Can we not talk about "climate change"? Elections Canada warning!

This is a complicated story but I'll try to give you a short and understandable version. Following a convention in Gatineau QC on Sunday, People's Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier reiterated his doubts as to whether the world is facing a "climate crisis", as claimed by Canuck Environment Minister Catherine "Climate Barbie" McKenna and the usual gang of sky-is-falling, Al-Gore-loving tree-huggers. "Mad Max" and the PPC take the position that climate change is not an emergency nor is it caused by humans.

For example, M Bernier says, CO2 is not "pollution". It is what comes out of the mouths of humans and other animals when they exhale. So what are we supposed to do, stop breathing? The PPC platform plank on "Global Warming and the Environment" is subtitled "Rejecting Alarmism and Focusing on Concrete Improvements". It reads, in part: "CO2 is beneficial for agriculture and there has recently been a measurable “greening” of the world in part thanks to higher levels. Despite what global warming propaganda claims, CO2 is not a pollutant. It is an essential ingredient for life on Earth and needed for plant growth."

"Given the uncertainties over the scientific basis of global warming," the platform continues, "and the certainties about the huge costs of measures designed to fight it, there is no compelling reason to jeopardize our prosperity with more government interventions." This statement puts the People's Party at odds with the liberal orthodoxy and with the positions of the other five parties contesting this fall's federal election. For that reason, Elections Canada has now declared that climate change is a partisan issue (!!!), which makes any argument or advertisement on the subject a "partisan statement" under the laws governing Canadian elections.

The Canada Elections Act could consider advertising partisan if it opposes or supports a policy position of any party or candidate, even without naming them. So any advertisement, whether by environmental activists or "climate change deniers", saying that climate change is real or not real is forbidden!

Environmental activist groups and the leftist parties (Liberals, NDP and Greens) vying to out-green each other are predictably outraged, calling the Elections Canada an attack on free speech (!!!) which muzzles them from speaking out about the "climate crisis". An anti-oil group calling itself "Clean Energy Canada" has already restricted some of its responses to party positions to avoid running afoul of the law, while Greenpeace Canada is planning to cease all advertising on climate change during the writ period.

You might think that the PPC would be happy to have a cone of silence dropped on what will be a major issue in the upcoming election, but you would be wrong. Freedom of speech is one of the basic principles on which the People's Party was founded, and Maxime Bernier issued a statement yesterday describing the Elections Canada warning as "absurd". "The law should only regulate real partisan advertising, which is when there is mention of a candidate or party by name," he said.

He went on to say that Elections Canada "is interpreting a bad law as best it can, but this rule is still absurd. Not because we're the only party with a different perspective which climate alarmists believe is not legitimate. But because it is arbitrary, draconian, and cannot be applied consistently. There are hundreds of potentially contentious issues that could be considered partisan if this rule were to be applied consistently."

Some people... OK, many people... may disagree with M Bernier's position on climate change, but Canucks should give him full credit for championing free speech. Pity that (as things stand) they won't get to hear him in the televised leaders' debates in October. See "Canada's 'independent' Debate Commission shuts out Max Bernier", WWW 12/8/19.