Mandryk: Moe needed to make a better point on GHGs

By Murray Mandryk

There were better ways for Premier Scott Moe to make his point about Saskatchewan’s highest-in-the-nation-per-capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than to say: “I don’t care.”

The problem is that none of us care as much about GHG emissions as we should.

We all don’t like the federal carbon tax. To Moe’s point, that GHGs here and elsewhere aren’t falling as fast as they should only solidifies the notion that what we are doing is not working.

But global warming and mankind’s contribution to a big, legitimate issue — whether some people are willing to acknowledge it or not.

For a Premier to essentially say “I don’t care” — something that implies this isn’t reality or a legitimate issue — wasn’t helpful. Even if this wasn’t the point he intended to make, it wasn’t a helpful thing to say about an issue that’s already difficult to address.

For the record, here is the Premier’s explanation of what he said to the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce than set off this controversy.

“A lot of folks will come to me and say: ‘Hey guys, you have the highest carbon emission per capita,’ ” Moe told reporters at the Legislature last week. “I said: ‘I don’t care.’

“I went on to say: We have the highest exports per capita in Canada as well. We make the cleanest products, and we then send those products to over 150 countries in the world. This province is, most certainly, part of the solution when it comes to a cleaner, greener economy. We’re part of your solution to your energy security concerns. And we’re part of your solution when it comes to food security concerns countries may have.”

The Premier should have chosen his words more wisely — something he somewhat admitted last week.

“I’ll stand with the ‘I don’t care’ right now when it comes to the metrics of per-capita emissions,” Moe said.

“Could have I chosen something a little less controversial? Potentially.”

One gets where the Premier was going with this and even why the point he was trying to make made some sense.

The structure of carbon tax and the goal to reduce emissions puts the onus on industry rather than demanding consumers — largely urban consumers elsewhere in Canada and the world — to change their habits. That, in itself, is unfair to a place like Saskatchewan, where there are fewer consumers but where a lot of things get produced.

If all governments were serious about reducing GHGs, the taxes would go on straight to the tailpipes or the dinner plates of people living in cities. The problem being, that governments, elected by people living in those cities, no more want to punish the voters than Moe wants to see voters here punished for simply trying to earn a living.

Moe’s point was that if consumers are being asked to choose, they should choose Saskatchewan commodities that are produced in a way that is more environmentally friendly than what’s coming out of Saudi Arabia, Russia or Belarus — nations that have additional issues that should cause us to pause before deciding to trade with them.

“As we find our way through a time of transition, you should be buying Saskatchewan oil,” Moe said. “That’s my point to not only the people of Saskatchewan but to people across the nation.

“Most certainly, this would be the narrative. We would ask our federal government to take with them as they go overseas to promote and sell some of cleanest products available to the world.”

This makes sense, but it still doesn’t really address that Saskatchewan accounts for 10.3 per cent of the country’s overall GHG emissions.

Contrary to Moe’s assertion that this has “no bearing on reality,” this remains the reality.

What he needed to say is we all need to care about this reality.