EDITORIAL: High energy prices are part of the climate plan

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Canadians face rapidly rising inflation this winter, driven by higher prices for food, gasoline and the cost of heating their homes with natural gas.

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When the cost of oil and natural gas rises, consumers feel it in their pockets in almost everything they buy, because almost all goods and services use fossil fuel energy.

Much of what is happening is due to global fuel shortages as countries begin to recover from the global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing pent-up demand.

Another factor is the decline in fossil fuel production as governments and investors shift away from fossil fuels to green energy like wind and solar, exacerbated in Canada by our lack of pipelines.

But until someone invents batteries that can store energy at the levels required to power a large, cold, northern, and sparsely populated country like Canada, wind and solar power cannot eliminate the need for fossil fuel power.

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In Canada, for example, natural gas is used to support green energy because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine.

Another factor is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax / price on greenhouse gas emissions, currently at $ 40 per tonne, increasing to $ 170 per tonne by 2030.

The perfect storm of all these factors is driving up consumer prices for many things known as inelastic raw materials, meaning that they cannot be easily abandoned by choice, such as electricity, heating, food, and gasoline, the latter assuming that there are no viable public transportation alternatives available.

The point is that this is precisely the philosophy behind Trudeau’s climate action plan: increase prices so that people buy fewer goods and services that use fossil fuels, thus generating fewer emissions when burned.

In other words, high energy prices are not a failure of federal government policies, they are the deliberate and intended result of them.

Its purpose is to discourage consumer spending by increasing the cost of living so that consumers buy and consume fewer goods and services, leading to the generation of fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Right now, that process is on steroids due to a number of factors cited above that are occurring simultaneously, in addition to increased carbon taxes.

But make no mistake. This is not temporary. It is only the beginning.