In case you missed the (mainstream) media frenzy, the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) just wrapped up in Egypt.

This is the annual conference that highlights just how completely out of touch the elites, environmentalists and world leaders truly are, including our own prime minister.

In the weeks leading up to COP, the media was full of hysterical statements from politicians, UN bureaucrats, and activists. In October, the British newspaper The Guardian quoted UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres: “The fossil fuel industry is killing us.” In the same piece the “co-founder” of a “change agency” (whatever that is) says we’re facing “Armageddon”.  Gutteres told the delegates we’re on a “highway to climate hell”. Celebrities fly in on their private jets and pose for pictures. Politicians make more hysterical speeches.

There were lots of meetings and negotiations. It always turns out that the last round of green plans and “climate” policies didn’t quite work, and the solution is always, well, more plans and policies. Then they do it all again the next year.

And it would be funny if it weren’t so damaging. If ever the expression ‘playing the fiddle while Rome burns’ applied, this is it.

Domestically, Canadians are struggling to pay for food, heat, and housing. Inflation is driving up the cost of everything and Canadians are feeling it. Food banks across the country are sounding the alarm on record breaking visits. They note that it is no longer the unemployed that are primarily visiting them, it is the ‘working poor’ those who are employed but simply cannot make ends meet. Many Canadians are choosing between heating their homes or feeding their families. The situation is bad. And it’s even worse in Europe, but that’s another story.

In the midst of this, the Trudeau government is focusing their time and our resources on what? Greenhouse gases that might raise temperatures very slightly over the next quarter-century.  And they are doing this at enormous expense. The cost of this climate cult to Canadians is mind-boggling. Since 2015, Trudeau has spent 60 billion dollars trying to get our tiny contribution to global greenhouse emissions – around 1.5 percent – even lower.

Over the next thirty years, the total cost of the government’s climate initiatives will be around 2 trillion. 

Let that number sink in.

But that’s just what they’re spending. In addition, we should think about rising carbon taxes and energy costs, which make everything more expensive. We should think about the jobs we’ll lose, and the massive profits we could be making if the government would let our resource sector operate normally.

And have the last 26 COP conferences slowed the warming trend? Of course not. While according to Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault“progress on commitments was at the forefront of this COP,” you can be sure there will need to be a 28th, and a 29th and a 35th COP conference. At some point, Einstein’s definition of insanity might apply – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

It goes to show just how out of touch the Trudeau government is. It is an insult to have Canadians pay for politicians and bureaucrats to be “COP delegates” and to fly halfway around the world for another pointless conference. We’re on a highway to hell, alright, but not because the world may be a little warmer in 2050.

It is amazing, with ever increasing energy costs in Canada and throughout the world, that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to promote the extreme Green Agenda that will destroy Canada’s energy industry.

The latest example? Just the other week, the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) released a study that describes how the Trudeau government’s proposed Emissions Cap for the energy sector would “cost the Canadian economy between $44.8 billion and $79.3 billion a year” and would “cause substantial losses, without achieving any net reduction in global emission.” You can read the study here.

In case you’ve not heard about Trudeau’s new way to destroy our economy, let me take a step back and explain.

The Trudeau government is proposing an Emissions Cap to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the oil and gas sector by 42 percent by 2030. This policy is another piece in their larger, foolish plan to try to achieve “Net Zero” GHG emissions by 2050.  Keep in mind Canada contributes only 1.5% of global emissions, so this plan, if even achievable, would reduce only 0.45% of global emissions.

One of the options proposed to achieve this “Net Zero” craziness is a cap-and-trade system. According to Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault “one of the advantages of a cap is emissions reduction certainty.”

Another certainty that Guilbeault failed to mention is that companies will think twice about investing their money in Canada.

Canadians need to consider that. The oil and gas sector is the single largest revenue provider for the Canadian government, generating $45 billion a year in annual economic activity, and  contributes $170 billion a year to the GDP. The economic consequences of this plan are significant, and they will mean a dramatic drawback in social programs in this country. How are we going to pay for our hospitals, our education system? How are we going to pay for our roads and our infrastructure?

As the MEI study found, this emissions cap will result in “substantial losses without achieving any net reduction in global emissions.” Why? Because whether this government likes to admit it or not, there is an increasing global demand for oil and gas. We can either produce those resources here or get them from another country that has no environmental, much less labour standards, such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran.

And here’s the rub. This cap on emissions would apply only to the oil and gas sector. This emissions cap would not apply to the concrete industry, the automotive industry, or the mining industry. And it certainly won’t apply to the jet building industry in Montreal. These must have better lobbyists than the oil and gas industry.

For that reason, an emissions cap, layered on top of carbon taxes, layered on top of a Clean Fuel Standard, layered on top of pipeline blockages, layered on top of Bills C-48, C-69, preventing oil from being shipped from other parts of the world — is clearly a vendetta against the sector that provides over 500,000 jobs to Canadians and contributes billions to our economy. And it is ultimately a vendetta against our pocketbooks, the interests of our society, and the Canadian way of life.