With fires still raging in California, Canadian media and government attention seemed to have moved on. Why? Are they unwilling to face the facts that building more oil and gas projects are harder and harder propositions when we can see floods all over the planet, and whole Los Angeles neighbourhoods lost to hurricane wind force spread fires? All events having the fingerprints of climate change all over them.
Telling was a conversation I had with federal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Canada, Jonathan Wilkinson, just before the provincial election last year, at a joint meet-‘n-greet thrown by BC NDP candidate Jen Ford, and federal Liberal Minister Wilkinson at our local pub. I didn’t want to let that opportunity pass me by.
So on the day, I entered the small sunken arena at our local pub. And after having grilled Ford on the ridiculousness of continuing in a climate crisis with BC LNG and Woodfibre LNG - I was warmed up to discuss a few issues with the Minister.
It just so happened that the night before, I had listed videos of major flooding events posted by someone in Manchester, UK - handle @volcaholic1 on Twitter (X). Swiping and scrolling are like opening a tap; you don’t get a sense of the total amount.
But once I was done listing, I stared in disbelieve at two pages full of major flood events, over 60 in total, and it was just for one month, September 2024. Since June last year, it had been flood after flood, and except for the European Union and North Americans ones - hardly any reporting on them by mainstream media.
While I showed Mr. Wilkinson the list, he acknowledged the dire situation, but when it came to how Canada would act on it, things turned incomprehensible quickly.
Take the 100 per cent tariff on Chinese EVs that Prime Minister Trudeau had announced days earlier.
Why protect Canadian and US carmakers who have seriously screwed up, ignoring EVs and making ever bigger gas guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks, and instead, punish Chinese carmakers who did their homework and made the right decisions?
And do Canadian, and US governments really think they can slow down technological developments, when well made Chinese EVs are rolling out of factories by the millions? Good luck with that!
Wilkinson fired back that China is subsidizing its car makers [as if Canada doesn’t], and that China has poor environmental standards. The latter is true. China does have major mining problems as it holds a 95 per cent global market share of rare earth metal mining and processing.
“But is trying to block Chinese EVs the right response?” was my reply: “Why not offer Canada’s experience in applying higher labour and environmental standards. Offer those technologies and practices, in return for China helping Canada speed up the process of making small, and midsize affordable fast charging electric vehicles with a sufficient range. Cars many Canadians would buy tomorrow, if only they were available here. Work together and not always see things as economic cultural battles.”
Wilkinson looked for words, as we both understood that as a high government representative he could not go there, and so had to fall into political platitudes. I thanked him for having made the effort to come to Bowen Island, we had a laugh over something else and parted ways. I hope a seed was planted.
I cannot stress enough, that Canada nor the US can afford to sit back on phasing out oil and gas, and transitioning into green societies. Sitting back is falling back, from which at one point it will be very very costly to come back.
Both for the new US president, and who ever will win the upcoming Canadian federal elections, this is a reality they cannot ignore. And if they do, all of us will lose greatly. I am sure that is not the “making great” some of us have in mind.
