Bill C-372 seeks penalties up to $1,000,000 and two years in prison for promoting fossil fuels as anything less than an existential threat to humanity.
Just when you thought Canada couldn’t get any more Stalinist, an MP from the country’s far-left NDP party is calling for any speech that “promotes fossil fuels” – even truthful statements like comparing the relative emissions of natural gas to coal – to be banned and criminalized.
MP Charlie Angus, from Timmins, in northern Ontario (where the average temperature in February runs -7C to -21C) has introduced a private member’s Bill C-372 called “The Fossil Fuels Advertising Act” that would “prohibit the promotion of fossil fuels except in accordance with the provisions of the Act.”
Promotion defined as:
“a representation about a product or service by any means, whether directly or indirectly, including any communication of information about the product or service and its price and distribution, that is likely to influence and shape attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about the product or service.”
That which is not expressly permitted is forbidden…
“This enactment enacts the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act to prohibit the promotion of fossil fuels except in accordance with the provisions of the Act.“
The only public discourse that would be permitted on the matter would be literary or dramatic representations that “use or depict” fossil fuels, or “opinion or commentary” provided that in either case, the author or creator has no ties or recieves no consideration “directly or indirectly” from the fossil fuel industry.
The preamble calls climate change an “existential threat” and cites the 2023 forest fire season as a pretext.
“Whereas, in 2023, Canada experienced the worst wildfire season ever recorded as the country exceeded the largest area ever burned in a year, totaling more than 7.9 million hectares”
There is no mention that in multiple cases of throughout the 2023 forest fire season, such as the Lake Cavan fires in Quebec and the infamous Lake Barrington Fire in Nova Scotia, the cause was arson, (not “global boiling”).
“Claimed, without evidence…”
The phrase “claimed without evidence” has become a staple of the corporate media. It belies a baked-in partisanship reminiscent of late Soviet Era agitprop. This is especially noticeable if anybody to the right of Stalin dares question any precepts of technocratic socialism.
Yet Bill C-372 is replete with such claims…
Whereas air pollution caused by fossil fuels leads to millions of premature deaths globally, including tens of thousands of premature deaths in Canada alone, and is a major cause of cancer, respiratory illness, adverse pregnancy outcomes, children’s diseases and cardiovascular symptoms;
This is a faith-based statement (on par with Al Gore’s unhinged shrieking at Davos 2023 that “Climate change causes the equivalent of 600,000 Hiroshima class bombs per day!”). It also runs contrary to quantifiable data from multiple sources and studies showing that climate related fatalities have been in free-fall for over a century.
Via WSJ: We’re Safer From Climate Disasters Than Ever Before
It is also settled science that more humans die every year from extreme cold than do heat or warming effects by a factor of 2-to-1.
Bill C-372 further asserts, without evidence (am I doing this right?), that
“fossil fuel production and consumption has resulted in a national public health crisis of substantial and pressing concern, in a way that is similar to the public health crisis caused by tobacco consumption;”
By Statistics Canada’s own measure, tobacco still kills 48,000 Canadians every year. This bill is claiming that every day, an equivalent 131 Canadians are dropping dead because of fossil fuel induced climate change. If true, why not cut the total problem of climate and tobacco related deaths in half by simply banning smoking outright?
There’s only one problem: Free Speech
“Parliament is of the opinion that fossil fuel advertising currently deploys techniques which knowingly mislead the public and fail to disclose the health and environmental harms associated with their use, impeding informed consumer decision-making, undermining public support for effective climate action”
By “impeding informed decision-making” on the part of Canadians he probably means any criticisms of inexorably higher carbon taxes (which get unfairly applied according to the whims of political favouritism anyway) or drawing attention to ridiculous, symbolic, non-solutions like wind turbines, or forcing Canadians pay for expensive heat pumps in sub-zero climes.
The thing is supposed to keep you from freezing, but *you* have to keep *it* from freezing 😁@GasPriceWizard https://t.co/0qHMXFXwVQ
— Darshan Maharaja (@TheophanesRex) February 7, 2024
(Reminder: We’re in Canada)
Further, the companies and scientists gainfully employed by Canada’s energy industry, which is responsible for 7.5% of Canada’s entire GDP (with 75% of that in Alberta), aren’t allowed to defend their industry or their livelihoods from the onslaught of junk science and ideological fanaticism, or to counter it with measured, rational, science-based counter-factuals.
While Bill C-372 asserts that “the protection of the environment is a valid use of the federal criminal law power”. It would be a stretch to apply provisions of The Environmental Protection Act to the normal course operations of the energy industry, let alone free speech. There is no mention of it in the Canadian Constitution, nor the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Section 2(a) of the latter declares as a fundamental right of all Canadians “freedom of conscience and religion” (although nobody seemed to have this right when it was time to refuse the Covid jabs).
And, of course, 2(b) “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication”
Like it or not, communication includes promotion, defending oneself, and taking a firm, defensible stance that we have a moral duty to provide abundant power to society through the practical, judicious use of cleaner fossil fuels.
That said, the Canadian government (to which the NDP are the junior partner in a governing Liberal-Socialist coalition), has no compunctions around trammelling Canadians’ constitutional rights.
A federal judge recently ruled that the Trudeau government’s invocation of The Emergencies Act, that saw Canadians’ bank accounts seized along with the violent suppression of the #FreedomConvoy protest, was both illegal and unconstitutional (the Federal government intends to appeal the ruling).
Realistically, C-372 has about as much chance of passing as a Liz Warren bill, but the NDP’s do prop up Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in a slim minority ruling coalition – they could, in theory, jam it through.
After that, it would be illegal for me to observe that the people of Timmins, Ontario, Charlie Angus’ home riding, would not survive a single winter without fossil fuels (and since I hold shares of Imperial Oil and Canadian Natural Resources, it might be construed as “benefiting from the proceeds of climate extermination”, or something).
The fact that this bill was even entered into the Parliamentary register is testament to how out-of-touch the ruling Liberal-Socialist coalition is.
