The Liberal government wants Canada to be a defender of the rules-based international order. They also want to impose economically crippling environmental policies that enrich our adversaries. The contradiction cannot be ignored much longer.
As much as it may be an overused line, there is such a thing as the ‘rules-based international order.’
The idea that wars of conquest should be a thing of the past, the idea that countries should trade with eachother, the idea that the world’s oceans should be free of piracy, and the idea that economic freedom and political freedom are goals to strive toward have helped to generate the greatest level of prosperity in human history.
Canada’s national security is deeply tied to the rules-based international order, as we benefit from our military alliances and trade relationships.
And yet, as much as the rules-based international order is built on the opposition of the idea of ‘might makes right,’ it ultimately still depends on military power and economic power.
This also makes the defence of the rules based order incompatible with the kind of eco-radicalism being implemented here in Canada by politicians like Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault.
Here’s why:
If Canada wants to help defend the rules based order we have benefitted from and upon which our national security depends, then we must be able to produce weapons at a much faster pace and at a much wider scale.
We must also be able to provide our allies what they need – affordable energy and ammunition.
Doing this requires money and the extraction and refinement of natural resources.
It also requires a strong and innovative economy.
Most of all, it requires fully utilizing the vast amount of natural resources our country possesses.
We need to extract valuable resources.
We need to refine those resources.
We need to build a bunch of military production factories.
We need to incentivize companies to do this.
All of this requires making Canada a great place to do business, and focusing our financial resources where they can do the most to make our military-industrial base stronger.
And that means abandoning eco radicalism.
We can’t expect to become a military production powerhouse if we cripple our own energy sector, drive up the cost of energy, impose an ever-increasing carbon tax, and push investment out of our country through high taxes and onerous regulations.
Building an economy that is ready for war will require a rejection of the economic/environmental agenda of Trudeau & Guilbeault.
And our allies will welcome it.
After all, who benefits the most from our current eco-radical policies?
Not Canadians. Our living standards are declining.
Not our allies. They want Canadian oil & gas, not lectures on ‘saving the planet.’
Rather, it’s our enemies who benefit.
China gets to keep ramping up coal production.
Russia and Iran make higher profits on energy sales than they would if Canada ramped up our production.
And our lack of military production – along with the lack of production from our allies – has led to the absolutely absurd situation in which North Korea alone is outproducing North America and the European Union when it comes to artillery shells.
There is no reason for this to be happening, aside from our complete lack of will and the fact that our government still thinks weakening the Canadian economy will somehow change the world for the better.
This is not a time for utopian thinking. Instead, it’s a time for acknwoledging the cold hard reality that our freedom and the freedom of our allies depends upon building weapons and selling more oil & gas. And that means the eco-radicalism has to go.
Spencer Fernando
