Alberta, Ontario premiers blast gov’t minister for remarks on slashing federal funds for new roads

Danielle Smith suggested that Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault ‘return to the real world’ and Doug Ford said his province will build roads on its own.

Premiers Danielle Smith of Alberta and Doug Ford of Ontario tore into Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault after he said the federal government would no longer fund any road construction projects and instead funnel the savings to “climate change” projects that promote people walk instead of drive.

“So now our Environment Minister wants to cut federal funding for roads … because we should all just walk more,” Smith wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday in reaction to a news report about the minister’s comments.

“Does this minister understand that most Canadians don’t live in downtown Montreal? Most of us can’t just head out the door in the snow and rain and just walk 10km to work each day.”

Smith then said to Guilbeault, “Can we return to the real world Minister @s_guilbeault?”

So now our Environment Minister wants to cut federal funding for roads…because we should all just walk more.

Does this minister understand that most Canadians don’t live in downtown Montreal? Most of us can’t just head out the door in the snow and rain and just walk 10km to… pic.twitter.com/gkX5TTtd91

— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) February 13, 2024

Guilbeault made the comments on Tuesday at a transit conference in Montreal, saying, “Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure.”

“Of course we will continue to be there for cities, provinces and territories to maintain the existing network, but there will be no more envelopes from the federal government to enlarge the road network,” he added.

Smith has been battling the minister for the last few months over his extreme climate change policies that seek to destroy Alberta’s oil and gas sector.

Guilbeault’s reasoning for stopping funding to build roads was that according to an “analysis” his office did the current network is “perfectly adequate to respond to the needs we have” and that investing in public transit can help them achieve his “goals of economic, social and human development without more enlargement of the road network.”

Ford says he is ‘gobsmacked’ by Guilbeault’s road defunding comments

Ford said his province would continue to build roads on its own.

“I’m gobsmacked. A federal minister said they won’t invest in new roads or highways,” Ford wrote on X.

“He doesn’t care that you’re stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I do. We’re building roads and highways, with or without a cent from the feds.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also took a shot at Guilbeault, saying the federal government would no longer fund new road projects and that the minister is “out of touch” with “reality.”

“Millions for ArriveCan, not one more federal dollar for new roads. Guilbeault wants us all to walk everywhere. The Trudeau government gets more out of touch with reality every day,” Moe wrote Wednesday on X.

The reality is that Canada, the second largest country in the world by land mass, has only one four-lane highway that connects the West Coast to the East. However, the TransCanada highway past Manitoba goes down to only two lanes.

To date, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spent about $30 billion in promoting public transit as well as approximately $400 million to promote walking, e-bikes, roller blades, cycling, and other transportation means, which for most of the year due to winter are not feasible for most.

Also, the Trudeau government has attacked gasoline and diesel cars, even though Guilbeault said on Tuesday that “(w)e must stop thinking that electric cars will solve all our problems.”

Just before Christmas, Guilbeault announced the “Electric Vehicle Availability Standard.” The plan is to mandate that all new cars and trucks by 2035 be electric, which would in effect ban the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-only powered vehicles after that year.

Smith noted that when it comes to Trudeau’s EV mandate, “Ottawa is trying to force increased demands on the electricity grid while simultaneously weakening Alberta’s and other provinces’ grids through their federal electricity regulations.”

Since taking office in 2015, Trudeau has continued to push a radical environmental agenda like the agendas being pushed the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals.”

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.

The reality of Trudeau’s push for so-called renewable energy showed itself just over a month ago after Alberta’s power grid faced near certain collapse due to a failure of wind and solar power. Many called out the Trudeau government’s green energy agenda that is attempting to phase out carbon-based power in favor of “renewables” as the reason for the near failure.

Related Topics:#AnthonyMurdoch #DanielleSmith #DougFord #LifeSiteNews #RoadConstruction #StevenGuilbeault climatechange feature

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Alberta

Alberta awash in corporate welfare

Published on July 26, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

To understand Ottawa’s negative impact on Alberta’s economy and living standards, juxtapose two recent pieces of data.

First, in July the Trudeau government made three separate “economic development” spending announcements in Alberta, totalling more than $80 million and affecting 37 different projects related to the “green economy,” clean technology and agriculture. And second, as noted in a new essay by Fraser Institute senior fellow Kenneth Green, inflation-adjusted business investment (excluding residential structures) in Canada’s extraction sector (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) fell 51.2 per cent from 2014 to 2022.

The productivity gains that raise living standards and improve economic conditions rely on business investment. But business investment in Canada has declined over the past decade and total economic growth per person (inflation-adjusted) from Q3-2015 through to Q1-2024 has been less than 1 per cent versus robust growth of nearly 16 per cent in the United States over the same period.

For Canada’s extraction sector, as Green documents, federal policies—new fuel regulations, extended review processes on major infrastructure projects, an effective ban on oil shipments on British Columbia’s northern coast, a hard greenhouse gas emissions cap targeting oil and gas, and other regulatory initiatives—are largely to blame for the massive decline in investment.

Meanwhile, as Ottawa impedes private investment, its latest bundle of economic development announcements underscores its strategy to have government take the lead in allocating economic resources, whether for infrastructure and public institutions or for corporate welfare to private companies.

Consider these federally-subsidized projects.

A gas cloud imaging company received $4.1 million from taxpayers to expand marketing, operations and product development. The Battery Metals Association of Canada received $850,000 to “support growth of the battery metals sector in Western Canada by enhancing collaboration and education stakeholders.” A food manufacturer in Lethbridge received $5.2 million to increase production of plant-based protein products. Ermineskin Cree Nation received nearly $400,000 for a feasibility study for a new solar farm. The Town of Coronation received almost $900,000 to renovate and retrofit two buildings into a business incubator. The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada received $400,000 for marketing and other support to help boost clean technology product exports. And so on.

When the Trudeau government announced all this corporate welfare and spending, it naturally claimed it create economic growth and good jobs. But corporate welfare doesn’t create growth and good jobs, it only directs resources (including labour) to subsidized sectors and businesses and away from sectors and businesses that must be more heavily taxed to support the subsidies. The effect of government initiatives that reduce private investment and replace it with government spending is a net economic loss.

As 20th-century business and economics journalist Henry Hazlitt put it, the case for government directing investment (instead of the private sector) relies on politicians and bureaucrats—who did not earn the money and to whom the money does not belong—investing that money wisely and with almost perfect foresight. Of course, that’s preposterous.

Alas, this replacement of private-sector investment with public spending is happening not only in Alberta but across Canada today due to the Trudeau government’s fiscal policies. Lower productivity and lower living standards, the data show, are the unhappy results.

Author:

Matthew Lau

Adjunct Scholar, Fraser Institute

Alberta

‘Fireworks’ As Defence Opens Case In Coutts Two Trial

Published on July 25, 2024

Todayville

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Ray McGinnis

Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial for conspiracy to commit murder and firearms charges in relation to the Coutts Blockade into mid-February 2022. In opening her case before a Lethbridge, AB, jury on July 11, Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns stated “This is a political, criminal trial that is un Canadian.” She told the jury, “You will be shocked, and at the very least, disappointed with how Canada’s own RCMP conducted themselves during and after the Coutts protest,” as she summarized officers’ testimony during presentation of the Crown’s case. Burns also contended that “the conduct of Alberta’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government are entwined with the RCMP.” The arrests of the Coutts Four on the night of February 13 and noon hour of February 14, were key events in a decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, and the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, to advise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. Chief Justice Paul Rouleau, in submitting his Public Order Emergency Commission Report to Parliament on February 17, 2023, also cited events at the Coutts Blockade as key to his conclusion that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act.

Justice David Labrenz cautioned attorney Burns regarding her language, after Crown prosecutor Stephen Johnson objected to some of the language in the opening statement of Olienick’s counsel. Futher discussion about the appropriateness of attorney Burns’ statement to the jury is behind a publication ban, as discussions occurred without the jury present.

Justice Labrenz told the jury on July 12, “I would remind you that the presumption of innocence means that both the accused are cloaked with that presumption, unless the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charge(s).” He further clarified what should result if the jurors were uncertain about which narrative to believe: the account by the Crown, or the account from the accused lawyers. Labrenz stated that such ambivalence must lead to an acquittal; As such a degree of uncertainty regarding which case to trust in does not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for a conviction.”

On July 15, 2024, a Lethbridge jury heard evidence from a former employer of Olienicks’ named Brian Lambert. He stated that he had tasked Olienick run his sandstone quarry and mining business. He was a business partner with Olienick. In that capacity, Olienick made use of what Lambert referred to as “little firecrackers,” to quarry the sandstone and reduce it in size. Reducing the size of the stone renders it manageable to get refined and repurposed so it could be sold to buyers of stone for other uses (building construction, patio stones, etc.) Lambert explained that the “firecrackers” were “explosive devices” packaged within tubing and pipes that could also be used for plumbing. He detailed how “You make them out of ordinary plumbing pipe and use some kind of propellant like shotgun powder…” Lambert explained that the length of the pipe “…depended on how big a hole or how large a piece of stone you were going to crack. The one I saw was about six inches long … maybe an inch in diameter.”

One of Olienick’s charges is “unlawful possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.” The principal evidence offered up by RCMP to the Crown is what the officers depicted as “pipe bombs” which they obtained at the residence of Anthony Olienick in Claresholm, Alberta, about a two-hour drive from Coutts. Officers entered his home after he was arrested the night of February 13, 2022. Lambert’s testimony offers a plausible common use for the “firecrackers” the RCMP referred to as “pipe bombs.” Lambert added, these “firecrackers” have a firecracker fuse, and in the world of “explosive” they are “no big deal.”

Fellow accused, Chris Carbert, is does not face the additional charge of unlawful possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose. This is the first full week of the case for the defence. The trial began on June 6 when the Crown began presenting its case.

Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy who recently attended several days of testimony at the Coutts Two trial.