Sask. PM Moe isn’t buying Net Zero, nor should he

Province won’t ‘attempt the impossible’ by moving to a higher-cost energy regime that would cripple its industry and agriculture

By Rex Murphy, National Post, May 19, 2023

In this current mad moment in Canadian politics, when the nation’s global warming synod (the high priest being the most frequent flyer in the country, Justin Trudeau) is handing out billions of dollars from an exhausted treasury to carmakers if they locate in Ontario, Moe has most sensibly held up a “hold on!” sign. Very daring, Mr. Premier.

The “hold on” refers to the ludicrously impossible goal of net-zero emissions, the “just transition” to a dead Alberta energy industry, and a full retreat from energy security and reliability in the name of applause from the IPCC, perhaps Klaus Schwab himself, certainly tower-climber Steven Guilbeault, and emphatically the two-member caucus of what remains of the fractured and spent Green Party of Canada.

Premier Moe insists “net-zero” imperatives will not govern his administration.

Digression 1. I love the term “net zero.” Because it is so inspiring. What a slogan. It must have taken teams of communications consultants, charging huge fees, to come up with a term that so captures the aspirational spirit of Canadians from East to West to North (do we have a South in this rhetorical progression?).

“Let’s lead the charge to zero.” There’s a slogan that will renew Canadian patriotism. That will rouse the populace. For what does it really mean? Just this. Let us splay our chief and most necessary industry. Let us antagonize the western provinces. Let us retreat from the security of energy we have and dive blindfolded into the speculative (and madly subsidized by public money from a federal government already saturated with debt and deficit) “green” future. (End of Digression 1)

Courage needed to oppose woke fantasy

Premier Moe has the impertinence to reject this hallowed fantasy of the greenologists. In the current woke frenzy, to stand aside from certain brands of madness takes (what it should not require in a sane world) some considerable courage.

Here is Moe’s admirably forthright response to the forced dream and embraced folly of net zero, specifically the Trudeau government’s dictum that electrical grids be net zero by 2035:

“I want to be very clear about this. In Saskatchewan, we will not attempt the impossible when it comes to power production in our province. We will not risk plunging our homes, our schools, our hospitals, our special-care homes, our businesses into the cold and darkness because of the ideological whims of others. We will not increase power costs for our businesses and for our families to the point they become completely unaffordable. If we were to do that, we wouldn’t grow anything in Saskatchewan. We wouldn’t move anything. We wouldn’t go anywhere. And we’d get awful cold in a hurry. Saskatchewan must have affordable and reliable electricity available on demand.”

Digression 2: How very fine. His statement has an element I have not seen too often in sitting politicians. Directness and clarity. For example, it contrasts rather greatly with the great feminist hope of the federal Liberal party, Chrystia Freeland, who when asked about the cost associated with the federal debt, hilariously characterized the question as “fiscal fear-mongering.” Where does she come up with these novel terms? Does it require overtime bills from certain communications advisers known to Trade Minister Mary Ng? (End of Digression 2.)

Good for you Premier Moe. A straight statement, empty of equivocation and communications-schooled non-phrases. Just the direct response without the decoration of the flatulent non-meaning verbiage that clutters the climate-change ardents’ endless and always failing doom alerts. The end of the world gets tedious when it is too often promised and then endlessly deferred.

Province needs secure energy supply

Moe continued from the quote above with another instance of superb clarity. He was referring to his province having a secure energy supply — a matter not sufficiently attended to by the pastors of holy greenology.

“And under our watch it most certainly is going to (have a secure energy supply). We are choosing the Saskatchewan plan. And now I would say that the federal government has a choice as well. And let’s hope they make the right one.”

The premier’s defiance contains an element not sufficiently kept in mind in present day Canada — that this is a federation, a combine of federal and provincial powers and jurisdictions. It might not suit a prime minister on a state visit to South Korea, preaching EV subsidies and future Newfoundland hydrogen plants, to hear these words from a premier in his own country, but the idea of a federation is that its constituents — the provinces — not only have jurisdictional powers, but — here’s the real shock — different concerns and ideas from those of imperialist Ottawa.

This holy green grail of net zero is an ideological fantasy subscribed to by virtue-signallers and undernourished minds who spray tomato soup onto masterpieces of artistic creativity, and glue themselves onto thoroughfares. “I squat on the pavement so that the world may be saved” is not a persuasive argument.

Its adoption by the Davos illuminati and by self-denigrating western politicians must offer China and Russia moments of high laughter not unmixed with scorn. The day that Russia or China (or India, or even the United States under the fitfully functioning Joseph Biden) commits to net zero is not in any human (or extraterrestrial) calendar.

Why only 2 1/2 cheers? Moe should reject whole idea of net zero

So why only 2 ½ cheers?

Because Premier Moe didn’t completely slam the whole idea. In his wise heart he knows net zero in any year in the future is a delusion and a rank falsity for a modern economy. In the current moment, however, to say that carries insurmountable political risk. I therefore understand his reluctance.

Still, many marks for his stand. It is certainly better than what we are hearing from an offshore-oil premier in Newfoundland, who on net zero as a policy has had the silence of a mime.

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