Conservatives need to hear harsh truths

Deputy Conservative Leader Candice Bergen said the Throne Speech fails to acknowledge the oil and gas sector. But it did; it’s just that she didn’t like what she heard.

References in the speech to fossil fuel sector were exclusively tied to government ambitions to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Promising, “The federal government would support energy sector as they transition to a net zero future, creating good paying and long lasting jobs.”

This is not the usual largess with which the oil industry is use to receiving in the past. Instead, it sounds like a wake-up call from a changing world.

Canada’s oil and gas sector has work to do refitting itself for the coming decarbonized world. The government has promised help it transition away from businessas-usual model.

The speech also gave a shout out to “farmers, foresters, ranchers” and wants to make them “key partners in the fight against climate change.”

It promised to cut corporate taxes in half for companies developing zero-emissions products like electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Not what Alberta’s western alliance expected? During the televised, post-speech responses, the tone of Bergen’s dismissal was harsh. We know Western resentment towards Liberal Canada runs high in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Erin O’Toole accuses the Liberals of stoking division and alienation. But that’s hard to square. These days many Canadians find Western alienation less genuine; unlike Quebec nationalism which is defined around language and culture and people, Western alienation is defined around money, derived from environmentally harmful oilsands development that requires more multi-jurisdictional pipelines, which is diametrically opposed to what we need to do to slow the disastrous effects from climate change.