Canada’s democratic allies are desperate for reliable and ethical sources of energy. Trudeau’s decision to reject filling that demand meant Canadians grew poorer, while Russia profited. Meanwhile, at a time when much of the world is waking up to the threat posed by Communist China, Steven Guilbeault is working for the CCP regime and attempting to burnish their global image.
Every government decision is a trade-off of some kind.
Since we live in a world of limited resources, the choice to do one thing can mean the choice not to do something else.
A choice to increase spending and borrow money means a choice to pay more in debt service in the future, thus moving spending from the future to the present.
A choice to raise taxes means transferring control over financial resources from those who earned those resources to the government.
Governments often seek to escape from this reality by spending money created by the central bank. In this way, they can spend without directly taxing the population to pay for that spending. But of course, reality cannot be evaded. So, spending money created by the central bank imposes an ‘inflation tax’ on the populace by reducing the value of our money. This is what is happening in Canada today, as Canadians are rapidly losing purchasing power. Of course, the Liberals have added carbon tax hikes onto the ‘inflation tax,’ so Canadians are getting economically wrecked from all directions.
Who benefits, who suffers?
Just like government decisions represent tradeoffs nationally, the same is true internationally.
And these tradeoffs generate winners and losers.
Effective national governments seek to prioritize their own Citizens, their allies, and countries which share their values.
Ineffective governments benefit – either deliberately or through incompetence – hostile states while hurting their own Citizens and allies.
And Canada clearly has an ineffective government.
Trudeau & Guilbealt’s eco-radicalism hurts Canadians and hurts our allies, while benefitting China & Russia
Justin Trudeau & Steven Guilbeault talk a big game about being ‘progressive’, ‘pro-democracy,’ and ‘supporting our allies.’
Yet, words mean nothing if the actions don’t match.
At a time of significant geopolitical disruption, and at a moment when our allies are desperate for help, Trudeau & Guilbeault have chosen instead to elevate their eco-extremist agenda above all else.
Both Germany and Japan – two democratic economic powerhouses – came to Canada asking for our nation to sell them more LNG. It would have been a win all around. German in particular would have reduced their reliance on Russian energy, thus depriving Russia of revenue they’ve been using to fund their horrific war against Ukraine. Canada would have made more money, meaning more prosperity for Canadians and more money to invest in things like our military, infrastructure, and social programs.
Instead, Trudeau said there “wasn’t a business case” for Canada to increase LNG exports to our allies, a claim proven completely false by the fact that other nations – including the U.S. and Qatar – quickly jumped in to sign multibillion dollar long-term contracts to expand LNG sales.
And of course, since the law of supply and demand cannot be wished away, Russia benefitted from Trudeau’s decision to rebuff our allies:
“European Union countries have increased their imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia compared with before the Ukraine war, despite the EU’s aim to quit Russian fossil fuels within a few years, an analysis by campaigners showed.
In the first seven months of the year, EU countries imported 40% more Russian LNG on tankers than the same period in 2021, the year before Russia invaded Ukraine, campaign group Global Witness said.
EU countries imported 22 million cubic metres of Russian LNG in January-July, Global Witness said in an analysis of data from analytics firm Kpler.
Spain is now the second-largest buyer of Russian LNG worldwide, with Belgium close behind. During the first seven months of 2023, Spain took 18% of Russia’s total sales, while Belgium took 17%. China bought 20%.”
Reality can often be cruel. Canada’s decision to elevate eco-extremism above helping our allies meant Russia made more money than they otherwise would have, money that Putin’s regime has put towards their war against Ukraine. Ukraine thus suffered more than they otherwise would have. Making this all the more tragic is the fact that Liberal government has actually done a good job in terms of providing assistance to Ukraine in other ways. In seemingly the one area in which the federal government is acting rationally, the Liberals have correctly understood that helping Ukraine now means reducing the long-term danger posed by Russia, thus reducing the long-term costs of the military build-up that would be necessary if Russia defeated Ukraine.
But just as they help on one hand, they cause damage on the other by refusing to reduce Russia’s energy leverage/profits.
Stand on guard for Xi?
If it wasn’t bad enough that Trudeau & Guilbeault’s eco-extremism is benefitting Vladimir Putin’s regime, the Liberal government is also determined to benefit Communist China at the expense of Canadians. I’ve written about that in recent articles so I won’t rehash it all here, but suffice it to say that Xi Jinping has found himself a ‘useful idiot’ in Steven Guilbeault.
Guilbeault is not only bolstering China’s image, he also works for the CCP itself, as he is part of a CCP executive committee on the environment.
Guilbeault also goes around demonizing the Canadian energy sector and seeking to extract more money from Canadians through endless carbon tax hikes, while saying nothing about China (already the world’s largest emitter by far), approving a staggering number of new coal power plants:
“China is approving new coal power projects at the equivalent of two plants every week, a rate energy watchdogs say is unsustainable if the country hopes to achieve its energy targets.”
China of course has no intention of meeting those targets. They simply state they will meet them, and then foolish individuals like Guilbeault use those claims as a substitute for actual results.
What happened to defending our national interest?
As a democratic country blessed with abundant natural resources, while being dependent upon strong trade relationships and military alliances with fellow democracies, Canada’s national interests require us to develop those resources for the benefit of our citizens, support our democratic allies both militarily and in terms of energy sales, and help counter the aggressive actions of anti-democratic nations like China & Russia.
All of those things are far more important than imposing an eco-extremist agenda, especially when even shutting down our entire economy would make almost no difference to global emissions.
Canada needs a government that will work on behalf of Canada and our fellow democracies, rather than benefitting Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
And that means Canada needs the Liberals out of office.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – YouTube
