STIRLING: Cutting emissions by cutting business is outrageous!

We are often told by climate activists and certain politicians that we must view everything in life through a ‘climate lens.’ So, I decided to do that for the recently-concluded Canada Post strike.On Nov. 7, 2024, the Environmental Auditor issued a report showing that Canada was not meeting its climate targets. There were 6 years left to achieve the 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels! As of 2022, Canada had only reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 7.1%.A few days later, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) announced that the long-awaited multi-billion dollar carbon rebate, owed to Small Businesses for 5 years, would soon be paid. But, it would be taxed!Then, boom! A few days after that, Canada Post went on strike at its busiest time of year, dealing a crushing blow to all Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs,) particularly retailers, for whom Christmas is their big money season.Ordinarily, I would not connect these things. But by looking through the climate lens, there is a connection.It is to be found ran in a report by the Business Development Bank of Canada. “Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the Canadian economy, representing 99.8% of all firms. Their importance makes them key players in helping Canada achieve its emissions reduction goals.We estimate that SMEs generate 52% of all greenhouse gases produced by Canadian businesses. This is equivalent to 41% of Canada’s total emissions.”Within the report is this gem: “32% of Canadian SMEs have not acted and do not intend to do so. Of these, 57% believe climate change will not affect their business.”Why, those climate-denying SME Mom and Pop businesses! It was the globe trotting well-to-do former Governor of the Bank of England, and prior, Governor of the Bank of Canada, who said “Firms ignoring the climate crisis will go bankrupt.” Most people thought that he, as UN Climate Czar, meant Big Oil. Looks like he also meant Baby Businesses, too.CFIB President Dan Kelly has been posting anguished comments all over X (formerly Twitter.) These are emails from retailers who are at their wits end, some taking to personally delivering packages themselves!Imagine the gall of the Business ‘Development’ Bank of Canada to try and guilt SMEs into climate action! As former federal public servant, retired energy economist Robert Lyman wrote in 2020 in his report “Futile Folly,” China emits in one month what Canada emits in a year and a half! The climate cult has deluded the Business Development’ Bank of Canada into the “Tragic Delusion of Doing Our Share,” making reckless and ruinous recommendations to SME owner/operators, who often pay their handful of employees first and live on the brink of bankruptcy due to things like….postal strikes!Of course, Canada Post will not go bankrupt, despite losing $3 billion since 2018. It runs on taxpayer’s money. And Canada Post takes climate action very seriously. So seriously that the Canadian Postal Workers Union (CUPW) became signatory to the UN Principles for Responsibility (UNPRI) in 2021. UNPRI requires all signatory institutional investors to wave the banner of DEI and ‘comply or explain.’ UNPRI is a transnational, unelected, unaccountable organization which has ~1000 signatory pension and institutional funds and endowments as signatories, all of which sit on more than $121 trillion(!) in assets under management. In 2014, they had many of their members sign the Montreal pledge to badger corporations and governments to become climate compliant. So, they have clout but no brains. Net Zero is impossible by 2030 or 2050. Well, unless you want to bankrupt Canada. Destroying the SME sector is a big start. .HANNAFORD: Power to Alberta, and a win for Smith.As Dan Kelly has noted, SMEs have never yet received a carbon tax rebate.Now as the rebate promise is to be fulfilled, they are told it will be taxed. Then, on Nov. 21, 2024, Prime Minister Trudeau announced that a GST holiday would kick in as of Dec. 14, 2024; but the legislation was only approved hours before the start. Many SMEs spent a fortune in time or money to rejig their sales registers to comply, only to find out the government had decided to not make the GST holiday mandatory. Of course, that just means angry customers with high expectations and dispirited, humiliated, exhausted entrepreneurs trying to cope with a government bent on putting them out of business.As the lifeblood of democracy, kicking the SMEs while they are down will do a lot to move us closer to an eco-dictatorship!But back to Canada Post and its 2023 ESG score. In keeping with the Net Zero goal, CUPW has invested $305 million in renewable energy in Alberta and Saskatchewan wind farms (a sector subsidized by taxpayers already, and one which drives up power prices for all).Canada Post itself is planning to buy an EV fleet of vehicles! Imagine winter delivery delays, not to mention the billions of dollars required to build dispatchable power generation and infrastructure to charge its ~15,000 vehicles!You have to understand how dumb it is for a postal union to join an organization like UNPRI that requires you to cut your emissions, when your entire mandate is to deliver mail and parcels to millions of Canadians every day. According to The North Star, Canada Post has sold off profitable sectors and also built a wildly expensive zero-carbon sorting facility.But the fact remains, Canada Post will always be a large emitter as long as it delivers mail.So, in order to bump up Canada Post revenues, wouldn’t it make sense for Canada Post to NOT go on strike at the busiest time of the year when it might profit, and help small businesses profit, too?In a rational world, yes.However, looking through the climate lens…no. No, it would make climate sense to rein in rampant Christmas consumerism. No Christmas shopping or shipping! No emissions! Great way to cut Canada’s carbon footprint and make sure that many of the 32% of SMEs who are not climate compliant go bankrupt! No customers! No emissions!Another climate bonus of the federal government dragging their heels on the resolution of the Canada Post strike is that 185,000 passports got stuck ‘somewhere’ in the mail — meaning that thousands of Canadians planning to fly off for a family fun vacation at Disneyland, a week in Mexico, to visit distant loved ones won’t be flying anywhere without their documents! No flights! No emissions!Another climate GHG reduction victory! No one would have connected these dots if I had not followed the climate cult’s advice and taken a look at it all through the climate lens. Of course, there is no need to do any of this, as the new Energy & Climate at a Glance: Canadian Edition 88-page booklet shows. Turns out the ‘settled best science’ is weak and perhaps the worst.Merry Christmas, carbon dupes! Nix net zero for a Happy Next Year!