Going green should not make Canadians go broke
Without a doubt, rising population and prosperity in the developing world will grow global demand for energy for the foreseeable future. For human progress, this is fantastic. Billions will be lifted out of poverty. Central to this progress is access to reliable and reasonably priced power.
According to every reliable forecasting agency, from the International Energy Agency to multinational energy conglomerates like BP, the rising demand for energy cannot be met any time soon by renewables like wind and solar.
In the next several decades at least, many more hydrocarbons will be burned than are burned today.
For some, rising energy-fuelled growth and prosperity is more of a curse than a blessing. How can we “decarbonize” our world in the face of inexorable growth in demand for oil, coal and natural gas?
As the world’s fastest-growing economies expand fossil fuels usage, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is heading in the opposite direction, heaping on taxes and regulations designed to reduce consumption of carbon-based energy along with the emissions and jobs it produces.
The tax-and-regulatory gap with Canada’s largest trading partner widened after Donald Trump became president of the United States. When Trump jettisoned the Paris climate agreement he was loudly rebuked. Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble was among those calling for climate action. But soon after, the multinational closed its plant in Brockville, Ont., to relocate operations in West Virginia where coal-powered energy is much cheaper.
Canada’s CO2 emissions from P&G along with almost 500 manufacturing jobs will shift from Ontario to the U.S. — jobs from Canada are West Virginia’s unexpected reward for voting Trump.
When Trudeau came face-to-face with 54-year-old Kathy Katula from rural Ontario last January, he learned about real-life consequences.
“My heat and hydro now cost me more than my mortgage,” Katula tearfully explained.
“How is it justified for you to ask me to pay a carbon tax when I only have $65 left of my paycheque every two weeks to feed my family?”
Although Trudeau’s carbon tax will make hydrocarbon fuels even more expensive, Katula’s main complaint is with the Liberal government of Ontario.
Ontarians suffering from energy poverty can blame the province’s massively subsidized and poorly structured green energy contracts, recklessly rapid phase-out of coal power, the infamous gas plant cancellations and gross mismanagement of power supply and demand.
In Ontario, residential electricity bills have more than doubled in the last decade.
Canadian Taxpayers Federation research reveals electricity costs at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital have increased 75 per cent since 2013; Woodstock Hospital has seen a 60-per-cent increase in the same time.
In British Columbia, the health authorities spent more than $5 million on carbon offsets in 2015 alone. Yet, B.C. will begin to ratchet up its carbon tax each year on April 1 until it hits $50 a tonne in 2021.
Alberta’s NDP government is also accelerating coal plant closures, subsidizing renewables and taxing and regulating carbon dioxide. Their carbon tax increased by 50 per cent to $30 a tonne on Jan. 1.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley defended her carbon tax by suggesting it would have negligible effects on gasoline costs, yet would reduce emissions by incenting some Albertans to walk or take the bus.
Critics slammed her as either illogical or hypocritical — and badly out of touch.
Like Trudeau’s encounter with Katula, it was another example of a green political crusader talking down to the people paying for the crusade.
As taxes and costs rise, promised green jobs fail to materialize, and few others in the world make these sacrifices, Canadians may soon start demanding a new approach that puts affordability on par with sustainability — and political accountability.
Paige MacPherson is a contributing writer to Canadians for Affordable Energy. This first appeared in the Toronto Sun.