Jean Charest's leadership bid may be DOA

Charet's embrace of AGW and a carbon tax may be fatal.

I have long been a fan of Jean Charest, who has a pedigree most Canadian politicians would kill for. But after listening to his interview with Steve Paikin on TVO’s The Agenda, I lost heart. Charest pretends he is going to be a Prime Minister for all Canadians but still supports a carbon tax which exists owing to the Justin Trudeau Liberal government’s propaganda pretending that CO2 is harmful and Canada must lower its emissions. CO2 is harmless and the theory that it is the source of global warming is all wet.

Former Obama undersecretary of state for science in the U.S. Energy Administration, an accomplished physicist who still teaches physics at New York University, Steven Koonin clinically disects the nonsense disguised as science promoted by the Biden administration in America and the Trudeau regime in Canada in his 2021 book “Unsettled”. Koonin chronicles the publications emanating from the Interplanetary Panel on Climate Change and in meticulous detail exposes the Orwellian “doublespeak” that underlies the climate change scam. Having had the courage to “out” the climate charade, Koonin has come under intense criticism from the activists whose careers and futures depend on the endurance of the climate change narrative, and the politicians who see the theory as the best rallying cry for installation of a global socialist government. Nothing new here. Anyone having the courage to deny the “settled science” of climate change gets the same treatment, often at great personal cost.

Either Charest is too lazy to read, has bought into the climate change theory or pretends he has bought into the theory to garner votes. I think it is the latter. Charest is no fool and only fools believe a theory that defies the laws of physics or the “climate change” activists mantra of “NetZero” which, if ever actually achieved and maintained for any period of time would drive atmospheric CO2 concentrations below the 150 ppm needed to support plant life.

Only Pierre Poilievre seems to grasp the importance of Canada’s energy resources as a source of economic strength. Charest pretends he supports the oil & gas industry but talks about a “transition” in the same breath, at least paying lip service to the climate change narrative. We need a leader who tells the truth and doesn’t try to sell us snake oil in the hope that will grant him power. To his credit, Charest says he supports pipelines and will be Prime Minister for Western Canada as well as the East, but he walks a fine line by trying to be both a fossil fuel supporter and an advocate for policies to fight climate change when it is patent that fossil fuels will be needed for another century or more and that “climate change” is a political foil.

No one should conclude I am unimpressed with the advances in “renewables” and electric vehicles (EV’s). Technology advances in wind and solar make them reasonable alternatives in areas remote from fossil fuels and advantageous as an alternative to nuclear for the ultimate replacement of fossil fuels when the economically recoverable oil & gas dwindles to an amount insufficient to support world energy needs. But a “carbon tax” does nothing to alter nature, damages some Canadians to benefit others, and has little value in building our economy, improving our health care system, or advancing our educational infrastructure.

Canadians are beginning to see through the Trudeau narrative and Poilievre’s message is resounding well with Canadians of all politicial stripes. I expect he will beat Charest and has a decent chance of becoming the next Prime Minister, and Canada will surely benefit if he succeeds.