Salvation has come, the Liberals say: The electric snowmobile

Good to see Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, Seamus O'Regan, is back in his office after his sojourn to dear Newfoundland, on behalf of Premier Furey, in the botched provincial election. The election itself was halted, or cancelled, or put on ice — to use a phrase — after the province had, for it, a huge spike in COVID cases. Prior to the — let's call it a postponement — Mr. O'Regan was out doing the old door-to-door with various Liberal candidates, a sprightly sight for Newfoundlanders weary from lockdowns, February and firing up the woodstove.

But as said he's back now, and back at what remains his prime minister's absolutely No. 1 fixation, trimming Canada's carbon-dioxide emissions. Adorning Twitter Thursday was the minister's message that — Hallelujah — “Electric snowmobiles will get us to net-zero.” How sweet it is to know after a full year of COVID and lockdowns, businesses failing from one coast to the other, people almost driven numb by anxiety and loss of normal socialization, that someone is keeping, as they say, their eye on the ball, and tending to the important things, namely, exhaust from winter recreational vehicles. And to think some complain they don't have their priorities straight.

I'm not sure of this but it could well be that, next alone to bovine flatulence, snowmobiles powered by gasoline might be one of the great triggers of global warming. Now with a plan to build a mighty fleet, battery-powered, we have Mr. O'Regan's pledge that Canada will edge ever closer to a non-carbon, net-zero economy. (That is, with this proviso, that the perpetual shutdown won't absolutely and completely destroy the Canadian economy first.)

Electric snowmobiles is an idea whose time has come. Purring along over the frozen tundra, or out in the wild barrens of Newfoundland, skirting the magnificent hills and valleys in Alberta, the electric snowmobile will be Canada's all-time signal, that regardless of China and its coal mines, the oil-gushing Middle East, or India's push for industry, the Paris accords are safe and Canada is back.

The tweet didn't expand with any detail on accompanying developments. In my own province for example, if a band of merry snowmobilers are roving the longabandoned railway line, or even more daringly out on the dread Witless Bay Barrens, in temperatures even colder than, say, Texas yesterday, and the batteries fail, what do they do?

Where's the charging station? In that little clump of spruce trees over there? Not likely. Perhaps near some landmark familiar to the outdoors types. Nope. And despite their populous presence along the province's bit of Trans-Canada Highway, you will not find an Irving Station in the loon-haunted wildernesses of Newfoundland and Labrador. You can go miles and miles in country and there's not a gas station to be found anywhere. Strange, isn't it?

It is a feature of the Newfoundland wild: the absence of charging stations. And this is not a new thing. Even a hundred years ago the few who ventured into the interior of Newfoundland found themselves nonplussed — even fraught, which is worse than nonplussed — by the absence of power outlets. That's why they left the iPhones home when they travelled inland. So unless someone invents the Near-Infinite Extension Cord, I am not entirely confident that battery-powered snowmobiles are going to make the top of the Christmas wish list for any winter-loving, outdoor-living Canadian sportsman.

Another point. There is an awful amount of sheer outdoors in Canada. And the thought of populating the Great White North with charging stations might even daunt this global-warming-fraught Liberal government. Besides, I am certain that the environmentalists themselves would see this as a desecration on the natural environment. There would be protests. There would be blockades. There would be CBC specials.

We have a better chance of building pipelines than siting thousands of charging stations for the pure benefit of the Canadian snowmobiler.

So while I hail Minister O'Regan's thought, I fear the electric snowmobile will face a tough reception. It will not fly as easily as his other great initiatives, planting two billion trees, to keep the 300 billion trees Canada already has company. The trees will fly. The EV snowmobile — in the ditch before it even hits the ignition.

A last flash, is it possible that announcements like this one could be intended as a distraction from other matters? Like vaccine procurement? Vast, unchecked expenditures? A mostly closed Parliament? WE scandals? Conflict-of-interest?

On reflection I think not. That would imply a measure of cynicism in the present administration. And in the five years they have been in power we have not a smidgen, not a jot or tittle, of a suggestion that they are capable of such.

THE ELECTRIC SNOWMOBILE WILL FACE A TOUGH RECEPTION.