Of all the lies she’s told in her political career, Danielle Smith’s latest might be the biggest yet. After insisting it was the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) that “asked for us to do a pause” on renewable energy development last year, it turns out the AESO’s CEO was actually opposed to it all along. In an email that came to light through a freedom-of-information request from The Narwhal’s Drew Anderson, AESO CEO Mike Law indicated that he was “not supportive” of the idea. “A ‘closed for business’ message to renewables will be reputationally very challenging for the province,” he wrote.
This is already having a number of potential negative outcomes for Alberta, from the independence of its supposedly independent electricity market operator to the damage this decision is already doing to investment in the province. This week alone, TransAlta announced the cancellation of its 300-megawatt Riplinger wind farm in Cardston because of the new provincial regulations and put three additional renewable energy projects on hold.
Sady, this probably won’t negatively impact Smith’s popularity. We’ve come to expect our elected officials will lie to us, and they’ve been more than happy to live up — or down — to that standard. When Pierre Poilievre and his Conservative MPs tell bald-faced lies, whether it’s about the carbon tax or the treatment of drugs in B.C. (they’ve been decriminalized, not “legalized”), most of us — journalists and non-Conservative MPs included — have almost become accustomed to them by now.
In fairness, the same holds true for the lies being told by those on the other side of the House of Commons, even if they happen with far less frequency. We’re all increasingly numb to the cost of these lies, big and small, and the corrosive impact they have on our political discourse and the decisions that flow from it.
This isn’t unique to Canada, of course. Politicians lie everywhere. But at least one politician is willing to do something about it. Adam Price, a Welsh parliamentarian and former leader of the centre-left Plaid Cymru party, recently tabled an amendment to that country’s broader election reform act proposing that it be made illegal for an elected official or candidate to “wilfully mislead the parliament or the public.” Opinions, beliefs, and other non-factual statements would be exempt from this proposed law that has the support of Wales’ Liberal Democrats and Tories.
This isn’t Price’s first rodeo here. He became famous for trying to impeach former British prime minister Tony Blair for lying about the Iraq war, and he clearly still believes in the importance of politicians telling the truth. “If a doctor lies, they are struck off,” he told CBC’s As It Happens. “If a lawyer lies, they are disbarred. And yet we seem to have tolerated a democratic culture where politicians can lie with impunity. Well, that's got to stop.”
Donald Trump’s arrival on the political scene in 2016, and his well-documented status as the world’s most voracious liar, created a permission structure for other aspiring liars to test their own limits. So, too, has the decline of conventional media and the rise of a right-wing information ecosystem that holds the truth in nearly as much contempt as the journalists who try to inform it. And while those trends are most visible in American politics, where everything (including the lies and the liars) is bigger, they can clearly be seen in ours as well.
It’s entirely possible such a law would fail to pass constitutional muster in Canada, although if Poilievre is willing to pre-emptively invoke the charter, then maybe Justin Trudeau could do the same here. But maybe as a first step, his government could establish an officer of Parliament charged to catalogue lying offences and identify the politicians responsible for them. If former Toronto Star reporter and U.S. fact checker extraordinaire Daniel Dale is looking for an opportunity to return home, this might be the perfect job for him.
The cynics will surely suggest that this wouldn’t have any meaningful impact on our political discourse, much less the natural inclination of politicians to bend the truth of any given situation to their advantage. They might be right. But at a time where misinformation is more widespread than ever, and where democratic institutions are increasingly coming under attack, we at least ought to have the courage to find out.
Debunking Conrad Black
When I grew up, Conrad Black occupied a central place in Canada’s media culture and community. Ironically, his name was even on my first paycheques as a journalist, when I was the editor of the Chetwynd Echo and it was one of a small handful of local papers that Izzy Asper and Canwest passed on when it bought Black’s newspaper empire in 2000. But after his conviction for mail fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007 and shameless shilling for Donald Trump, he’s become far more of a punchline than a power broker.
His most recent rant — sorry, “column” — on climate change shows just how far he’s fallen. It was brought to my attention by one of my readers, who asked me to debunk its most ludicrous arguments. Well, buckle up.
Black begins by invoking a gathering of the Friends of Science Society, the group that infamously ran ads pretending climate change was caused by the sun rather than our own greenhouse gas emissions. Not exactly an auspicious start, in other words.
He goes on to suggest that “Europe’s extremist net-zero carbon emissions policies” are “running into extreme problems in Europe.” Those “extremist” policies, of course, commit European countries to a net-zero target by 2050 — the same target that any number of Canadian conservatives, including Alberta’s oil and gas executives and the province’s current UCP premier, have committed to themselves. Black then describes climate policy as a kind of Marxist Trojan Horse, one that “transformed by the left into an assault on the capitalist system from a new angle in the name of saving the planet.”
Before we get in too deep here, let’s do some fact checking — the lack of which shows that Postmedia simply allows Black to post whatever he wants. Black, for example, writes that “Switzerland is a very small country but is responsible for between two and three per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, while Canada, a huge country with a much larger population, emits only 1.5 per cent of global emissions, compared to 27 per cent for China.” Over here in reality, though, Switzerland is responsible for 0.1 per cent of global emissions.
Then there’s his suggestion that “for notorious historic reasons, Europe is always vulnerable to the madnesses and outrages of the left.” Which? What? Is he actually falling for the nonsense argument, one spread by Trumpists and other bad-faith actors on the U.S. far-right, that the Nazis in Germany were somehow of the left? Is he suggesting that Mussolini’s fascists were of the left? And if those aren’t the “historic reasons” he’s citing, which are?
Finally, there’s his endorsement of a brief filed by Richard Lindzen, William Happer and Steven Koonin, three American academics that he describes as “eminent” and “climate-related.” Their contention, if you can believe it, is that “fossil fuels and CO2 will not cause dangerous climate change” and “there will be disastrous consequences for people worldwide if fossil fuels in CO2 emissions are reduced to net zero, including mass starvation.”
It will not surprise you to learn that this trio was heavily involved in the Trump administration’s attempt to conduct an “adversarial” review of climate science — or that they have a history of showing their hand on this issue.
In a 2014 interview with CNBC, Happer said “the demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.” His so-called “CO2 Coalition” has received funding from the Mercer family, whose own efforts to attack and undermine climate science are well documented. Lindzen, for his part, has suggested that believing climate change is largely caused by increases in carbon dioxide is “pretty close to believing in magic,” and that “warming of any significance ceased about 20 years ago.” Koonin’s recent book on climate change, meanwhile, was called out by a dozen climate scientists in Scientific American, who described him as “a crank who’s only taken seriously by far-right disinformation peddlers hungry for anything they can use to score political points.”
Indeed, they’re the very definition of concern trolls — people who claim to be interested in the well-being of the people they’re discussing while secretly doing the work of another agenda. Witness their claim that “hundreds of research papers confirm the highly beneficial effects of the increased concentration of atmospheric CO2, especially in dry farming areas,” and that “net zero will expand human starvation by eliminating nitrogen fertilizer.”
The notion that increasing levels of carbon dioxide is good for plants — and, therefore, don’t need to be worried about — has been debunked repeatedly. It is a fundamentally unserious response to a deeply serious challenge, and one that should be almost immediately disqualifying in any meaningful intellectual discourse. So, too, is the notion that the reduction in the use of nitrogen fertilizer will result in widespread starvation, as though scientists aren’t working towards solutions that will both reduce emissions and increase crop yields.
And, of course, the biggest threat of all to human flourishing in the developing world is … climate change. As the World Bank notes, “For areas of the world that are already water-constrained, climate change will increasingly cause adverse impacts on agricultural production through diminishing water supplies, increases in extreme events like floods and severe storms, heat stress, and increased prevalence of pests and diseases. Above a certain point of warming — and particularly above an increase of [2 C] in average global temperatures — it becomes increasingly more difficult to adapt and increasingly more expensive.”
But Black is right about one thing: the pushback against climate-friendly policies in democratic countries is growing. In Germany, for example, the coalition government’s push to phase out fossil fuels in home heating and support the widespread adoption of heat pumps met with stiff resistance. The country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been only too happy to exploit that, and it’s helped fuel its recent rise in the polls. Indeed, everywhere you look, it’s the right-wing parties amplifying and exploiting cost of living concerns and trying to conflate them with climate policy.
Politicians and parties that want to continue moving forward with progressive climate policy will have to do better. The right will never stand down here, much as some might have hoped on nominally conservative approaches like carbon pricing. They will exploit fears, amplify grievances and weaponize misinformation in defence of the status quo — one many of them just happen to benefit from financially. If the rest of us want to win this war, we’d best get ready to fight.
The Pollsters Aren’t Alright
I spend a disproportionate amount of time defending the work of pollsters and others in the business of measuring and monitoring public opinion. What they do can and often is very useful, and their track record remains pretty impressive in the face of overwhelming technological changes (the decline of the land line, most notably).
But even I have to ask: What’s gotten into some of them lately? First, there’s this Hill Times story about Pierre Poilievre and his repeated flirtations with the far-right, one that quotes longtime pollster Greg Lyle. As the Hill Times noted on social media, “There’s no evidence to prove that Pierre Poilievre had an organized meeting with some extremist protesters in Atlantic Canada, says Greg Lyle, president of Innovative Research.”
Two questions immediately come to mind. One, why is a pollster weighing in on something that doesn’t relate to his own research or findings? Should pollsters really be acting as pundits — and flagrantly partisan ones at that? And two, why is he using such obviously disingenuous framing? Nobody to my knowledge has suggested that there was an “organized meeting” with extremist protesters in Atlantic Canada, in large part because they’re probably incapable of that degree of organization. But it is an incontrovertible fact that Poilievre and his team chose to stop, talk and pose with them.
That’s not the only weird pollster behaviour of late. There’s also a deeply weird poll conducted by Nanos — apparently on behalf of the CTV — asking how Canadians feel about a ban on gasoline-powered vehicles in 2035. “Nanos surveyed 1,086 Canadians between April 28 and May 1 to gauge their level of support for a hypothetical ban on the use of gas-powered cars and SUVs as of 2035,” CTV News reported.
No such ban is being contemplated of course, since it would effectively mean that someone who bought a new gas-powered vehicle in, say, 2033 would no longer be able to use it. The federal EV target is for the sale of new vehicles, not their ongoing operation. So why, exactly, is Nanos asking people about a thing that doesn’t and will never exist?
Maybe it’s because the people at CTV News are looking to stir up controversy, generate clicks or otherwise trade on anger and confusion. That would be bad. Maybe it’s because they’re trying to poison the well when it comes to federal policy around electric vehicles and the energy transition. That would obviously be worse.
But either way, both CTV and Nanos are contributing directly to making the public less informed and more confused about federal policies aimed at addressing climate change. Do better, folks. Do way, way better.
Worst. Libertarian. Ever.
For as long as she’s been involved in Alberta’s political scene, Danielle Smith has been known for her proudly libertarian beliefs. Few would have predicted that as premier, she would run one of the most activist and interventionist governments in Alberta history. And yet, as the CBC’s Jason Markusoff pointed out in a recent column, here we are.
During her nearly two years in government, Smith has maintained a larger cabinet than her UCP predecessor, never mind the NDP government of 2015-19. She’s proposed the creation of multiple Crown corporations, ones that would involve themselves in everything from electricity generation to addiction recovery. She has proposed an Alberta police force and an Alberta pension plan, both of which would require the hiring of new public servants and hundreds of millions in additional expenses.
And perhaps most notably, the former fan of small government is running the biggest and most expensive government in Alberta history. As Markusoff noted in his piece, “Smith hiked provincial spending in two years by more than the Notley government did in four years, between her final $56.2-billion budget in 2018 and the last one by the PCs.”
She’s not done, either. The Smith government recently announced the creation of a provincial agency that would manage her government’s plan for a sprawling new light rail network. When asked whether this vision was in conflict with her core beliefs, Smith didn’t miss a beat. "This is why people elect governments: To do the things that they can't do in the private sector, and that includes building massive new infrastructure that connects cities and requires this kind of major investment.”
If Rachel Notley and the NDP did this, of course, they’d be accused — maybe even by Smith herself — of engaging in taxpayer-funded socialism. If they put a moratorium on new renewable energy development, they’d be accused of destroying jobs and chasing away investment. And if they failed to deliver on a promised tax cut, as Smith has, they’d be pilloried as liars and thieves. If political hypocrisy was a marketable commodity, Alberta would be flooding the market with it right now.
Recommended Reading
Finding the latest supposedly insurmountable challenge to the widespread electrification of vehicles is a cottage industry among climate skeptics. But the people making these vehicles keep knocking these straw men down. Witness the co-founder of Tesla, JB Straubel, who’s taking on the challenge — and opportunity — associated with recycling their all-important batteries with his new company. In an interview with Bloomberg, he talks about how he sees the energy transition unfolding and the role companies like Redwood Materials will play in it.
Over at Energi Media, my friend Markham Hislop writes about how Americans are thinking about the relationship between trade and carbon emissions. Of course, it goes without saying that this thinking will change dramatically if Donald Trump is returned to power. But if Joe Biden manages to survive November’s election, it will pour concrete on his government’s effort to steer the energy transition in America’s favour. And that will have major ramifications for Canada, whether we like them or not.
And finally, while it has nothing to do with either Canada or climate change, I wanted to include this story about Norway’s experiment with banning smartphones in classrooms. Like most parents of young kids, I worry about the impact of smartphones and other new technologies, and I really worry about the impact they’re having on educational outcomes and experiences.
The results of Norway’s experiment are striking. According to the Boston Globe’s Shannon Larson, it resulted in lower levels of reported emotional distress and improved classroom outcomes — especially for lower-income girls. The most telling result, though, was the smartphone ban’s impact on bullying. “Girls who went through three years of middle school with a ban reported being bullied by other students about 46 per cent less compared to when no policy was in place. Four years after a ban on smartphone use was implemented, boys experienced a decline in bullying incidents by about 43 per cent.”
Already, governments in B.C., Ontario and New Brunswick have experimented with more modest restrictions. I’d gently suggest they don’t go nearly far enough — and that other provinces need to get busy implementing their own.
That’s all for this week. As always, send your letters — and requests — to [email protected].