Canada’s Eco-warriors work to Create Canezuela

The word “fabricate” always comes to mind when reading press releases from the renewable energy crowd like CanWEA and CanSIA but not in the good way meaning to “construct or manufacture”!  Instead what enters the mind is the first definition of the word which is to “invent (false information)”!  That latter definition was in recent full display in respect to several press releases coming from CanWEA, CanSIA, Waterpower Canada and a few others.

Specifically, the press releases were in respect to a letter signed by 12 parties addressed to PM Trudeau and was assumedly fabricated by Merran Smith, Executive Director, Clean Energy Canada, Simon Fraser University with the major theme being:

“The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerability of the systems Canadians rely on, systems that stand to be similarly disrupted by climate-related impacts in the future absent a sustained and accelerated effort to mitigate carbon pollution while enhancing systemic resilience.”

Comparing the Covid-19 pandemic to the “climate emergency” is quite a stretch, ie: “fabrication”! The Covid-19 pandemic took just three months to severely impact the world’s economy whereas those shouting the world will end because of global warming unless we reduce carbon emissions has been their message for three decades.

The forecast that systems will be “similarly disrupted by climate-related impacts; is a fabrication!  No mention is made in the letter that emissions will contribute to “global warming” which has been the favourite dogma of the eco-warriors. Perhaps avoiding the term “global warming” is because recent evidence suggests increased emissions are not having that effect, as many real scientists have noted. A very recent headline in fact stated “Artic April Grips North America Breaking Hundreds of All-time Records” and looking back to April 2018 we were also experiencing an extremely cold April and meteorologists proclaimed: “April 2018 will likely end up being in the top 5 of the coldest in recorded history.”  These events (facts) are perhaps throwing a “wet blanket” on the past “global warming” forecasts by those reputed experts?

It is worth recalling a decade ago, “climate alarmists” and the “renewable energy” crowd convinced our naïve OLP Premier, Dalton McGuinty and Minister of Energy, George Smitherman, to create the GEA. Here is a look back at Smitherman’s and McGuinty’s quote’s in the Toronto Star in early 2009:  “Ontario’s Green Energy Act will create 50,000 new jobs in construction, trucking and engineering while laying the groundwork for developing projects more quickly, Energy Minister George Smitherman said today.”  “Premier Dalton McGuinty said while he understood a switch from making cars to making wind turbines may not be easy for workers in Ontario, green technology is key to boosting the province’s economy.”  Hmm, wonder how that turned out!

Fast forward from those days in early 2009 to see similar claims in the April 3, 2020 letter to our self-isolating PM signed by Robert Hornung. President of CanWEA and the other eleven who are either; not-for-profit eco-warrior groups or associations of “clean energy” industries, like CanSIA, WaterPower Canada, Electric Mobility Canada or Advanced Biofuels Canada etc.

The letter notes Clean Energy Canada commissioned a “modeling” by Navius Research and the result apparently was what they wanted and/or asked for.  Navius Research is a small research company whose employees/research experts seem to be products of the same University (Simon Fraser) housing Clean Energy Canada yet the letter to the PM didn’t disclose the conflicted connection.

The claim in the letter suggesting, “The analysis found that by 2030 Canada’s clean energy sector will employ 559,400 Canadians—in jobs like insulating homes, manufacturing electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, and ​building and maintaining renewable electricity projects​” is a rehash of what Ontarians were told except the claims are ten (10) times bigger.  Funnily enough, the employment levels suggested are actually less than those Natural Resources Canada reported as being employed (2018) in the oil and gas and related sectors in their recent “Energy Fact Book 2019-2020”.  Their facts state the oil and gas sector represented 7.7% ($160 billion) of Canada’s GDP and had direct and related employment of 576,000 jobs including 10,000 Indigenous people.

Most Canadians, if confronted with those two sets of facts, would be inclined to accept data provided by NRCAN rather than a prejudicial report from a small research firm whose experts were trained by those pushing to “mitigate carbon pollution”.

Just to “rub a little salt in the wounds” of Canadian taxpayers, Navius Research received approximately 20 contracts from the Federal Ministries of Natural Resources Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada valued in the neighbourhood of $800 thousand over the past several years.

The time has come to stop the madness of the eco-warriors who seem determined to turn Canada into Canezuela!

We are in the midst of an Eco-charities panic

It seems readily apparent the ENGO (environmental non-government organizations) are in a panic mode as the Covid-19 pandemic has swept the purported “climate emergency” from the front pages to the back pages of the MSM. Their concerns are no doubt focused on possible outcomes that will impact them significantly such as:

1.Their fans/donors may be distracted or become unemployed due to the pandemic!

2.Their fans may not have the available dollars to donate to the cause(s) they tout;  to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 or 2050 (pick your target) and save the world from a 1.5 degree “average” temperature increase by the year 2100.

3.Those eco-charities who pushing  the “carbon tax” may find the Liberal government will have no money to hand out via grants to them as they did in the past!

A recent example of the panic was evident in a tweet by Tzeporah Berman who shouted out: “It’s now been two weeks since Finance Minister Bill Morneau told reporters that a Big Oil bailout was coming in “hours, possibly days” – and details still haven’t been announced. It’s clear that our pressure is working. You can chip in here to keep it growing:  xxxxx.  Thanks to the growing public outcry around a Big Oil bailout, we’re now hearing reports that the Liberal party is increasingly divided around what to do. This is encouraging, but the government still has the power to announce a massive handout to oil and gas companies at any time – and they haven’t ruled it out. It’s time to pull out all the stops. With our friends at Leadnow, we’ve come up with a plan to splash our message all over the CBC news website, at a time when millions of Canadians are consuming online news like never before. Just several months ago Ms. Berman was reputedly awarded a $2 million prize by The Climate Breakthrough Project so she personally could afford to pay up for the CBC ad to push her anti oil and gas agenda.

Recently Ms. Berman* wrote an article for the National Observer wherein she stated: “our government pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into fossil fuel subsidies years after commitments made at the G20 that those would be phased out.“  Apparently Tzeporah Berman and her loyal followers are completely unaware that none other than the Chair of the Ecofiscal Commission, Chris Ragan, interviewed by Steve Paikin on TVO’s “The Agenda” was asked the question: ”What about subsidizing fossil fuels, what we do to the tune of $1 billion per year?” Ragan’s response:  “We as a country do not have explicit fossil fuel subsidies.”  Ragan was recently appointed as a Director of the Canadian Institute of Climate Choices, funded with $20 million of our tax dollars.  The Ecofiscal Commission recommended the “carbon tax” in Canada should be $210/tonne to reduce emissions so we should expect the same to come from the CICC!

There are many others working to shut down the oil and gas sector. Several groups of ENGO have taken to writing letters to Prime Minister “sunny daze” himself, begging him to shut the sector down:

Green Budget Coalition 

The Green Budget Coalition is made up of 22 of the eco-charities pushing “environmental sustainability” and they penned a letter April 8, 2020 to the Prime Minister, the Deputy PM and the Finance Minister.  The letter suggests:  “Large-scale financial interventions designed with climate, ecosystem, social and economic resilience in mind will improve Canadians’ well-being in the wake of the pandemic, not only in economic terms, but also in terms of the health, social and environmental benefits of reduced GHG emissions, employment in a more equitable and sustainable economy, and flourishing biodiversity. “They also suggest we are in a “climate emergency” stating:  “consider the next steps in Canada’s response to COVID-19 in the context of the unrelenting concurrent crises that threaten our well-being in the long term: the climate emergency and the precipitous decline in biodiversity largely driven by habitat loss.”

Climate Action Network

The Climate Action Network has 105 members and they too have penned a letter to PM Trudeau and CC-ed it to “Federal Cabinet Ministers”!  Collectively they claim to have 1.3 million members; or about the same number as those who just became unemployed due to the pandemic. Their letter states: “The federal government has the opportunity with this stimulus package to immediately and directly support workers in Alberta and across the country while also investing in what is needed to grow and support a low carbon economy, and the kind of economy that can weather storms.”  The letter goes on to state: “Oil and gas companies are already heavily subsidized in Canada and the public cannot keep propping them up with tax breaks and direct support forever.”  It appears they too, do not believe one of their ilk, ie: Chris Ragan, (see above), who stated “We as a country do not have explicit fossil fuel subsidies.”

Clean Energy Canada

Clean Energy Canada describe themselves as “a climate and clean energy program within the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University” and sent off an “open letter” to Justin Trudeau.  The letter is signed by 11 groups beyond the SFU including CanWEA and CanSIA whose members enjoy the benefits of long-term contracts in Ontario paying above market prices to generate electricity leading to a doubling of electricity rates under the Ontario Liberals. One unfamiliar signatory was the “Canada Cleantech Alliance” which doesn’t appear to have a website and seem to be an offshoot of a US based association located in Seattle.  Why they signed the letter is unknown! The letter pushes the same agenda:  “twin objectives of moving quickly and strategically to get Canada and Canadians working again in the near-term, while enhancing our national commitment to creating a diversified, low-carbon economy, we make three overarching recommendations for ensuring a resilient recovery.“

Recommendations include: “any relief for the fossil fuel sector and/or fossil-fuel reliant platforms which are facing long-term structural challenges, must have stringent conditions to focus on workers, decarbonization and diversification, and not impede the transition to a clean energy economy.”

And

“these unprecedented investments pave the way to a more sustainable, net-zero emission economy and avoid measures that lock us into a high-carbon future or risk stranded assets. Periods of high unemployment and low interest rates are precisely the right time to focus on new low-carbon investments and infrastructure, including those required to support and accelerate the transition to clean energy.“

And

“We can use them to scale up investment in energy retrofits, renewable power production, storage and transmission, clean fuel production, electric vehicle and electric vehicle charging infrastructure deployment and measures to further green government.”

The associations and the “clean energy program” within SFU signing this letter depend on tax dollars and favourable contracts from federal, provincial and municipal governments and seem to believe the private sector are bottomless pits of tax dollars that will fund their recommendations.

It appears from this vantage point, the numerous eco-charities trying to further influence the Liberal government are worried!  The flow of grants from the Federal ministries and donations from the “foundations” supporting them may slow or dry up. They will then be forced to find a real job in competition with those they denigrate in the oil and gas sector and its supply chain.

Their claimed “charitable” work is a misnomer serving only to harm this once thriving part of the Canadian economy contributing so much to Canada’s employment and tax base.

The time has come to change the definition of a “charity” to eliminate those bloodsuckers!

*Berman’s husband Chris Hatch, is a “reporter” for the National Observer and it receives funds from several of the charities who want to shut down Alberta’s oil and gas sector.

 

Have the Tides Finally Turned?

As we descend deeper into the pandemic caused by Covid-19 one wonders how it’s affecting those eco-charities pushing the “climate emergency and the reputed damage caused by fossil fuels. They claim; we must eliminate carbon emissions by 2050 or the world will face a disaster.

The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world at present has meant the “climate emergency” eco-charities have been screaming about for the past several decades, has been relegated to the back pages of both the MSM and the virtual internet community.  It is now a “back of mind” issue for almost all Canadians today, as the impact of a real emergency has taken hold.

One wonders if the decades, of this reputed emergency have passed and signifies we have wizened up to what many perceive as an unprecedented “Ponzi scheme?”  Only time will tell!

Tides Canada, a charity with US links

One of the larger and more aggressive charities to have pushed the “climate emergency” agenda in Canada is Tides Canada, an outgrowth of a US charity founded in 1976.  The US charity in 2018 had revenue of $548 million and handed out (granted) 54% or only $296 million of it.  The Canadian arm of Tides is two charities; Tides Canada Foundation and Tides Canada Initiatives Foundation. Tides Canada was founded in the year 2000 according to their website.

A review of their latest CRA filings for the two charities show collective revenues of $35.884 million versus collective revenues of $7.416 million in the prior year.  So, revenues were up by $28.468 million however, $7 million of that was simply a donation from Tides Canada Foundation to Tides Canada Initiatives Foundation. The actual increase in revenue was therefore up $21.458 million or 289.3%.  From examination of the $7 million transferred it appears a lot of it was destined for First Nations grants which raises the question; were those grants connected with the rail blockades aimed at stopping the Coastal Gaslink pipeline?

If one discounts the inter-foundation transfer and looks at where the $28.468 million actually came from you discover, $5.431 million or 18.8% came from Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments,  $7.404 million (25,6%) came from outside Canada, 25.3% or $7.298 million came from other charities and only $3.445 million or 11.9% were actual donations from parties who received charitable receipts.

Reviewing Tide’s donations, the two foundations paid out $12.7 million in grants including those paid to First Nations. The usual cabal of eco-charities (focused on the elimination of the Canadian oil and gas sector) received grants from Tides and included; Environmental Defence, the Sierra Club, the David Suzuki Foundation, Pembina, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, etc. etc. Total grant payouts represented 43.9% of the $28.868 million of adjusted gross revenues. To this writer, that suggests an inefficient charity with well paid staff.  Along those lines an examination of the CRA compensation report for the top 10 employed by the foundations suggests an average salary of about $118K each.

Eco-warrior concerns

The pandemic seems to be causing angst elsewhere amongst the proponents of the “climate emergency” with one article suggesting that “EU carbon market prices are plummeting as a result of the economic shutdown.” The article noted as of March 25^th the price had dropped by 40% and a Polish representative called for scrapping it altogether even though it generated €2.2 billion in auctioning revenues last year for Poland.  If there are low levels of emissions, which is the current situation with business shut down, companies who normally emit them don’t have to buy carbon credits.  A recent article in January 2020 stated “The European carbon market – the world’s largest by volume and value – rose in worth by 30% to €169 billion.”  Many of those European country’s governments will suffer severe revenue shortages as those invisible emissions decline.  As a result, it may cause them to either increase other forms of taxation or reduce spending. As an aside, the emissions reductions may also negatively affect agricultural production and drive food costs higher due to reduced crop yields.

In the US an emerging concern has been amplified by AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) with them saying on March 19^th “the global pandemic is putting $43 billion of wind industry investments and payments at risk.”  As explained in the Power Magazine article the biggest concern is not about the people affected by Covid-19 it’s about the delays that will occur in erecting industrial wind turbines.  The delay will result in “expiring tax credits” so AWEA have appealed to Congress.

“AWEA in its appeal to Congress said that developers of wind energy projects have been moving forward “based on what appeared the safe assumption that their projects would qualify for the federal production or investment tax credits”.  With those tax credits expiring, delays in completing those projects could push them past deadlines to qualify for the credits.”

Not surprisingly AWEA have got the Democrats on side as the article goes on to state: “Leaders of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition on Thursday said they will push for tax credits for renewable energy in any stimulus legislation. Democratic Reps. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, Doris Matsui of California, and Paul Tonko of New York, co-chairs of the committee, in a statement said, “Our members pushed for these credits in the end-of-year funding package and will continue to fight for them in this round of economic stimulus.”

It is discerning to realize; the eco-warriors, the carbon market traders, the wind and solar renewable energy companies and left leaning politicians continue to gang up on hard working taxpayers and now as the world faces a true emergency they have the gall to ignore the pandemic and instead continue to push their agenda at the expense of the citizens of the free world.

It’s time for the cabal to take off their blinkers and to understand, “the tides have turned”!

This Ponzi scheme must come to an end!

The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices should “fact check”

Back in 1989 (thirty-one years ago) Noel Brown, a senior UN environmental official told the Associated Press “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” Brown noted the Maldives would be under water as the oceans would rise by three feet. While the Maldives weren’t mentioned in the recent report from the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices (CICC), “rising sea levels” were; as one of, “the main hazards and conditions on the way to 2050.”

The year 2000 has come and gone but to the best of my knowledge no nations have disappeared due to rising sea levels. The Maldives recently announced they are opening four new airports in the current year.  The lack of them being under water however, hasn’t deterred the numerous “experts” involved with the CICC.  Higher sea level concerns for Atlantic Canada and BC were also included in the report by the Canadian Council of Academies (CCA) in their July 2019 report; the forerunner of the CICC’s report.  As pointed out in an earlier article CCA’s disclaimer under “Conclusions” saw them opting out of everything forecast in their report.  Despite the opt out position taken by the CCA the media only focused on the disastrous message.  Reuters noted the CCA report was a follow up to one from Minister McKenna’s ministry and reported:  “Canada’s unique geographic, environmental, and social identity shapes the hazards that it faces and its exposure to climate-related risks,” Eric M. Meslin, president and CEO of the CCA, said in the press release.”

Returning to the issue of “flooding” the CICC’s report on page 19 touts the Netherlands for their leading-edge ability to control flooding “even though a quarter of the country is below sea level.”  What those “experts” failed to note is “The low-lying Netherlands has been fighting back water for more than 1,000 years, when farmers built the first dykes.“  A search turned up an article confirming “flooding” in the Netherlands is not a recent event caused by the effects C0 2 on the atmosphere or melting artic ice!

The CICC’s report also highlighted severe flooding in Thailand in 2011 as if it was a one-off event.They ignored the probable cause which had nothing to do with “climate change”!  Had they looked back to 1942 they would have discovered a more severe flood and a YouTube video  highlighting the damage before “global warming”, the “climate crisis” or “increased emissions” was even a concept. Again, a simple search on the web by the CICC “experts” would have generated information as to why the 2011 flood occurred. One they may have found was a report by Richard Meehan, a civil engineer and adjunct faculty at Stanford University.  Mr. Meehan’s biography notes he “began his career designing and building irrigation and flood control works in Thailand in the 1960s”.

Mr. Meehan’s report notes: “Though monetary damages in the 2011 flood were unprecedented, the flood itself was not an extreme natural event, hydrological statistics variously suggesting a 30 to 75 year return period for a similar flood.”  The report states the reason for the monetary damages was essentially because “of poorly drained swampy lands on the lower Chao Phraya floodplain, including vast tracts of former swamps and riceland now occupied by very large industrial “estates” (or industrial parks in western terms), each the size of a city and home to hundreds of modern manufacturing plants developed in the 1970s and after.”  The message is clear: don’t build homes or industries in flood prone areas or at some point in the future the damages from a flood will be costly to you and/or your insurer!

The Charting our Course report does sprinkle in some benefits to “global warming” such as: “parts of Canada could benefit from warmer temperatures. Warmer winters could, for example, result in fewer cold-related deaths and illnesses and lower heating costs for households and businesses. Warmer temperatures in spring, summer, and fall could also open new tourism opportunities that previously did not exist.”

The following paragraph in the report however dispels those benefits by stating: “any benefits in a high-emissions scenario are likely temporary and short-lived. Benefits diminish as extreme climate events become more common and intense. Fewer deaths due to extreme cold are offset by more deaths from extreme heat*. Savings in heating bills are offset by increased use of air-conditioners in the summer.

It is interesting the word “likely” is used as it signals the 79 “experts” spending $20 million of our tax dollars are not really convinced those “high-emissions” will actually cause the damages they profess!

Despite the foregoing our senses should tell us the “experts” will ultimately recommend we need much higher carbon taxes to save the world from the likely “climate crisis”.

They might change their mind if they actually did proper research and “fact checked” their conclusions!

*Debunked in:  The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices is “Charting our Course”

The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices says it louder

Should one read a report titled; “Canada’s Top Climate Change Risks” issued July 2019 by the “Expert Panel” on “Climate Change Risks and Adaptation Potential” you would probably think the “Charting our Course” report recently issued by the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices (CICC) was an update but it wasn’t!  What a comparison of the two reports highlight is words spoken by the former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, who said: “if you repeat it, if you say it louder, if that is your talking point, people will totally believe it,”.  The latest CICC report exemplifies her quote and us taxpayers have provided the CICC with $20 million to ensure we “totally believe it”!

How many times can you flog a dead horse?

The first report’s “Expert Panel” are part of the “Canadian Council of Academies”. The council, launched in 2002, has managed to survive on $45 million of our tax dollars for the past 18 years. They are required to produce five reports annually when directed by the Federal Government.  Their report on Canada’s climate change risks came about as a result of a direction from the Treasury Board of Canada.  Seven (7) individuals on CCA’s “expert panel” and “workshop participants” are a part of CICC’s “expert” group and another eight (8) of those experts at the CICC were also cited as references in the CCA’s report.  One of those was Blair Feltmate, Chair of the Intact Centre at Waterloo University. Needless to say, both reports lean heavily on the insurance industries information about how “climate change” has increased insurance claims.  Catastrophes are forecast in both reports and similar comparisons are made to past events blaming them on “climate change”. The latter includes the Fort McMurray wildfires with estimated insurance claims of $1.4 billion. The CBC reported on the fire stating: “Provincial wildfire investigators have established that the fire was most likely the result of “human activity.”

On page 2 of the CCA’s report they have a map of Canada and have highlighted 10 of “Canada’s Top Climate Change Risks” and one of them is: “Lower Great Lakes water levels, affecting shipping, hydropower production, and recreation”.  As noted above the CCA report was published in July 2019 two years after Ontarians were told Lake Ontario had just experienced a “100-year flood”. Even worse flooding occurred in 2019 setting new records.  Apparently the “experts” involved in preparing the report failed to absorb the well-publicized news at that time and said nothing about “Plan 2014”!

Akin to the foregoing, CCA’s report contained statements such as: “Houses located in a floodplain, for instance, face greater risk due to their heightened exposure.”  Hardly enlightening news!

As if to excuse the diatribe spewed by the CCA expert’s report, their “Conclusions” had this to say:

“Assessments of the risks posed by climate change are subject to many sources of uncertainty. Climate projections and modelling results provide an envelope of possible futures associated with different GHG emissions trajectories, but the exact path of global emissions and the full implications for the climate, combined with other natural and anthropogenic processes, remain unknown.”

The CCA report therefore concludes with total disclosure they have no faith in anything contained in the prior 59 pages of their report.  Perhaps this is why former Minister McKenna took the next step to create the Canadian Institute for Climate Change and handed them $20 million of our tax dollars for a report supporting her views.

She obviously wanted her minions to “say it louder”!

Stay tuned for more.

The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices is “Charting our Course”

The first in this series provided a glimpse of how the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices (CICC) came to be, via a $20 million taxpayer grant by the Federal Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change and disclosed how it had issued its first report titled, “Charting our Course”.

If one bothers to Google “Charting our Course” (the name of the first report from the CICC), you get over 24,000 hits and one of them is a Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial report from 2011 which was their Climate Change Action Plan 2011.  Included in it was a big push for the Muskrat Falls project which is in process of being built but is more than double the original $6.2 billion budget (current estimate is $12.7 billion).  As a result, recent media articles have noted the federal government is stepping up to bail Newfoundland out but no firm details have been forthcoming as yet.

One should hope the title choice of the first report by the CICC will not result in the same effect on Canada as the 2011 report had on Newfoundland but don’t count on it.

We shouldn’t try to become the Venezuela of the G7 because of recommendations that will be made by the CICC but from the rhetoric in their version of “Charting our Course” they appear determined to reduce or eliminate our oil and gas output at a high cost.

Needless to say, there is lots of scary stuff in this report but they have missed or distorted facts such as: “Canada will not be immune. Our coastal cities will be swamped by rising seas, threatening property and infrastructure. In the face of more frequent and more severe fire and floods, insurance premiums are poised to rise dramatically, making home insurance unaffordable for many Canadians.” Looks like they are setting us up for rising insurance costs from those rising seas and severe fires.

Hmm, surely its simply co-incidental the CEO of CICC, Kathy Bardswick, is the former President and CEO of The Co-operators Group Ltd., (5^th largest Canadian property/casualty insurance company) and Blair Feltmate sits on the CICC “Expert Panel”.  Feltmate is Head, Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation,  University of Waterloo; funded by donations from Intact Financial Corporation, the #1. Canadian property/casualty insurance company as noted in a recent Insurance Business Canada magazine.  As another coincidence, Feltmate was called out for his remarks on CBC radio about distorted flood claims by the CBC’s Ombudsman who noted “the CBC report had “failed to comply with journalistic standards” in assessing and reporting on the industry’s claims.”

The CICC report delves into the economics of the UNIPCC forecasted temperature increase in an obtuse way presumably meant to obscure its intent on shutting down the oil and gas sector. As an example, the report notes: “Much of Canada’s economy—and the prosperity it generates—depends on sectors that export emissions intensive products and commodities, such as oil and gas and cement.”  While oil and gas are major exports (at present) it should be noted 2018 cement exports were an unimpressive $536.6 million. Total exports in 2018 were $521.5 billion so cement was 1/10^th of 1% of total exports.  To put the foregoing in context, Canada’s coal exports in 2018 were $7.5 billion (97% metallurgical) and automobiles and parts exported were over $60 billion.  One would think all those “experts” signed on to the CICC could locate a better “emission” related addition to oil and gas.

As if to make the foregoing argument ironic, the report claims the cleantech sector would benefit stating; “Meanwhile, conventional sectors, such as mining and forestry, could benefit from an unprecedented increase in global demand for raw materials.”  This would suggest they believe the mining and forestry sector are “cleantech” and somehow “emissions free”.  A strange claim!

Another part of the report says: “Fewer deaths due to extreme cold are offset by more deaths from extreme heat.” A little research on the part of the authors and peer reviewers of this claim would have found a fact based study that unequivocally states the opposite:  The following chart from the Lancet Study from 2015 shows the CICC claim to be completely false!

Fraction of all-cause mortality attributable to moderate and extreme hot and cold temperature by country

The foregoing study, completed by 22 individuals with doctorates stated: “We analysed 74,225,200 deaths in various periods between 1985 and 2012.“ As the chart notes the analysis covered 13 countries and the results clearly show moderate and extreme cold are responsible for 15 to 20 times more deaths than moderate or extreme heat.

Why do the “experts” associated with the CICC distort and ignore facts unless their sole purpose is to convince us we need a higher “carbon tax”!

This “unparalleled collaboration of experts from across the country” seem unwilling to identify facts but are happy “Charting our Course” to economic disaster while utilizing our tax dollars!

Will the eventual outcome result in Canada becoming Canazuela?

NB:  Stay tuned for more on the CICC’s report.

 

Canadian Institute for Clean Growth and Climate Change got a name change

The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices (CICC) is the outgrowth of a $20 million dollar handout by the Federal Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change going back to when the Minister was Catherine McKenna, aka; she who said: “if you repeat it, if you say it louder, if that is your talking point, people will totally believe it,”.

The CICC sprung from a contract awarded to the “Pan-Canadian Expert Collaboration” a group of “carbon-tax” advocates determined to save the world from the “climate emergency” Minister McKenna declared via a motion in the House of Commons.

The original name signaled the outcome!

When conducting a search for the CICC under its original name, ie: the Canadian Institute for Clean Growth and Climate Change one discovers, even though the name was originally registered as such on July 15, 2019, it had changed to become “The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices”.

Presumably the registered name was viewed as the answer the Minister had decreed; signaling its intent before it had performed any research so, they changed it!

The number of CICC “experts” charged with the task of recommending actions to the Ministry is significant and include; 11 on the “Board of Directors”, 17 “Staff”, 37 on the “Expert Panels” and another 14 on the “Advisory Council”.  It is an expansion of the “Ecofiscal Commission” which numbered a mere 33 individuals with varying skills where funding came from a few charitable foundations. The Ecofiscal Commission finished up and recommended the “carbon tax” needed, to reduce Canada’s emissions, was $210/tonne.

Reviewing the 79 individuals involved with the CICC leads to discovering 13 of the 33 people involved with the Ecofiscal Commission are now a major part of the CICC and include notables such as Bruce Lourie, Stewart Elgie and Chris Ragan.  Our tax dollars will clearly be used to generate recommendations to increase the “carbon tax” well beyond the legislated $50/tonne.

The CICC website names the twenty-three organizations under the Environment and Climate Change Canada logo who “contributed to the development of the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices”. Needless to say, the referenced “organizations” don’t include any with a dissenting view!

Their 80 page “Charting our Course” report states: “The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices is an unparalleled collaboration of experts at the top of their fields, from regions and communities across the country.”  They have obviously gathered all of Canada’s “Einstein’s” together (sarcasm intended) to produce a report that is a foregone conclusion.  Among those “experts” with doctorates are 15 economists, 7 philosophers, 2 political science grads and 1 climatologist. They have sprinkled the one (1) climatologist amongst the other experts but chose one who believes “extreme weather events are intensifying and becoming more frequent because of climate change.”

The report suggests all of the “experts” will be; “Bringing clarity to Canada’s climate policy choices on the journey to 2050”.

In the minds of the “experts”, it is obvious their sense of “clarity” will be to recommend a much higher “carbon tax” so, one wonders, why are we wasting another $20 million of our tax dollars?

NB:  More to come about the “Charting our Course” report.

Ontario electricity ratepayers paid up big-time to reduce emissions

The “Ontario Energy Quarterly” is a report containing a myriad of information related to the Ontario electricity sector and seems to be a collective production of the Province, the OEB and IESO.  It includes a chart tracking Ontario’s electricity sector emissions from 2010.  The report always appears six or seven months after the actual reporting date.  Their recent report indicates as of the end of the 2^nd Quarter of 2019 Ontario’s emissions had fallen from 20 megatonnes (MT) in 2010 to only 2 MT by June 30, 2019

To put the foregoing in perspective the Ontario Environment Commissioner in 2016 indicated Ontario’s emissions peaked at 208 MT in 2000 and according to the Federal Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change Ontario’s emissions in 2017 had fallen to 158.7 MT.  So, Ontario’s emissions fell 49.3 MT meaning the 18 MT drop in emissions from the electricity sector represented 36.5% of it. At the end of the 2019 2nd Quarter, emissions from the electricity sector represented only 1.25% of total Ontario emissions in 2017 versus 11.5% in 2010 when total Ontario emissions were 174.1 MT.

The above was achieved without a “carbon tax” but it’s been an expensive proposition for ratepayers.

Costs of reducing 18 MT of emissions in the Ontario electricity sector

Many reports and articles related to reduction of emissions in Ontario’s electricity sector suggest wind and solar generation was responsible for eliminating coal generation in Ontario.  Those purveying the claims avoid the facts and fail to mention costs. The decade beginning in 2010 was the advent of above market contracts signed under the GEA for wind and solar that began to appear on our landscape.  Those contracts drove electricity costs up generating unreliable intermittent generation necessitating back-up from gas plants* including the TransCanada Oakville gas plant move which cost $1 billion.

Looking at generation for the past decade (2010-2019) from wind and solar is a relatively simple task as Scott Luft using IESO data, posted generation by source and estimated costs in charts (complete with text) starting with 2008.  He also charts our exports and its revenue over the same time period.

Wind: Let’s start with industrial wind turbine generation which in the ten-year period (2010-2019) resulted in accepted wind of 83.3 TWh and 10.5 TWh of curtailed wind.  The combined cost of the generation and curtailment was $12.760 billion representing an average cost per kWh of 15.32 cents.

Solar: Over the decade solar panels generated 21,9 TWh with most generation delivered to local distribution companies.  The costs of those 21.9 TWh was $10.504 billion or 48 cents/kWh.

Spilling water: As if to make matters worse, as Ontarians reduced their demand for electricity dropping it from 139 TWh in 2010 to 135.1 TWh in 2019 the generation coming from wind and solar created numerous situations causing SBG (surplus baseload generation) and IESO instructed OPG and other hydro generators to spill water rather than generate clean hydro power.  Once again Scott Luft has summarized available data and estimated the cost of the SBG for just OPG over the past five years. The cost was almost $500 million and was billed to ratepayers.

If one accepts the premise, wind and solar are responsible for the 18 MT reduction, then one must accept the emission reduction represented a cost to Ontario ratepayers of $23.764 billion including the $500 million from hydro spillage. That translates to an emission reduction cost of $1,320/tonne, well above the current carbon tax of $20/tonne and the one proposed by the Ecofiscal Commission of $210/tonne.

Exports: Over the past 10 years, IESO were busy selling our surplus power to NY, Michigan and other provinces and states.  In total, 182 TWh went south, east and west to our neighbours for the market price (HOEP).  Funds lost from those sales (net of transmission costs recovered) were the GA (Global Adjustment) costs of almost $12.5 billion or 6.8 cents/kWh.

It is worth noting; exports of 182 TWh were 173% of the 105.2 TWh of accepted wind and solar generation so, exporting less could have saved us that loss of $12.5 billion.

The foregoing clearly demonstrates the 83.3 TWh wind generated plus the 21.9 TWh solar generated power over the past 10 years wasn’t needed to reduce emissions in Ontario’s electricity sector!  We needed less intermittent unreliable generation as our nuclear and hydro generation (supported by less gas plant capacity) could have supplied our needs and we could still have exported 76.8 TWh.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford should demand the federal government recognize the above “facts” and reimburse the province’s ratepayers by either issuing 182 million tradeable “carbon credits” or pay the province the $23.7 billion we have paid to reduce our emissions. Either one would prove beneficial and when applied to the sector would serve to reduce Ontario’s electricity rates making the province more competitive, thereby improving our economic future.

Failing the above we residential ratepayers should all be looking forward to receipt of our rebate cheque even its only 90% of the $1,320 per tonne we have paid over the past 10 years!

*Gas plants generated 160.6 TWh from 2010 to 2019 at an estimated cost of $19.726 billion or about 12.3 cents/kW.

 

CanWEA’s “White Paper” opens doors to lower rates

Shortly after CanWEA’s President, Robert Hornung lamented about the Ontario governments cancellation of an industrial wind turbine project a post on their blog raved about a recently released whitepaper* titled “Wind Energy and the Ontario Market”. The paper was prepared specifically for the Canadian Wind Energy Association by Power Advisory LLC. The latter is the employer of Jason Chee-Aloy, former Director, Generation Procurement with the OPA (Ontario Power Authority), a McGuinty creation that has merged with IESO. One should assume Mr. Chee-Aloy played a significant role in contracting the many wind and solar projects by the OPA spread throughout the province and was probably the author of the “whitepaper”!  He presumably knows his way around the contracts he instigated.

The 45 page “paper” is sprinkled liberally with acronyms including one labelled “EAs” or environmental attributes and notes: “Within nearly all IESO contracts, the IESO retains ownership of all EAs, or similar non-emitting products, produced by generators under these contracts.  This is definitely the case for all wind generators under IESO contracts, no matter the contract type or vintage.”

While ratepayers would disagree with many recommendations in the paper the ones related to the foregoing suggesting IESO monetize those EAs has merit as noted in Recommendation # 6:

“The wind energy industry should work with the IESO and other contract counterparty generators to explore monetizing associated EAs/RECs, where the revenues from the sale of EAs/RECs would be shared between these generators and the IESO.  The IESO could then credit all Ontario electricity customers with these revenues helping to lower electricity costs for them.”

No doubt, most ratepayers in the province would agree if we can monetize those EAs lets’ do it; BUT there is no need to share any revenue generated with the operators as they already receive well above market rates from those contracts that drove up electricity costs.

The monetization process would result in the issuance of “renewable energy certificates” (RECs) which could be sold by IESO in the carbon/emissions trading market and all revenues could be applied by them to reduce ratepayers’ monthly bills.

While we’re at it let’s do the same for solar, biomass, hydro and nuclear generation which are all deemed “emissions free”!

If the existing wind contracts can’t be cancelled let IESO at least be directed to generate revenue for the benefit of all ratepayers without sharing any of the revenue with the generators.

The other benefit that may well occur is the ability for the Ford led government to argue against the carbon tax imposed by the Federal Government in the upcoming Surpreme Court appeal.

This could turn into a big win for Ontario’s ratepayers and taxpayers!

*The term “white papers” originated in England as government-issued documents. One famous example is the Churchill White Paper, commissioned by Winston Churchill in 1922. Today, the term is most commonly applied to “deep dive” style publications.

Ecojustic, the ironic charity

The charity, Ecojustice Canada Society, claims, “everything starts with the law” but, certain events related to their involvement in recent court actions suggest what should be added to their statement is; “as long as it suits our views”!

Ecojustice recently noted on their website; “In about 48 hours, my colleague Harry Wruck and I will appear in the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). We’re arguing that British Columbia has a right—and a constitutional duty—to protect communities and the environment from toxic diluted bitumen spills.”

So, in the above case they were arguing provincial jurisdiction should take precedent over Federal jurisdiction but only one month earlier their website had the following statement; “That’s why for the last year, we’ve helped the David Suzuki Foundation and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation participate as interveners in Ontario, Saskatchewan and now Alberta’s attempts to derail national-coordinated efforts to take action on climate change, including putting a price on carbon pollution.”

The argument they plan to make in the upcoming SCC cases, by supporting the Federal jurisdiction against the provinces, is of course related to the “carbon tax” implemented by the Federal government under the “Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act”.

In the latter case, perhaps, because they received “charitable” status, their aim is to protect that status by having others pay tax so they can remain tax-free.  Others of their ilk will be pleased to support them due to their ability to receive a tax receipt!

Those oxymoronic views entice you to examine Ecojustice’s CRA filings where one notes they (over the five years of financial reports) spent $3.658 million on fundraising activities and raised $1.806 million as a result.  Logic suggests by not spending money on fundraising activities they could have saved $1.852 million of tax-free funds which may have been useful for other court actions.

Also, over those five years, Ecojustice received almost $5.4 million in donations from other CRA registered charities including; the University of Ottawa, two Tides registered charities, the McConnell Foundation, Ivey Foundation, etc. and several were (surely a coincidence) also funders of the Ecofiscal Commission and the Pan-Canadian Expert Collaboration.  Of the total revenue ($30.895 million) reportedly received by Ecojustice over five years, 58% ($17.932 million) was expensed for compensation and 52.7% ($16.278 million) was reputedly allocated for “charitable activities”-like fighting for a carbon tax!

It is also noteworthy, despite Ecojustice’s many claims, they also fight on behalf of “species at risk” yet they’ve never intervened in any actions in Ontario in support of groups fighting the intrusion of industrial wind turbines (IWT) and the harm they cause to “species at risk” (birds, bats, turtles, etc).  Various nature groups in Ontario have fought IWT intrusion in front of ERTs (environmental review tribunals) and Ontario courts and not once has Ecojustice joined them.  One should wonder why?

Ecojustice supports continued implementation of a carbon tax in support of the Liberal, Federally imposed tax by working against the province’s elected governments.  The carbon tax will have no effect on the planet’s climate!  On the other hand, Ecojustice claim they fight on behalf of species at risk, but don’t defend those “species at risk” when  harmed by industrial wind turbines.

Truly ironic!