socialism, about equality, but they don’t look on what it actually delivers: poverty, starvation, early death.”
For thousands of years, the world had almost no wealth creation. Then, some countries tried capitalism. That changed everything.
“In the last 20 years, we’ve seen more humans escape extreme poverty than any other time in human history, and that’s because of markets,” says Powell.
Capitalism makes poor people richer.
Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) calls capitalism “slavery by another name.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) claims, “No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.”
That’s another myth.
People think there’s a fixed amount of money. So when someone gets rich, others lose.
But it’s not true. In a free market, the only way entrepreneurs can get rich is by creating new wealth.
Yes, Steve Jobs pocketed billions, but by creating Apple, he gave the rest of us even more. He invented technology that makes all of us better off.
“I hope that we get 100 new super billionaires,” says economist Dan Mitchell, “because that means 100 new people figured out ways to make the rest of our lives better off.”
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich advocates the opposite: “Let’s abolish billionaires,” he says.
He misses the most important fact about capitalism: it’s voluntary.
“I’m not giving Jeff Bezos any money unless he’s selling me something that I value more than that money,” says Mitchell.
It’s why under capitalism, the poor and middle class get richer, too.
“The economic pie grows,” says Mitchell. “We are much richer than our grandparents.”
When the media say the “middle class is in decline,” they’re technically right, but they don’t understand why it’s shrinking.
“It’s shrinking because more and more people are moving into upper income quintiles,” says Mitchell. “The rich get richer in a capitalist society. But guess what? The rest of us get richer as well.”
I cover more myths about socialism and capitalism in my new video.
Tariffs may fade. The collision between reconciliation, property rights, and investment will not.
British Columbia will talk about Donald Trump’s tariffs in 2026, and it will keep grinding through affordability. But the issue that will decide whether the province can build, invest, and govern is land use.
The warning signs were there in 2024. Land based industries still generate 12 per cent of B.C.’s GDP, and the province controls more than 90 per cent of the land base, and land policy was already being remade through opaque processes, including government to government tables. When rules for access to land feel unsettled, money flows slow into a trickle.
The Cowichan ruling sends shockwaves
In August 2025, the Cowichan ruling turned that unease into a live wire. The court recognized the Cowichan’s Aboriginal title over roughly 800 acres within Richmond, including lands held by governments and unnamed third parties. It found that grants of fee simple and other interests unjustifiably infringed that title, and declared certain Canada and Richmond titles and interests “defective and invalid,” with those invalidity declarations suspended for 18 months to give governments time to make arrangements.
The reaction has been split. Supporters see a reminder that constitutional rights do not evaporate because land changed hands. Critics see a precedent that leaves private owners exposed, especially because unnamed owners in the claim area were not parties to the case and did not receive formal notice. Even the idea of “coexistence” has become contentious, because both Aboriginal title and fee simple convey exclusive rights to decide land use and capture benefits.
Market chill sets in
McLTAikins translated the risk into advice that landowners and lenders can act on: registered ownership is not immune from constitutional scrutiny, and the land title system cannot cure a constitutional defect where Aboriginal title is established. Their explanation of fee simple reads less like theory than a due diligence checklist that now reaches beyond the registry.
By December, the market was answering. National Post columnist Adam Pankratz reported that an industrial landowner within the Cowichan title area lost a lender and a prospective tenant after a $35 million construction loan was pulled. He also described a separate Richmond hotel deal where a buyer withdrew after citing precedent risk, even though the hotel was not within the declared title lands. His case that uncertainty is already changing behaviour is laid out in Montrose.
Caroline Elliott captured how quickly court language moved into daily life after a City Richmond letter warned some owners that their title might be compromised. Whatever one thinks of that wording, it pushed land law out of the courtroom and into the mortgage conversation.
Mining and exploration stall
The same fault line runs through the critical minerals push. A new mineral claims regime now requires consultation before claims are approved, and critics argue it slows early stage exploration and forces prospectors to reveal targets before they can secure rights. Pankratz made that critique earlier, in his argument about mineral staking.
Resource Works, summarising AME feedback on Mineral Tenure Act modernisation, reported that 69.5 per cent of respondents lacked confidence in proposed changes, and that more than three quarters reported increased uncertainty about doing business in B.C. The theme is not anti consultation. It is that process, capacity, and timelines decide whether consultation produces partnership or paralysis.
The legal layer
Layered on top is the widening fight over UNDRIP implementation and DRIPA. Geoffrey Moyse, KC, called for repeal in a Northern Beat essay on DRIPA, arguing that Section 35 already provides the constitutional framework and that trying to operationalise UNDRIP invites litigation and uncertainty.
Tariffs and housing will still dominate headlines. But they are downstream of land. Until B.C. offers a stable bargain over who can do what, where, and on what foundation, every other promise will be hostage to the same uncertainty. For a province still built on land based wealth, Resource Works argues in its institutional history that the resource economy cannot be separated from land rules. In 2026, that is the main stage.
