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Opinion

‘Secret’ RCMP memo blames everyone but the Liberals for Canada’s misery

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8 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Kennedy Hall

This is, of course, about Canada’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a man whom the left has tried to turn into a Super Trump since the day he stood up against COVID totalitarianism.

According to the National Post, a “secret” RCMP report that warns of a potential revolt by Canadians, once “they realize how broke they are,” has been unearthed by way of an access to information request.

The report begins: “A secret RCMP report is warning the federal government that Canada may descend into civil unrest once citizens realize the hopelessness of their economic situation.”

Now, before we get into the meat of the supposed predictions, I think we would be wise to look at the information with a certain interpretive key. Keep in mind that the RCMP has become a Liberal Party institution, and we needn’t look any further for proof of that than the disgraced former RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, who was appointed by Trudeau and subsequently gave him a run for his money with how many scandals she was caught up in.

COVID, Russia, and climate change destroying the world

The report — heavily redacted and embedded at the bottom of the article — starts with a stunning statement. It reads: “The global community has experienced a series of crises, with COVID-19, supply-chain issues, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine all sending shockwaves throughout the world.” It goes on to say that the situation will “probably” get worse and the “early effects of climate change and a global recession” will only add fuel to the fire of the deterioration of Canada and the global community.

Note that this striking claim is presented as fact, without proof or evidence, and is the leading thought of the document. The report goes on to say: “The coming period of recession will … accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations.” It adds that “many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live.”

So, the theme of the document is that the world, and Canada in particular, is going to hell in a hand-basket, and the reasons for that are primarily COVID, Russia, the climate, and not the government. How convenient! After almost a decade of Trudeau, a report surfaces when his popularity is in the sewer that blames everyone but him for the deciding state of the country he has done his best to ruin.

Karl Marx and the conspiracy nuts

Tellingly, after hammering home the dire situation on the horizon — where it will be if the Liberals have their way — the document predicts that the coming dark age will be accelerated by “popular resentment” and “paranoid populism.”

Now, any astute reader of the news with right-leaning sensibilities will understand what those terms mean. “Popular resentment” is a dog whistle for a Marxist worldview that pits groups of people against one another in a “struggle” for prosperity. “Paranoid populism” is an abbreviation of “People who are involved in populist movements, like Donald Trump — and by extension Poilievre — supporters, are paranoid conspiracy nuts.”

The popular resentment section reads: “The fallout from this decline in living standards will be exacerbated by the fact that the difference between the extremes of wealth is greater now… than it has been at any time in several generations.”

Translation: The rich are lording over the poor, and the poor are poorer than they ever have been. Of course, there is some truth to this, as there is always truth to this in human society where there are always “haves” and “have nots.”

The section on paranoid populism then tellingly implies that those afflicted by populist paranoia will pounce on this struggle. It reads: “Capitalizing on the rise of political polarization and conspiracy theories have been populists willing to tailor their messages to appeal to extremist movements. Authoritarian movements have been on the rise…”

Amazing. According to this report, we are living in a Marxist moment where the proletariat is struggling for their survival against the bourgeoisie, and the real threat is the rise of a populist movement which appeals to extremists with conspiracy theories. Again, a liberal institution will put the blame for the apocalypse on anyone but liberals.

This is really about Poilievre

Now, if you were a betting man, who do you think the document is referring to, given that it is a Canadian document that has been conveniently released just when the Conservatives have threatened to topple the government with a non-confidence motion? This is, of course, about Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a man whom the left has tried to turn into a Super Trump since the day he stood up against COVID totalitarianism. Poilievre is far from a right-wing Christian hero — he holds views incompatible with Christian morality — but he is still enough of a populist and common-sense politician that he represents a mortal threat to the regime.

Is the Canadian economic situation bleak? Yes. Will it take a lot of work and common-sense governance to turn things around? Of course. And, again, Poilievre is not the savior, but the man can at least do proper math and understands what the average Canadian is struggling with. If he enacts any of his red tape removing policies, surely Canada will be able to start recovering. The Liberals cannot abide this, as they clearly want to destroy this nation.

It is clear by this point that the Liberal Party will be decimated in the next election, whenever that is, as every poll imaginable has them losing so many seats that they will be able to drive to work together in an airport shuttle van. And, since liberals are incapable of self-reflection and critical thinking, their only hope in their hopeless situation is to sound the alarm of the coming Canadian Armageddon and warn Canadians that it is everyone but they who are to blame, and the opposition will only burn the country down faster than a wildfire that was caused by conservative disbelief in climate change.

For my money, this “secret” document is nothing but a piece of propaganda from a desperate regime.

Automotive

The EV ‘Bloodbath’ Arrives Early

Published on

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

 

Ever since March 16, when presidential candidate Donald Trump created a controversy by predicting President Joe Biden’s efforts to force Americans to convert their lives to electric-vehicle (EV) lifestyles would end in a “bloodbath” for the U.S. auto industry, the industry’s own disastrous results have consistently proven him accurate.

The latest example came this week when Ford Motor Company reported that it had somehow managed to lose $132,000 per unit sold during Q1 2024 in its Model e EV division. The disastrous first quarter results follow the equally disastrous results for 2023, when the company said it lost $4.7 billion in Model e for the full 12-month period.

While the company has remained profitable overall thanks to strong demand for its legacy internal combustion SUV, pickup, and heavy vehicle models, the string of major losses in its EV line led the company to announce a shift in strategic vision in early April. Ford CEO Jim Farley said then that the company would delay the introduction of additional planned all-electric models and scale back production of current models like the F-150 Lightning pickup while refocusing efforts on introducing new hybrid models across its business line.

General Motors reported it had good overall Q1 results, but they were based on strong sales of its gas-powered SUV and truck models, not its EVs. GM is so gun-shy about reporting EV-specific results that it doesn’t break them out in its quarterly reports, so there is no way of knowing what the real bottom line amounts to from that part of the business. This is possibly a practice Ford should consider adopting.

After reporting its own disappointing Q1 results in which adjusted earnings collapsed by 48% and deliveries dropped by 20% from the previous quarter, Tesla announced it is laying off 10 percent of its global workforce, including 2,688 employees at its Austin plant, where its vaunted Cybertruck is manufactured. Since its introduction in November, the Cybertruck has been beset by buyer complaints ranging from breakdowns within minutes after taking delivery, to its $3,000 camping tent feature failing to deploy, to an incident in which one buyer complained his vehicle shut down for 5 hours after he failed to put the truck in “carwash mode” before running it through a local car wash.

Meanwhile, international auto rental company Hertz is now fire selling its own fleet of Teslas and other EV models in its efforts to salvage a little final value from what is turning out to be a disastrous EV gamble. In a giant fit of green virtue-signaling, the company invested whole hog into the Biden subsidy program in 2021 with a mass purchase of as many as 100,000 Teslas and 50,000 Polestar models, only to find that customer demand for renting electric cars was as tepid as demand to buy them outright. For its troubles, Hertz reported it had lost $392 million during Q1, attributing $195 million of the loss to its EV struggles. Hertz’s share price plummeted by about 20% on April 25, and was down by 55% for the year.

If all this financial carnage does not yet constitute a “bloodbath” for the U.S. EV sector, it is difficult to imagine what would. But wait: It really isn’t all that hard to imagine at all, is it? When he used that term back in March, Trump was referring not just to the ruinous Biden subsidy program, but also to plans by China to establish an EV-manufacturing beachhead in Mexico, from which it would be able to flood the U.S. market with its cheap but high-quality electric models. That would definitely cause an already disastrous domestic EV market to get even worse, wouldn’t it?

The bottom line here is that it is becoming obvious even to ardent EV fans that US consumer demand for EVs has reached a peak long before the industry and government expected it would.

It’s a bit of a perfect storm, one that rent-seeking company executives and obliging policymakers brought upon themselves. Given that this outcome was highly predictable, with so many warning that it was in fact inevitable, a reckoning from investors and corporate boards and voters will soon come due. It could become a bloodbath of its own, and perhaps it should.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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Business

Honda deal latest episode of corporate welfare in Ontario

Published on

From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss and Tegan Hill

If Honda, Volkswagen and Stellantis are unwilling to build their EV battery plants in Ontario without corporate welfare, that sends a strong signal that those projects make little economic sense.

On Thursday, the Trudeau and Ford governments announced they will dole out an estimated $5 billion in corporate welfare to Honda so the auto giant can build an electric vehicle (EV) battery plant and manufacture EVs in Ontario. This is the third such deal in Ontario, following similar corporate welfare handouts to Volkswagen ($13.2 billion) and Stellantis ($15.0 billion). Like the previous two deals, the Honda deal comes at a significant cost to taxpayers and will almost certainly fail to create widespread economic benefits for Ontarians.

The Trudeau and Ford governments finalized the Honda deal after more than a year of negotiations, with both governments promising direct incentives and tax credits. Of course, this isn’t free money. Taxpayers in Ontario and the rest of Canada will pay for this corporate welfare through their taxes.

Unfortunately, corporate welfare is nothing new. Governments in Canada have a long history of picking their favoured firms or industries and using a wide range of subsidies and other incentives to benefit those firms or industries selected for preferential treatment.

According to a recent study, the federal government spent $84.6 billion (adjusted for inflation) on business subsidies from 2007 to 2019 (the last pre-COVID year). Over the same period, provincial and local governments spent another $302.9 billion on business subsidies for their favoured firms and industries. (Notably, the study excludes other forms of government support such as loan guarantees, direct investments and regulatory privileges, so the total cost of corporate welfare during this period is actually much higher.)

Of course, when announcing the Honda deal, the Trudeau and Ford governments attempted to sell this latest example of corporate welfare as a way to create jobs. In reality, however, there’s little to no empirical evidence that corporate welfare creates jobs (on net) or produces widespread economic benefits.

Instead, these governments are simply picking winners and losers, shifting jobs and investment away from other firms and industries and circumventing the preferences of consumers and investors. If Honda, Volkswagen and Stellantis are unwilling to build their EV battery plants in Ontario without corporate welfare, that sends a strong signal that those projects make little economic sense.

Unfortunately, the Trudeau and Ford governments believe they know better than investors and entrepreneurs, so they’re using taxpayer money to allocate scarce resources—including labour—to their favoured projects and industries. Again, corporate welfare actually hinders economic growth, which Ontario and Canada desperately need, and often fails to produce jobs that would not otherwise have been created, while also requiring financial support from taxpayers.

It’s only a matter of time before other automakers ask for similar handouts from Ontario and the federal government. Indeed, after Volkswagen secured billions in federal subsidies, Stellantis stopped construction of an EV battery plant in Windsor until it received similar subsidies from the Trudeau government. Call it copycat corporate welfare.

Government handouts to corporations do not pave the path to economic success in Canada. To help foster widespread prosperity, governments should help create an environment where all businesses can succeed, rather than picking winners and losers on the backs of taxpayers.

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