When does a series of policy errors become willful sabotage?
One of the strengths of democracies is the ability to course-correct.
Constant public and media scrutiny, combined with freedom of speech, and the ability to remove governments in free elections means that even the most egregious policy errors can be corrected.
By contrast, dictatorships often make crippling, massive mistakes with generational consequences, and the concentration of power at the top means those mistakes endure for a long time.
Historical examples would be the one-child-policy in China, and the overall economic approach of the Soviet Union.
Current examples would be China’s ‘zero-covid’ policy, and Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine.
With that in mind, there is an ongoing massive policy error in Western countries that must be rapidly undone.
We have what is in effect a de facto alliance between energy-rich dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Russia, and the ‘green’ movement in Western nations.
While there is likely a direct financial link between those groups, those cases are probably limited. Instead, a combination of manipulative ‘woke’ politicians, naïve activists, and well-meaning members of the public who genuinely care about the environment, has melded together to implement policies that – regardless of their stated intent – have the real-world impact of weakening Western democracies and empowering foreign energy-rich dictatorships.
At a certain point, a series of ‘innocent’ policy mistakes begins to resemble willful sabotage, especially when the consequences are obvious for all to see.
Because military power flows from economic power, and because cheap energy is the foundation of societal stability and economic growth, the West has thus made it easier for dictatorships to impose their will by force, while weakening both our own ability to respond and our own ability to keep our societies stable.
Consider the fact that as politicians in Canada, the US, and Europe stood in the way of energy projects, the energy sectors in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other countries were growing. Consider further that China has also rapidly expanded their coal production, thus wiping out any minor ‘climate gains’ that were bought at the cost of the economic suffering of Canadians and others in the Western world.
As always, we must look not at how a policy makes people feel, but the actual tangible results it brings about.
Feeling good and virtuous about ‘taking climate action’ is meaningless if that action is undone by a mere fraction of China’s output, and if that ‘action’ leads to hostile regimes becoming stronger at our expense.
We have to stop basing policy on good feelings, but instead upon the cold reality that cheap energy and a strong economy are necessary to ensure we have the stability and military power to protect democracy and ensure that a more free vision of the world prevails.
Canada’s energy sector could be one of the world’s greatest sources of societal security and freedom ever seen, if only our leaders would get out of the way and if only some naïve Citizens wake up to reality.
Spencer Fernando
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