There’s Always Next Year

In a cartoon, Charlie Brown and Lucy are doing their homework, and Lucy says, “Only in math problems can two people buy sixty cantaloupes, and no one asks “What is wrong with those people?!”

When eastern Canada cast their ballots, turning the eastern ridings red, people in the west were asking, “What is wrong with those people?!”

I didn’t listen to the PM’s acceptance speech, but I heard he spoke about uniting Canadians, which is ironic, considering the election was based on many divisive issues. An article I read said Scheer was isolated because of his profound ideological differences on issues such as climate change and social programs.

While the left is set on running the country on 100 percent renewables, no matter what the cost, there’s hard evidence, which shows the hazards of such a course of action. Rick Peterson, founder of Suits and Boots, a national not-for-profit group that supports resource sector workers and their families, relayed evidence of Germany’s embracing of renewables.

A cover of a German magazine showed broken wind turbines and half-finished transition towers. In spite of Germany’s $580 billion (US) commitment, the country admitted it had to delay its phase-out of coal and would not meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction objective. In addition, their electricity prices are rising to among the highest in the world.

Germany is said to be one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, yet the magazine headline read “A Botched Job in Germany”. This country has realized wind and solar power need too much land and equipment to produce sufficient amounts of electricity. Solar farms take 450 times more land than nuclear power plants to produce the same amount of electricity. Wind farms take 700 times more land than natural gas wells, plus huge amounts of metal.

While Suits and Boots acknowledges the necessity of renewable energy projects, they give the example of Norway, where investment in renewables supplement, instead of replace, fossil fuel energy systems, because we need both.

Canadians can look at Germany and witness strong evidence that relying solely on renewables is not a reasonable solution. Division results when government leaders ignore this type of evidence, while condemning our energy sector that embraces environmental safety measures.

Though we have a minority government, history has shown minority governments in Canada have lasted (at the most) one and a half years. Another article I read, noted the extraordinary problems in managing a minority government require a leader with expert skills, knowledge and understanding of Parliament, and even the PM’s supporters acknowledge that this description does not apply to their leader.

“There’s always next year” is a phrase you often hear on the prairies. Maybe next year there will be another federal election.