Terry Newman: Trudeau to Canada — starve your kids for climate change

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Whatever your opinions are on climate change and the carbon tax, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the least convincing, worst imaginable representative for these (or any other) causes.

Trudeau hopped on a plane to fly 8,280 km to take the stage at the Global Citizen Now Event at the G20 Leaders’ Summit Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to lecture the audience and Canadians about our country’s role in saving the entire planet.

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He opened by insisting it is morally selfish to put food and lodging concerns above contributions to the carbon tax.

He told the audience: “It’s really, really easy when you’re in a short-term survive, I gotta be able to pay the rent this month, I’ve gotta be able to buy groceries for my kids, to say, OK, let’s put climate change as a slightly lower priority.” Then, as if he were a proud undergrad reciting textbook material, he mentions Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but then doesn’t address these very real practical concerns.

He continued: “There’s a sense that affordability is in direct contrast with our moral responsibility to protect the planet. And that is something that unfortunately people have been amplified and used propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, and flat out lies to scare people into saying, oh, no, no, no. We’ve gotta take care of our household budget and bottom line first and environment second.”

Where’s the lie? Are Canadians’ fears about not being able to pay their rent or eat fear-mongering?

This is smug and fresh coming from the son of a former prime minister, someone who has never had to worry about money a day in his life. More to the point, how does someone save the planet when they’re struggling to pay their mortgage and feed their kids?

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Trudeau also made the nonsensical claim that women are the most vulnerable to climate change, paying the heaviest price in terms of “economics, quality of life, and even their lives.” How could climate change affect a woman and not her father, husband, and sons? Are tidal waves and droughts targeting women, while parting like the Red Sea to avoid male family members? Is there an all female island out there, with ancient Amazonian women, particularly susceptible to climate change?

“In order to build a strong economy, we have to protect the environment” he told the interviewer. Trudeau then said that his government had spent the last nine years “focused not just on fighting climate change, but on demonstrating that it creates jobs,” “creates growth,” and “directly benefits citizens.” But there are many questions left to be answered about green contracts doled out by Trudeau’s Liberals for EV battery plants and whether these jobs will even remain in the country. Deals have been made, to be sure, the Liberals are just not particularly forthcoming about who the deals actually benefit.

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Trudeau claims that “putting a price on pollution is the most efficient way of getting people to change their behaviours.” Perhaps, but proudly remarking in this recent appearance that the rewards for doing so are unfairly distributed, that, “For eight of ten people, (the government’s) price on pollution gives back more money” which he wants to turn around and “give back to the middle class” isn’t likely to win support from anyone other than the middle class, which also appears to be shrinking.

Maybe, just maybe, pitting some Canadians against others, is not a winning approach.

Trudeau insists that Canadians shouldn’t listen to anyone who promises to put a little more money in their pockets, by cutting the carbon tax, saying it is “exactly the wrong thing for the planet. And it’s actually the wrong thing for money in their pockets,” referring to the unequally distributed carbon tax rebates. “And that’s a lot of what the next year’s election is going to be about in Canada.” No kidding.

And what does Trudeau think struggling Canadians worried about paying for rent and groceries will use carbon tax rebate cheques for? Why, “insulating their homes” and “taking their bike more often,” of course.

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Trudeau ends by suggesting that Canadians fears and anxieties are being played on in order to manipulate them into feeling powerless, suggesting he is the leader who treats Canadians like “thoughtful active agents of change” who are “not just blind consumers of politics and propaganda,” and that he is not the one pitting people against each other.

No comment.

Despite all of this, Trudeau said he was hopeful about the next election and his climate policies, suggesting it’s because he speaks with young people. If he does, he’s speaking with only select environmentalists and activists because young people have made it very clear that they are in survival mode.

Ultimately, Justin Trudeau does not understand that a successful approach to climate change or a carbon tax would have to be affordable for all Canadians, without differential treatment. Canadians would have to believe it actually had an affect on climate change. They would have to trust whomever was promoting it and all information about its economic and environmental benefits would have to be transparent.

While a noble thought, Canada and its taxpayers are not personally responsible for saving the planet. Its citizens know full well that many countries will never give up on fossil fuels. Trudeau knows this, too. Why is he trying to deceive Canadians, putting the responsibility on our wallets and at our doorsteps?

X: @TLNewmanMTL

tnewman@postmedia.com

National Post

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