“The greatest happiness,” Genghis Khan famously said, “is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, [and] to see those who love him shrouded in tears.” That’s something Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre must be feeling deeply right now. With a seemingly insurmountable lead in the polls and the Liberal government collapsing before his very eyes, he’s on the verge of getting everything he’s ever wanted in politics — and then some.
But there’s another piece of Khan’s wisdom that Poilievre may be about to learn. "Conquering the world on horseback is easy,” he said. “It is dismounting and governing that is hard." That’s especially true when you’ve spent the last two years, as Poilievre has, raising the expectations of your closest supporters. It’s one thing to promise that you’ll axe the tax, fix the budget, build the homes and stop the crime. It’s quite another to actually do it.
Poilievre’s first act as prime minister will likely be, as he’s promised thousands of times by now, to “axe the tax.” But eliminating the carbon tax and rebate won’t magically make people’s groceries cheaper, if only because it didn’t cause them to go up in the first place. As a new paper by University of Calgary economists Trevor Tombe and Jennifer Winter makes clear, the carbon tax has had a negligible impact on inflation. “Contrary to common perceptions,” they write, “we show that these policies (and all other indirect taxes embedded within items consumers purchase) contributed only about a 0.5 per cent overall increase in consumer prices since 2019 — accounting for a small fraction of the more than 19 per cent increase in such prices over that period.”
Instead, as the most recent iteration of Canada’s Food Price Report makes clear, the bigger drivers of rising food prices in 2025 are expected to be climate change (hello, olive oil prices!) and the prospect of a trade war between Canada and the United States. In a particularly cruel irony, the households most negatively impacted by rising food prices will also lose the most from the elimination of the carbon tax and rebate. This is the risk in pretending, as Poilievre has for years now, that the carbon tax is the root cause of all Canada’s problems. When those problems persist or even worsen after the carbon tax has been eliminated, people will naturally go looking for a different cause — and perhaps start considering Poilievre for the role of whipping boy.
The same holds true for Poilievre’s pledge to “build the homes,” a promise that has helped him attract more support from younger voters than any Conservative in his lifetime. Poilievre correctly identified the role that so-called “gatekeepers” at the local level were playing in obstructing the development of new housing supply, and the impact that was having on rents and home prices.
What he has missed — or, at least, declines to talk about — is the disproportionate role conservative-leaning politicians are playing in that. In Calgary, for example, almost all of the political resistance to the city’s recent blanket up-zoning has come from either conservative-leaning councilors or members of Poilievre’s own Conservative caucus like Calgary Centre MP Greg McLean. In Ontario, Doug Ford’s government has been the biggest enemy of the pro-housing policies espoused by Poilievre. At some point, and probably pretty soon, he’s going to have to pick a side here.
And then there’s the oil and gas industry, where Poilievre is promising to unleash a flood of new investment in pipelines, LNG terminals, and other energy infrastructure. He’ll repeal Bill C-69, which clarified (and strengthened) the environmental review process for major projects, and Bill-48, which banned tankers off the north coast of British Columbia. And then he and his allies in Alberta will have to watch as they lose their single greatest asset in their crusade to crush climate policy: the ability to blame Justin Trudeau.
For almost a decade now, they’ve pretended that global trends that drove down investment in the U.S. oil and gas industry, to almost the same extent as in Canada, are entirely the doing of the Liberal government. Now, they’ll be forced to contend with reality. Demand for oil and gas will peak within the next decade while the cost of renewable energy and electric vehicles will keep getting cheaper. And while blaming Trudeau will still be a popular sport in Alberta long after Poilievre leaves office — some pundits here still can’t let Pierre go, after all — it won’t work nearly as well outside the province.
On top of all that, Poilievre will also have to contend with an American president who’s openly hostile to Canada’s economic interests. According to Politico, incoming vice president JD Vance reportedly said, in a confused reference to Poilievre, “it’s not entirely clear it’s better for us to have Mitt Romney with a French accent as prime minister.” So much for Vance’s friend and CPC MP Jamil Jivani playing a moderating influence on the new administration.
None of this will change the outcome of the next federal election, or the inevitability of a Conservative majority government. But the seeds of future discontent with it are already being sown by Poilievre himself, and they will almost certainly take root in his own political fields.
Why “Canada Powered By Women” is just greenwashing in action
For as long as I’ve covered the oil and gas industry in Alberta, I’ve noted the conspicuous absence of women in leadership positions. It’s why while I was the editor of Alberta Oil magazine I committed to put more women on the cover and repeatedly highlight the importance of diversity in an industry too often blinded by groupthink. It’s why I wrote about the issue again in 2020, and highlighted the continued disparity between male and female voices in senior leadership roles. And so, when Tracey Bodnarchuk, the founder and CEO of an organization called Canada Powered By Women, published an op-ed in the Calgary Herald on the federal government’s emissions cap, I read it with interest.
It was, I quickly discovered, a textbook example of greenwashing. As my colleague Marc Fawcett-Atkinson noted back in September, “a look at the players behind the organization reveals a group that is entwined with Canada's fossil fuel and petrochemical industries. All of its six founding board members are oil and gas executives who speak routinely at industry events.” Not surprisingly, perhaps, the organization opposes the federal government’s recent efforts to curtail greenwashing.
But it’s worth digging deeper into their op-ed, if only to uncover some of the tactics at work here. First, there’s the concern trolling, which achieves weapons-grade status with the suggestion that “critical questions remain unanswered: How will this cap reduce global emissions? How will it impact our wallets during an affordability crisis? How will this affect future prosperity?”
These questions have, in fact, been answered, and in some detail. You will not be surprised, I suspect, to learn that their biggest concerns revolve around the supposed economic impacts revealed in industry or government-funded studies that I debunked months ago. “Right now, 87 per cent of engaged women believe upcoming energy policies, such as the emissions cap, will negatively affect their finances. Yet only 21 per cent believe these same policies will lower emissions. That’s a deafening alarm bell, and proposed policy moves like this indicate decision-makers aren’t listening.”
Hold on, hold on: “engaged women”? What’s that, you ask? “Engaged women are tuned in women who take in the news, understand the connection between the economy and energy and want a voice in the conversation. They are interested in learning more and how they can support dialogue about issues facing Canadians including wealth and prosperity.”
If this sounds like a group that’s been deliberately gerrymandered to select for certain traits and beliefs, well, you’re onto something. Buried in the methodology at the bottom of the survey page is this note. “The women who qualified identified as someone who reads/listens to the news, is informed on politics, believe to be somewhat left/in the middle/on the right and is neutral or in agreement with the many statements related to having an interest in: influencing government, learning about the future, learning more about topics that could impact the future wealth and prosperity of Canadians, understanding what I can do to support important issues facing Canadians and having a voice about the future of oil and gas and energy.”
I asked Ms. Bodnarchuk for a list of the statements they used to screen their target population, along with the full methodology of the survey. She politely declined. I don’t blame her.
The rest of the op-ed gives up the game here. It suggests that “the proposed emissions targets are attainable with existing technology within the given time frame,” even though it’s technology and a time frame the oil and gas industry has repeatedly offered up as its preferred solution.
The piece then suggests that “women want carrots — incentives for technological advancements, not penalties that threaten jobs, standard of living and access to affordable, reliable energy. Our research shows 75 per cent of engaged women want emissions reductions through technology, and 76 per cent pointed to CCS specifically.” That is, of course, the same technology that the current federal government has offered massive multi-billion subsidies for — carrots, in other words.
Its next nonsensical argument is that the emissions cap will lead to “skyrocketing grocery bills and home heating costs,” even though the emissions cap has little to say about natural gas production (which both the industry and Alberta government have said can decarbonize significantly by 2030, rendering the emissions cap irrelevant to costs). It also trades in the idea that the emissions cap will meaningfully reduce production, one that — again — I’ve debunked at length. “Our research shows 59 per cent of engaged women think energy is currently unaffordable — a 13 per cent increase from 2023. Imagine what that number will look like if we start cutting Canadian production.”
Energy prices in 2024 were actually lower than 2023, but facts seem to have little purchase on the feelings expressed in this piece. It’s worth noting that the biggest driver of unaffordable energy in Alberta is the provincial government’s policies around electricity that helped create some of the highest prices in the country. Oddly, that escapes mention here.
It closes with their preferred (and, given the group’s origins, inevitable) solution to climate change: exporting more fossil fuels. “If we can’t provide energy to countries such as India and China, they will continue to meet needs with higher-emitting sources like coal, undermining global emissions-reduction efforts,” it says. “We need government to hear the 83 per cent of engaged women who support exporting Canadian oil and gas to help reduce global emissions.”
The irony here — well, one of them — is that a group of supposedly informed people are lending their voice to a policy that is so obviously ill-informed. There is no universe in which exporting Canadian oil will reduce global emissions, and any LNG exports will — as I’ve documented above — be of limited climate benefit, especially if it’s being used to displace renewable energy in the developing world.
I have to tip my hat to Ms. Bodnarchuk and her group, though. This is an impressive bit of greenwashing, one that raises the bar (or, perhaps, lowers it) on how oil and gas companies can confuse and distract the public and slow efforts to actually reduce emissions. Whether it will actually change anyone’s mind, especially when it’s being published in the Calgary Herald, is another matter entirely. But if there’s one thing men and women in the oil and gas industry definitely have in common, it’s their preference for echo chambers.
I get letters: helpful insight edition!
I get a fairly wide variety of fan mail, from illiterate attempts at insulting me to far more learned letters of praise. But my favourite kind, by far, are those that teach me something new. In response to my column about the lack of fiscal responsibility among supposedly responsible Conservative premiers, Jeff Wood sent me a note about the “two Santa Claus” strategy and a Thom Hartmann Salon piece from 2018 explaining how it works.
Republican strategist Jude Wanniski first proposed his Two Santa Clauses strategy in 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace and the future of the Republican Party was so dim that books and articles were widely suggesting the GOP was about to go the way of the Whigs. There was genuine despair across the Party, particularly when Jerry Ford began stumbling as he climbed the steps to Air Force One and couldn’t even beat an unknown peanut farmer from rural Georgia for the presidency.
Wanniski was tired of the GOP failing to win elections. And, he reasoned, it was happening because the Democrats had been viewed since the New Deal as the Santa Claus party (taking care of people’s needs and the General Welfare), while the GOP, opposing everything from Social Security to Medicare to unemployment insurance, was widely seen as the party of Scrooge.
The Democrats, he noted, got to play Santa Claus when they passed out Social Security and Unemployment checks – both programs of the New Deal – as well as when their "big government" projects like roads, bridges, and highways were built, giving a healthy union paycheck to construction workers and making our country shine.
So how did Republicans find their inner Santa Clauses? By popularizing the idea of supply-side economics, which suggests — without much evidence — that tax cuts will lead to wealth “trickling down” to lower income brackets.
More from Hartmann:
If the Democrats are going to play Santa Claus by promoting more spending, the Republicans can never beat them by promoting less spending. They have to promise tax cuts..."
Ed Crane, then-president of the Koch-funded Libertarian CATO Institute, noted in a memo that year: "When Jack Kemp, Newt Gingich, Vin Weber, Connie Mack and the rest discovered Jude Wanniski and Art Laffer, they thought they'd died and gone to heaven. In supply-side economics they found a philosophy that gave them a free pass out of the debate over the proper role of government. Just cut taxes and grow the economy: government will shrink as a percentage of GDP, even if you don't cut spending. That's why you rarely, if ever, heard Kemp or Gingrich call for spending cuts, much less the elimination of programs and departments."
So it is among Canadian Conservatives, who rarely if ever cut spending but always cut taxes. Expect the same from a future Poilievre government, which will cut things like the CBC but avoid anything that makes them look like a real Scrooge.
Thanks to Jeff for sending this my way. If you have something you think I should read — within reason, of course — please send it my way.
Quick Hits
Let’s close this newsletter — the penultimate one of 2024, by the way — with some good news.
First, here’s the latest data on battery prices, which are still falling. In fact, 2024 saw the biggest decline in global lithium ion battery prices since 2017, and they’re rapidly approaching the $100 per kWh threshold — which is the widely accepted tipping point for broad price parity with combustion-engine vehicles. As clean technology investor Craig Lawrence said on social media, “Remember all the battery-haters calling out the price increase in 2022, and declaring the end of falling prices. Down 30% since then. LFP [Lithium ferrophosphate, a new battery technology]has changed the game, and we've got sodium-ion and potassium-ion in the wings.”
And while Alberta may have turned its back on wind and solar electricity, British Columbia’s latest auction shows it’s still getting cheaper. Its recent tender resulted in nine projects that will generate more than 1.5 gigawatts of wind, most of it owned by Indigenous proponents. Better still, the Eby government has decided to waive the environmental assessment process for them, which means they’ll come online far more quickly. His government is also committed, he said, to further “permitting reform” for clean energy.
This is the way, folks.
Finally, because it can’t all be good climate news, here’s a piece from The Hill that addresses the elephant in our collective room: the insurance industry. Large swathes of coastal America, and even some parts far away from the oceans, are either facing a lack of insurance coverage or massive increases in the cost of it. As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said back in June, this is creating structural risks throughout the American economy. “Climate risk makes things uninsurable. No insurance makes things unmortgageable. No mortgages crashes the property markets. Crashed property markets trash the economy.” This, he said, “sounds eerily like the run-up to 2008.”
Read the piece, then share it with the people you know who don’t think climate change matters to them. They might have said the same thing about the U.S. housing bubble once upon a time, after all.