I started
reading Mark Carney’s book. I reviewed the preface and was compelled to respond
to that; I’ll give the rest of it my attention later. With the election looming,
one feels it's critical to offer comment in the hope that the people
who read this will, at a minimum, call Mr. Carney to task.
In paragraph 2 of the preface titled Values into Action, he
states I was “humbled by the developments I didn't expect, particularly the
sense of division and abandonment felt by many Canadians during the latter
stages of the pandemic”. It was clear at the outset of the pandemic that people were feeling alienated and abandoned. There was an authoritarian
crackdown that was unnecessary and unkind and contravened or infringed upon many
of our charter rights. It seemed that Canadian authorities were more willing to
listen to the WHO than to respect the charter of rights and freedoms and 400
years of jurisprudence that gives Canadian citizens the right to domain over
mind and body. Further, the federal government resorted to actuating the Emergencies
Act and went so far as to freeze the bank accounts of Canadian citizens and Canadian
citizens exercising their right to defend their Charter rights - these actions, when reviewed in retrospect by authorities, have been deemed to be heavy-handed
and grossly inappropriate. I sincerely hope that this gross example of authoritarianism is exempt from Mr. Carney's view of the New World Order.
I contrast what was clearly a dystopian reality in the
management of the pandemic with what I perceive Mr. Carney's life would have
been like as a young person in northern Alberta. Mr. Carney then was enjoying
the fruits of John Diefenbaker's work. Mr. Carney had the protection of the
Canadian Bill of Rights, and he also had the compassion instilled by Lester B
Pearson. Neither of these men would ever dream of resorting to the
authoritarian tactics that were deployed during the COVID-19 response. He was
also living in the midst of people who had sacrificed the best six years of their
lives or sacrificed loved ones or had lost several friends in defence of the
cause of freedom. He was also living in a community that emerged out
of an agrarian-based society, as opposed to a community that some politician
decided to design. He would have enjoyed a degree of security in his childhood
that would be incomprehensible to someone living in, say, Toronto now. Mr. Carney
and I are of a generation that was handed the most promising world in human
history. if you look around now with clear eyes, what you're seeing is Western
civilization treading water, and that's an optimistic assessment.
Emergencies Measures Act - it all depends on the context in which it is deployed.
Mr. Carney states the “values of the market are usurping
those of humanity”. Mr. Carney also states that “market fundamentalism corrodes
social values and fosters the crisis of our age”. Markets are not created; they
emerge out of the wants, needs and desires of human beings. There is no means by
which markets separate us from our values; they are a vivid depiction of our
values, and if you don't like it, it's us you're looking at. If markets are
left to function absent constraining regulation, they administer the
distribution of goods and services without prejudice. When markets begin to hurt
people, access to them is constrained by a captured regulatory regime. When
markets begin to hurt people is when bad regulation turns incumbent actors'
regulatory desires into supply management programs. On October 24, 1978, Jimmy
Carter deregulated the United States airline industry, and by doing so, effectively deregulated the world airline industry. Regulations to that point
address safety, but foremost, they were a supply management program. When
he got rid of the supply management program but left the safety regulations in
place, flying became extraordinarily inexpensive relative to before.
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Mr. Carney suggests we need “radical changes to build a
better world for all”. Never in human history has there been a better world for
all; we are sitting at the pinnacle of human existence. We are at the pinnacle
of human existence due to honest and compassionate men like John Diefenbaker,
Lester B Pearson, Tommy Douglas, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, men who believed in
classical liberal values and reasonable support for the unfortunate. We're at
the pinnacle of human existence for another good reason, and that is that we let
markets work as they should work in most cases for an extensive period of time.
It's time to let them work again. I would suggest to anybody that takes the
time to read this that the last thing we need are radical changes; what we need to
do is ground ourselves in the principles expressed in the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms and liberate markets by reducing regulatory capture.
Mr. Carney describes the failure of the cod fishery off the
grand banks as a tragedy of the commons, as a market failure. My assessment of
the cod fishery failure off the grand banks is that the government instituted a
program called Fishing for Stamps. This program made it economic the fish long
after fishing was viable absent the program and was a major contributing factor
in the decimation of the cod fishery. The rationale at the time was that the
communities in Newfoundland needed to be supported; it was an example, a less
than shining example, of social engineering. In the end, what had to
happen happened; New Foundlander's went elsewhere to work. A sad ending to an
epic error in Canadian history.
Causes of the Great Recession
Environmentalism Reconsidered - Lessons from the Canadian Cod Fishery
Seeding Prosperity - Why it matters
Mr. Carney suggests we need to spend $2 trillion in response
to the “climate crisis”. The liberal government promised $50 billion to companies to manufacture batteries that would have been manufactured anyway and that we have yet the grid capacity to charge.
The carbon mania that Mr. Carney communicates in the preface to his book, or
perhaps carbon obsession, is damaging our environment. Rather than frittering
away money on things that will make no difference at a world scale, rather than
advocating a $170 tonne price for carbon and hurting our economy, rather than
putting municipalities and governments through climate gymnastics that have no
effect on the world situation, perhaps we should give some attention to our
environment. Perhaps we should have taken that $50 billion and invested in spawning
bed improvements for our salmon; perhaps we should find a way to stop the
runoff from the highways getting into our waterways and killing our salmon; perhaps
we should invest in habitat enhancement and preservation. 77,000,000 years ago,
the earth was so warm that all the polar caps melted. Mother Earth did
that all by herself; no industrial revolution was necessary. If Mother Nature did
it once, she can do it again; if Mother Nature could put NYC under 10 miles of
ice, she can do it again. We should be investing in hardening our environment
against impending calamities, and we should be investing in preparedness.
Click Here - For more on Carbon Policy
Carbon Tax Stupid Policy
Mr. Carney indicates that somehow net 0 and sustainability
equate to one another. Mr. Carney heralds Canada’s electrical grid, a grid
comprised primarily of fossil fuel electricity generation, some nuclear
electricity generation and hydroelectric electricity generation. One of the
largest environmental disasters in Canadian history is the damming of rivers
for hydroelectric power, which has destroyed thousands of acres of prime land, prime
forests, First Nations territories, critical wintering habitat, and entire
fisheries, and drowned wildlife. Presumably, if you're afraid of carbon, you'll
encourage this carnage to continue.
Mr. Carney states, “when society sets a clear goal, it
becomes profitable to be a part of the solution and terminal to remain a part of
the problem”. This sounds to me like a call for heavy-handedness and
authoritarianism in pursuing the solution to what's perceived to be a climate
crisis. We have environmental issues that need attention, and there is merit in the
prudent pursuit of carbon reduction. There is no merit in throwing Canada on a
sword when nothing we do here, within our borders, will effect any change in
world carbon emissions. We are, effectively, at net 0 now - depending on who's
calculating, our managed forest in combination with our unmanaged forest leaves
us at or near net 0. If you're going to make being a part of a problem
terminal, before the genocide begins, we ought to make sure the problem is
justifying the means. No honest person can say with certainty that we're in a
crisis; we do have a challenge, but there's no crisis. The good thing about
creating a crisis and scaring people is that they'll accept just about
anything for a solution. So, it looks like Alberta’s energy industry is on the
chopping block - it has been obstructed and maligned for 10 years. Then will 10
minutes, cities and a surveillance state follow?
Mr. Carney touts renewable energy as the solution; he believes that somehow
how pricing carbon is going to change what many credible actors, including the
US Energy Information Administration, indicate is folly. See the thin green line
above; renewables are a century away from being serious contenders.
What seems to go unmentioned are the true values of Canada:
self-reliance, civil rights, answering the call, the promise of transcendence with
the application of effort, honesty, respect for institutions represented in the
pillars of government, and respect for the world left us in the aftermath of WW2. These
are replaced by what sounds like the willingness to abandon the cause of
freedom in the interest of radical policies that promise to constrain Canadians.
When you teach the golden rule, when you teach love and tolerance, when you
teach to be nurturing, when you teach the value of truth, integrity, honour, the
pursuit of virtue – you negate the need for re-education programs, you negate
the need for DEI programs – you develop a loving and harmonious society.
