Catherine McKenna destroyed by Evan Solomon

[The Green Barbarian]

I hadn't seen this video before, but oh my goodness, does Canada's environment and "climate change" minister Catherine McKenna look like a giant idiot here. She even talks like she is brain injured. This is a cabinet minister in our current Federal government. Good gravy.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mckenna ... -1.3865161

[rustled]

LOL. She's, like, so not getting it. "Think of the children!"

Did you watch the scrum that followed the interview with McKenna? Brad Wall, Joyce Napier, Craig Oliver, Laura Stone, all of whom seem far more capable of identifying and addressing the problem than McKenna, who simply insists the Liberals will meet their emissions targets by imposing a carbon tax (even though they just don't know how the carbon tax can make the magic happen. Minor detail, right?) It's a tax. Just another tax. Wrong focus, wrong solution, but hey: they're doing it for the children, right?

[Gone_Fishin]

McKenna is so far out of her element. But, is there a Trudeau minister that isn't?

[hobbyguy]

First off, you guys do need to recognize that the carbon tax has been shown to work, and has had significant impact in BC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_carbon_tax

There is no question that when faced with carbon taxes, people do alter their decisions and lean toward more efficient vehicles, furnaces etc.

While I agree that McKenna did not have a good outing, the current mess in BC regarding the pipeline is down to a person and illegitimate government in BC. It is the BC NDP/LEAP that are monkeywrenching the national strategy. My guess is that by the time the next election rolls around, the political map will be quite different.

The BC NDP/LEAP will commit hari kari over the pipeline, or they won't, and the BC NDP/LEAP coalition will fall apart, and the Greens will pounce - and there will be a new government in BC. There will most likely be a different government in Alberta, and quite possibly a new government in Ontario.

The national carbon tax scheme may indeed falter in that scenario. The BC NDP/LEAP clowns will have caused that - typical backwards results from the NDP, but magnified by the stupid LEAPers in the BC NDP.

I doubt very much that Jason Kenny will go along. I doubt that Doug Ford will go along. The BC NDP/LEAP will have made that entirely possible and politically a strong position.

Time is still there for McKenna and the Liberals to wise up to the facts on the ground.

This summer will tell the final tale in which way the winds blow for the current strategy. The pipeline protestors have to be marginalized in BC, and with them the BC NDP/LEAP (who are constantly chirping for more federal money because they have already fluffed up the budget).

I have a hunch that Trump needs NAFTA now that he started a trade war with China. IF NAFTA gets resolved, then the Liberals can turn their pitbulls on the idiot Horgan and his LEAPing fool Heyman. Then perhaps they can salvage something of the tatters of policy that the goofball BC NDP or LEAP? (who knows what they are these days?) have monkeywrenched. IF the timing doesn't work out, then the Liberals had best have a back up plan. There are other ways to go (e.g. working with California and sticking to the new higher automobile efficiency standards) that are less politically fraught.

The Liberals have to stop worrying about the LEAPers and Greens, their thing is waning anyway. Find a way forward that has some balance and present it.

I don't think McKenna has reached that understanding. Perhaps Evan has done the Liberals a favor. The LEAPers and green cult followers will never accept any balanced policy, and they are poisoning the well for real action that is visible.

[The Green Barbarian]

LOL. She's, like, so not getting it. "Think of the children!"

Did you watch the scrum that followed the interview with McKenna? Brad Wall, Joyce Napier, Craig Oliver, Laura Stone, all of whom seem far more capable of identifying and addressing the problem than McKenna, who simply insists the Liberals will meet their emissions targets by imposing a carbon tax (even though they just don't know how the carbon tax can make the magic happen. Minor detail, right?) It's a tax. Just another tax. Wrong focus, wrong solution, but hey: they're doing it for the children, right?

Is this the scrum you are referring to Rustled?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mckenna ... -1.3865161

carbon taxes are stupid and penalize poor and middle-class Canadians with no gain to anyone. Even if you believe in the man-made climate change myth (and therefore are a science denier) you have to admit that the carbon tax is just plain stupid. It solves nothing, and causes suffering for no reason.

[rustled]

In my browser, the interview with McKenna plays, then an advertisement, then the scrum. I haven't found a way to link directly to the scrum.

I agree with what Napier says about the carbon tax. Sure, we can force people to change their habits and use less electricity and less fuel, but what proof do we have that this is reversing climate change? Impoverishing people is punitive, and since those carbon taxes are ending up in general revenue and paying for unproven technologies (some of which have been shown to be worse, globally, for the environment than the technologies they've replaced), it has really become just another tax grab.

McKenna goes on about how the climate is changing and we have no choice. Well, imposing a tax that actually does nothing to deal with places like Richmond will be affected by climate change is, to me, an incredibly lazy and ineffective choice. She insists her government will achieve the goals because they have a plan. Well, again, Canada achieving those goals doesn't help Richmond.

Ginned up enthusiasm for a non-solution, and McKenna's pinning our futures on it. Well, we've been forcing people to reduce consumption long enough that the low-hanging fruit is gone and it's now become de rigueu to punish ordinary people for living ordinary lives. Let's get back to reducing pollution and strategizing sensibly for those who will be most affected if the climate continues to change.

[The Green Barbarian]

Let's get back to reducing pollution and strategizing sensibly for those who will be most affected if the climate continues to change.

I agree about pollution, but I don't agree with boneheads like McKenna calling CO2 "pollution". That's just garbage. CO2 is required by all plant life to live. Particulate pollution is horrible, and that's what the world should be focused on fixing - air quality in the developing world. Getting rid of smog. Not CO2. CO2 is not the enemy here, particulates are.

I hadn't heard McKenna in an interview before, but now I see why so many are calling her "climate Barbie". I think that's an insult to the intelligence of plastic dolls. You wonder who would have got the job of Environment minister if the Liberals hadn't made genitals the number one qualifier instead of experience and intelligence.

[rustled]

Yes, I should have qualified "pollution".

Particulate ought to be a priority, although there are other pollutants and destructive habits that also need our attention.

Unfortunately, it has become fashionable to focus almost exclusively on CO2 emissions instead. Demonization was, as always, the first step with herding the public in a particular direction.

ETA: JT should never have opened that Pandora's box. If McKenna was able to articulately discuss concepts of substance, one probably wouldn't notice her speech patterns. It's the apparent lack of substance that's the problem, and the speech patterns can't help but emphasize that lack.

[d0nb]

Big problems call for bold actions from Liberals like Catherine and JT.

Canadians are counting on big government to make sure that Winnipeg never becomes an overheated hellhole like Minneapolis or Fargo. And we just like totally know for a fact that carbon dioxide is causing peoples’ homes to flood, the forests to burn and is, like, literally melting the Arctic.

Sure, spending trillions of dollars on climate change schemes will condemn millions of people around the world to poverty and death, but isn't that a small price to pay for a shot at possibly changing the temperature of the planet by a fraction of a degree a century or two from now? Of course it is.