A leading member of a Canadian centre-Left party supporting Justin Trudeau’s minority Government has tabled a bill seeking to jail people who speak out in favour of hydrocarbon fuels. Charlie Angus is a leading member of the NDP party which has 25 seats in the Canadian Parliament, and his bill seeks to ban the commercial promotion of hydrocarbons by any means “that is likely to influence and shape attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about the product or service”. Angus’s bill (C-372) is given the Orwellian title of ‘An Act respecting fossil fuel advertising’, and under this proposed anti-free speech measure, a gas station retailer could be fined C$50,000 for offering a complementary coffee and doughnut with every full tank.
There is not much between Canada and the North Pole so without natural gas to heat their homes, the locals would likely die in their thousands during the winter. Without diesel trucks to transport food vast distances, famine would stalk the land. Yet Bill C-372 states in its preamble that “fossil fuel production and consumption has resulted in a national public health crisis of substantial and pressing concern, in a way that is similar to the public health crisis caused by tobacco consumption”. Smoking cigarettes is a voluntary and enjoyable pastime for some, but it has the unfortunate side-effect of causing death. Hydrocarbons keep people alive with power for clean sanitation, transport, domestic temperature control, food production and back-up for unreliable wind and solar power. Without hydrocarbon use, the only people able to live in most of Canada would be Eskimos huddled together for warmth in igloos.
Under the bill there is a blanket ban on the promotion of oil and gas. A curious clause bans the suggestion that the burning of some hydrocarbons and the emissions caused are “less harmful” than other fossil fuels. This provision would make it illegal to state the scientific fact that burning natural gas produces less than half the carbon dioxide than the burning of coal. It would also be an offence to suggest that the use of hydrocarbons would lead to positive benefits for the environment, the health of Canadians and the global economy. Whatever the facts based in science or economic observation, all these ‘wrong’ thoughts can be punished with a C$500,000 fine and two years in prison.
The bill’s attack on hydrocarbons is broad and even attempts to suppress sales at the retail level. Gas stations will be banned from issuing loyalty cards, cash rebates, tickets to prize draws and free gifts such as coffee and doughnuts.
If this was just the work of a lone parliamentarian green crank, it would be easy to laugh and dismiss. It is a private member’s bill and will struggle to be passed into law, but its promoter is a major figure in the NDP, and his party currently holds political sway since it helps prop up the minority Trudeau Government. “We welcome the NDP’s bill to the House,” said Kaitlin Power, the Press Secretary of Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, she added: “We will carefully assess its bill and look forward to productive debates and discussions around this important issue.”
The NDP bill is an attack on free commercial speech and seeks to demonise an industry that is vital to modern life. The belief that Canada, along with every other modern industrialised society, can remove hydrocarbon energy use within less than 30 years is a luxury, decadent affectation. It is the work of politicians with little understanding of science and the workings of a modern state. It fails to comprehend that life without hydrocarbons for 99.9% of people who have lived on planet Earth was hard, brutal and uncertain. Without reliable cheap fuel, all that ‘first generation to go university’ stuff will be replaced by working the land of the local warlord, or skivvying in his great house. It is the work of badly educated people who think they can outsource all their vital manufacturing to the emerging superpower of China, open their borders to all and sundry and squeeze the living conditions of existing residents, abolish traditional families, bend the knee to defund the police, or impose so many woke conditions they are unable to function properly, ditto external security services.
It is the belief system of a cult that wants to impose a massive supra-national programme of deindustrialisation, and still peddle the fantasy that we will magically stay warm, delicious food will be available at the press of an iPhone, and everyone will live in peace and harmony. It is the belief system of people who live in Imagine, one of the great John Lennon’s sillier songs.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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