Stephen Harper stands up for Canada

It's pretty rare that I agree with anything that Conservative ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper says. But strange times make for strange bedfellows, as they probably say.

In comparison to some of the garbage spewing from Donald Trump's mouth, Harper sounds eminently sensible and positively statesmanlike. In particular, his responses to Trump's recent drivel concerning US-Canadian relations on an American podcast were right on the nail.

He started off thumping the tub a bit in response to Trump's threats to use "economic force" to make Canada into the 51st state: " We are Canadian, not American, and we want to be friends, not, as they say, annexed."

But some of his responses to Trump's more specific grouses were better. To Trump's assertions that the US is subsidizing Canada and that it does not need Canada's exports anyway, Harper pointed out that, "It's true that Canada presently has a modest trade surplus with the United States. The reason we do is because you buy so much of our oil and gas." Well, duh!

Furthermore, "Maybe Canadians, if Mr. Trump feels this way, should be looking at selling their oil and gas to other people. We certainly have always wanted to do some of that - maybe now's the time to do it." And because we sell to the US at discounted prices, "In fact, you buy it at a discount to world markets. It's actually Canada that subsidizes the United States in this regard".

On illegal immigration from Canada to the US, Harper say, "There is no migrant flow happening from Canada to the United States of any significant numbers, and I'm going to tell you right now, drugs, guns, crime, most of those things flow north, not south. A lot more flows into Canada from the United States than flows out of it." Quite.

Canada's reliance on US military protection? "When we talk about subsidizing Canadian defense, I don't know what he's talking about. We have a shared defense of North America, and the United States does that because it's in the vital interest of the United States." Pow!

Trump's claim that he helped push out Justin Trudeau? "Whether or not we have Mr. Trudeau as our prime minister is our choice as Canadians. You know, we don't tell you whom to elect as president of the United States ... This is not Mr. Trump's decision. It's the decision of Canadians." 

And finally, if Pierre Poilievre is elected as Prime Minister: "If the United States actually threatens the sovereignty and independence of Canada, Mr. Poilievre will be forced to take a very different approach to Canada's place in the world." Right on!

I never liked Stephen Harper, either the man or his politics. But there he was, in Trump's own house, doing a pretty good job of standing up for Canada. Granted, it's easier because he is no longer in government, and can afford to make himself objectionable. But good job, I say.

Musings on the state of the world (and my place in it)

I was just thinking - in an absent, abstract sort of a way, during one of my many sleepless nights - about the state of the world. And it's not good, obvo.

The Four Horsemen are abroad (conquest, war, famine and death, if you are counting), and quite possibly the Antichrist. Perhaps the Four Horsemen could be re-cast slightly for the modern day as War, Plague, Ignorance and Right-Wing Populism, but you get the idea. And the Antichrist? That would be Donald Trump, enabler-in-chief of many of the ills besetting the world today. The Gates of Hell are open, and the demons are loose.

As we register the hottest year ever (yet again!) and swathes of America are burning in the middle of winter, political leaders - and a frightening number of regular folks who sleepwalk along with them like rats with the Pied Piper - are assuring us that we don't need to do anything about it. Even as we speak, climate change policies are being dismantled, subsidies for clean energy and sustainable tech disbanded, fossil fuels given a new lease on life.

Companies are rewriting their rules on diversity, equity and inclusion, even on telling the truth, because, with Trump in charge, they don't need to think about such things. Hard-fought rights, achieved through decades of slow, painstaking effort, are being abandoned overnight. Truth, respect and common sense have never been so imperilled and devalued. 

It seems like Trump, Musk and the MAGA crowd are redefining social more and economic expectations everywhere, and right-wing populist acolytes in other countries (Poilievre, Farage, Meloni, Orban, Wilder, Le Pen, Modi, many others) are calling the shots, suddenly lent legitimacy by the hateful rhetoric and thoughtless policy-making of Trump and his lackeys.

The Overton window has lurched to the right in an unprecedented manner (unprecedented since the 1930s anyway). For the right wing, almost nothing is off the table, nothing considered too extreme. Even progressives are making pronouncements that would have been unimaginable just a few short years ago, walking back policies they once saw as essential, incontrovertible, in the face of the anti-woke backlash. And it has happened so fast, it has almost happened while no-one was looking.

All of this is going on at the same time as power-mad war-mongers like Putin and Netanyahu hold sway, and autocratics like Xi make their subtler moves to mould the world in their favour. Coincidence? I guess so, or maybe each leads the others on, in a kind of feedback loop.

Maybe it is the inexorable back-and-forth swing of history. Maybe it is merely the influence of one particularly forceful demagogue, who will fade into senescence and obscurity in just a few short years. Or maybe it is the new paradigm that we need to come to terms with and accommodate. 

I would hate for the latter to be true, though. I'm an older guy, and I feel pretty powerless and discouraged. I just feel like crawling into a shell and waiting it out. The older I get the more cynical I become about the world and the people in it. 

But I have to believe that a new generation of idealists is growing up, incensed at the direction the world is going, and the alarming way it is wobbling on it axis. I was once that idealist, although it seems like a very long time ago that I had the energy. 

Maybe this is just me capitulating and throwing in the towel. But I feel like all I am able to do nowadays is to just live as exemplary a life as I can, in my own middle-class white-guy way - drive my electric car, keep my solar panels clean, buy carbon offsets when I fly, donate to charity, try to be nice to all people most of the time, follow the rules if they seem sensible. I know it's not really enough, but I live in hope that some saviour, some anti-Trump, will lead us out of this soon.

The 1.5°C global temperature threshold has officially been exceeded

Well, we all knew it, but now it's official: 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first year to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (which is usually taken as 1850-1900). The dreaded 1.5°C threshold enshrined in the Paris Accord has therefore been passed, and it continues to increase with no sign of a slow-down. Paris Climate Agreement bye-bye.

A couple of graphs from Europe's Copernicus Project paint a stark picture. The first one shows the not-so-slow-and-steady increase of global average surface temperatures over and above pre-industrial levels for every year since 1967. The second one shows five year averages all the way back to 1850.

It makes sobering viewing. Unless, of course, you just don't care, which seems to be the position taken by an increasing umber of populist governments, and the people who vote for them.

Trump politicizes California's fire disaster

As Los Angeles and environs suffer from unprecedented winter forest fires - currently at least 10 dead and over 10,000 buildings burned down, with no end in sight - Donald Trump has decided to weigh in with his explanation of it all.

Apparently, it's not due to Santa Ana winds and climate change at all, it's all due to Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom and his misplaced concern for a small worthless fish.

You see, according to Trump, there is a mysterious "very large faucet" somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, that would allow millions of gallons of "excess" water to flow down into California from Canada and the north of the US, but Governor Newsom ("Newscum", as Trump insists on calling him, in his usual pre-school manner) refuses to sign a "water restoration declaration" that would allow this because he is unduly concerned about an endangered fish called the delta smelt. "He is the blame for this".

If all this seems improbable, that's because it is in fact a load of old cobblers. As Oregon's state climatologist says, "There is indeed no such diversion system, and none has been seriously proposed that I am aware of".

So, Trump has basically made something up (or someone has made it up for him, let's not give him too much credit!) in order to politicize a natural disaster that he should be expressing concern over. This is who you have elected, America.

UPDATE

Others in MAGAland have chosen to blame the fact that LA's fire department is run by women, who, presumably, are too dumb to carry out such a responsible job. (Trump will probably amplify that too when he finds out about it.). According to another MAGA commentator, it's even worse: the fire department leaders are not just women, but lesbians!

Fire chief Kristin Crowley is indeed a woman, but only 3 of the 12 top officials in LAFD are female (I have no idea if they are lesbians, but maybe!), so it's a bit of a stretch, to say the least. As to why a woman would not be able to do the job perfectly well is not explained, apparently being axiomatic for many of the post's readers.

Not to be outdone, of course, Elon Musk had to make his opinion known, and his take is that it is all those black firefighters and California's woke DEI policies that are to blame. *sigh*

Donald Trump Jr.'s considered opinion is that the fires are down to woke California's support for Ukraine. This might sound like a particularly difficult logical deduction, but Trump Jr. can do that kind of extreme mental gymnastics.

California did indeed make some donations of firefighting equipment to Ukraine back in 2022, but no-one else has managed to make the quantum leap of logic to connect that to the current extreme forest fire situation. Well done, Donny.

Los Angeles' fire chief has specifically said that equipment is not the issue, although personnel to use the equipment maybe is. And, more to the point, no firefighting equipment or personnel would be sufficient to deal with fires of this magnitude.

In fact, there are now so many weird far-right beliefs being disseminated that Governor Gavin Newsom has had to create a whole website with which to refute them. How much time and effort gets wasted by these clowns, who seem to have nothing better to do than to make stuff up!

So, are carbon taxes actually working in Canada?

Here's an interesting article on the effectiveness of carbon taxes and cap-and-trade schemes. Some are arguing that the days of carbon taxes are over, mainly because people (read "Conservatives") don't like paying taxes (even if they receive a rebate to make it income-neutral). Even some progressives are seeing the writing on the wall and starting to look into alternatives. Hell, even Mark Carney is saying that the carbon tax has "served a purpose up until now".

What the article shows is that, yes, carbon taxes and cap-and-trade are effective, but maybe not as effective as we once thought. Canada's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions HAVE fallen since 2005, but only by about 0.4% a year on average. We need them to fall by about 4.5% a year to achieve our targets by 2030, about ten times the current rate.

Drilling down, British Columbia was the first jurisdiction in Canada to establish a carbon tax (2008). As the graph below shows, its GHG emissions did indeed fall for a while, but then started to increase again (with a dip for the pandemic) and, by 2022, they were only about 1% lower than when the carbon tax was started 14 years earlier.

Quebec introduced its cap-and-trade program in 2013. It too saw a slight reduction in GHG emissions for a few years (see graph below) before they started to climb again, dipping during the pandemic, to end 2022 just 1.25% lower than in 2013.

Ontario only had a cap-and-trade system for a year or so in 2017 before Doug Ford closed it down, and the federal carbon tax only took effect in 2019, just before the pandemic. What the graph below shows, though, is that Ontario's GHG emissions have been steadily decreasing since 2005 anyway (shutting down its coal plants helped with that), and the cap-and-trade and carbon tax have made little to no difference. Between 2005 and 2019, Ontario's GHG emissions fell by 19%, but since 2019 they have gone up slightly (except for a slight dip during the pandemic).

All in all, this is not particularly impressive, it has to be said. So, what does the article suggest to allow us to up our game? Given that the rich contribute much more to our GHG emissions than the poor, the author proposes a much more progressive income-tested carbon tax, along with regulatory changes and increased incentives to switch to renewable energy. 

Hmm. I guess I'm on board with that, in principle at least. Just how do we push such a scheme through, though, during the current backlash against all things environmental, and when we are staring down the barrel of four years of "axe-the-tax" Conservative rule in Canada, and slash-and-burn Trump just across our southern border? That's not so clear.

Meta cancels fact-checking because truth is no longer a cultural norm

Meta (i.e. Facebook) has just announced that it will stop any fact-checking it used to do on Facebook posts. 

Well, that's convenient. CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes no secret of the fact that this move is precipitated by the election of one, Donald Trump, to the US presidency. He referred to Trump's election as "a cultural tipping point towards prioritizing, once again, speech". 

Well, speech has always been a priority, as far as I know, as has free speech (which is presumably what he actually means). But the tipping pointing in question is really accurate free speech, true speech. Trump, of course, does not like fact-checking because his approach to politics relies on lies, and lots of them. Zuckerberg also calls the move getting "back to our roots around free expression", whatever that might mean.

Mr. Zuckerberg, it seems, is quite content to sway whichever way the political winds blow, truth be damned. He says that the current Meta system of fact-checking moderators (brought in in 2016 to try to stem the tsunami of untruths let loose before and after Trump's last election) is prone to too many mistakes and biases. So, his solution is not to improve it, but to get rid of it completely, replacing it with an X-style system of "community notes", where individuals can point out factual errors (in their opinion) but the original post stays, however erroneous. Because that's free speech, don't you know? And look how well it's working on X...

Zuckerberg was never the most upstanding or ethical of individuals - his pursuit of money was always top of mind - but this move shows his true colours, currently red. It's just one more alarming portent of just how bad a second Trump administration can get, for the USA and for the world.

To further curry favour with Trump, Zuckerberg has specifically ruled that Meta users will be allowed to call LGBTQ people "mentally ill", a move that has sparked a backlash within the organization, and widespread condemnation without. Still, some people will be happy, and those are the people that Zuckerberg cares about (at the moment anyway).

This is all part and parcel of the more general American corporate trend away from DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in hiring and employment practices, that has really gathered steam since Trump's election. It's almost like all these major companies were just going along with all that woke nonsense for a while, and now see that the wind is blowing from another quarter and are more than happy to get back to money-making with all those ethical hurdles removed. 

Meta, Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds, and many of the major banks and financial institutions have all walked back their DEI commitments recently, in what is one of the most blatant and unabashed corporate about-faces I can ever remember. They accompany their moves with some likely-sounding (but devoid of actual meaning) bafflegab, like "shifting legal and policy landscape", "winding down outdated programs and materials", "mitigate bias for all, no matter your background", etc. But you can almost see them grinning and rubbing their hands in the background.

Justin Trudeau's legacy

As Justin Trudeau hands in his resignation letter, what will he be mostly remembered for? I'm sure there will be many such analyses of Trudeau's legacy in the press in the days to come, but CityNews offers one early list:

• Legalizing cannabis - a promise kept, but probably not a defining moment.
• Reneging on election reform - he expressed his sadness for not having pushed through the proportional representation reforms he promised us (although he had plenty of opportunity while the Liberals had a majority government).
• Indigenous reconciliation - much more remains to be done, but Trudeau has "done more to improve the quality of life for First Nations than any other prime minister" according to AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse.
• Canada Child Benefit - the new non-taxable income-dependent benefit went a long way toward reducing poverty in the country.
• Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act - a much-needed revenue-neutral carbon tax, and the first time a Canadian leader put their money where their environmental mouth is (although, paradoxically, it is now probably the main single reason for the Liberals' current unpopularity, even if it was a popular move at the time).
• COVID pandemic measures - not a bad job of handling an unhandlable situation (even if some Western truckers didn't like the vaccine mandates, they saved countless lives).
• NAFTA re-negotiation - he and his team made the best of a bad deal, as he did in more general terms in handling the unhandlable Donald Trump.

All in all, not a bad resumé, really. To this one might add: the establishment of a gender-balanced cabinet, "because it's 2015" (although it wouldn't last); the welcoming of tens of thousands of Syrian and Afghan refugees; enacting access to medical assistance in dying (MAID); unflagging support and aid to Ukraine in its existential war against Russia; $10-a-day subsidized childcare; important first steps on comprehensive dental and pharmacare. Yes, he lost his way towards the end, but this is nevertheless an impressive list of achievements

Other, less generous, commentators might try to pin inflation on him, as Pierre Poilievre does, but they know in their hearts that it was not due to specific Trudeau policies (the rest of the world also experienced the same thing). Necessary pandemic stimulus, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, global supply chain problems - there are many elements to the spike in inflation (now largely under control after central bank interventions), but Justin Trudeau is not personally responsible for the fact that things cost more now than they did a few years ago.

Nor is the country "broken" after 9 years of Trudeau, as Poilievre has managed to persuade many Canadians. Canada actually came through a particularly challenging time in pretty good shape, all things considered, and better than many other countries. I don't think Poilievre could have done much better, however much he blusters.

Immigration? Trudeau has always been gung-ho on immigration, and indeed it has been our saving grace in the face of a naturally-shrinking population, whatever the Conservatives might tell you. Maybe the temporary foreign workers program and the international student population has been mismanaged and ballooned out of control, but large cuts to immigration to pacify Conservative xenophobes is not the solution.

And all those scandals? They don't really amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of things. If youthful blackface, the SNC Lavalin/Jody Wilson-Raybould and WE charity pseudo-scandals, and holidaying with the Aga Khan is as bad as it gets, things could be much worse. We Canadians tend to agonize over these things.

So, yes, Trudeau should have resigned much earlier, for the good of the country he claims to love so much; like so many other leaders, he overstayed his welcome. But his administration has been far from disastrous, and he has achieved much that he - and the country - can be proud of. Just watch Pierre Poilievre try his damnedest to undo as much of it as possible.

Trudeau finally announces resignation - much too late to be helpful

So, finally, Justin Trudeau has announced that he will resign his position as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and therefore as Prime Minster of the country.

After months of pressure from his own caucus, who see his unpopularity as a millstone around the Liberal Party's neck (and a hindrance to their own re-election chances), he has done with his "reflecting on his future", and concluded that he has none. 

Supposedly, he wanted to make the announcement before the Liberal caucus meeting later this week so that it would look like he resigned on his own terms, and was not pushed out by disgruntled members of his own party. Except that everyone already knows he was - his caucus has made no secret of their feelings for many months now.

Unfortunately, his resignation comes much too late. Everyone else except Trudeau knew that he should have gone a year ago. The Liberals are now 25% behind the Conservatives in the polls and, although a replacement for Trudeau might help that a bit, there is no way they can make up much ground before an election is called, which will come just as soon as the Conservatives (and the NDP for that matter) get another chance to engineer a confidence vote.

However, that won't happen until the end of March at the earliest, because Trudeau also prorogued Parliament until March 24th. All parliamentary activity, from the progress of existing bills to committee work to in-house debate, will therefore cease for the next two-and-a-half months. Much important legislation in progress is now dead in the water, including a bill to ensure clean drinking water in Indigenous reserves, and a federal tax credit to support clean energy investment by provincial power utilities and Indigenous corporations, among others.

And, of course, there will be no confidence votes either. This will buy the Liberals some time to elect a new leader (maybe - that would be a record short period for choosing a new party leader). But it will also mean that the country is rudderless and unprepared for the accession of Donald Trump in the USA on January 20th, and any wacko politics he introduces in his first few weeks. And there will be many, not least the potential imposition of a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports, as Trump has repeatedly threatened.

How will we deal with that? Do we have to wait until April for a Canadian response? If Trudeau had resigned a year ago, when the writing was already on the wall, a new leader could be already in place and ready to deal with anything that America throws at us. Instead, we are going to end up with Poilievre here (eventually) and Trump there, a perfect storm of populist craziness.

And, in the meantime, as Trump assumes almost unlimited power in America, with Canada apparently firmly in his sights, we have ... nothing. No Prime Minister, no functioning government, and a bunch of cabinet ministers squabbling among themselves over who should replace Trudeau, with the added wildcard of potential replacements possibly having to resign their cabinet positions in order to even stand. 

Trudeau, in his hubris, has thrown his party, the country, and all those "hard-working Canadians" he professes to love so much, under the bus. He should have resigned a year ago, but not now. If anything, it would have been better for him to stay on than to land us in this predicament at this particular juncture. If only he could have taken a leaf out of New Zealand's Jacinta Ardern's book. Oh, Canada!