It's the Energy Taxation Agenda, Stupid!

"[The French government is preparing for a] total [police mobilization across the country with ministers warning that radical Yellow Jacket protesters are intent on toppling the government.]"
French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner

"Politicized and radicalized elements are trying to exploit the movement."
"These people want to topple the government ... To any violent attacks, there will be a proportionate and determined response."
Benjamin Griveaux, French government spokesman


"I think that tomorrow, after the protests, something else will have to be said. We'll have to put more sense and coherence into the government's actions and its rhetoric."
"Next week, when the president speaks, he will make a speech to the people, he should announce a series of measures [not an announcement but his own] position."
Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume, France

Yellow Jacket protesters shout at police near Place de la Concorde in Paris on November 24 | Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images

"I don’t have any illusions that we are all going to agree on everything, but I certainly know Canadians expect us to be able to roll up our sleeves and talk constructively about how we are going to solve the challenges that they are facing."

"On climate change, I think it’s clear that [Ontario] Premier Ford and I differ on the matter. I believe that we need to put a price on pollution … He believes we should make pollution free again."
"Even though the premier may want to play games with numbers, what is clear is we are going to move forward, as we always have, in a very consistent way and if anyone is moving the goalposts, it’s Premier Ford."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 

"I don’t think anyone comes to these meetings with the intent of walking out."
"The Prime Minister has an opportunity [Friday] to be a defender of the energy industry, to be a defender of all working Canadians, by listening to the premiers and taking steps towards the recommendations that we will be bringing to the table."
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe

"I think that there will be support because there is no province in the country that doesn’t owe Alberta, to some degree, for their schools, their hospitals and their roads."
"When I get off the plane in Montreal it’s very possible that the car that picks me up is fuelled by Saudi Arabian oil."
"How long will this go on? How long are we going to operate this way? It doesn’t make sense."
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley 

Rioters in France have plans to storm the Elysee Palace to express their disfavour with the government of French President Emmanuel Macron. The violence that has disrupted life and commerce in French cities represents citizens' feelings of despair in a country that is wracked with all manner of political problems that perhaps required the attention of its president to ameliorate growing incidents of racism and social discontent but is now focused on Climate Change remediation through increased taxes when unemployment is high and people have been forced into debt by rising living costs.

The planned 6.4-cent-per litre tax increase on diesel and 2.9 cents on gasoline intended to fast-forward the country's transition to renewable energy has been assailed by weeks of protests and violent riots erupting nation-wide. The French now pay over $6 to a gallon of gas compared to $2.44 in the U.S. Unemployment stands at 9.1 percent; economic growth has been in slump-mode for decades. "Mr. Macron is concerned about the end of the world, while they [protesters] are worried about the end of the month", commented The New York Times Paris correspondent.

The European Union in 2005 initiated the world's most far-sweeping carbon-trading program, which has since been mired in corruption and mismanagement. Biofuels failed to meet its once-touted promise; in any event using crops meant for food as an energy source makes what kind of sense? remind us...  Subsidies for wind and solar power? Good idea, but how is it possible to 'store' that energy? Germany invested an estimated $580 billion (by 2025) in wind and solar but is still destined to miss its 2020 carbon emission goals even as energy prices soar.

Climateaction-tracker.org discovers each nation it tracks other than Morocco and Gambia has fallen short of their Paris commitments. Energy markets deciding to reduce the role of coal? Not in India and China between which over one-third of the world's population resides; their growing and uncontrolled energy needs lead them to focus more than ever on coal to provide their source of energy as they progress into advanced manufacturing and technologies. And then there's the cleanest burning, most efficient source of energy on the planet: nuclear.

A well organized, efficient source of energy producing no carbon and relatively safe, the storage of spent energy fuels aside. France at one time obtained some 75 percent of electricity from nuclear power, then they decided to cut their dependency on nuclear to 50 percent and soon decided they would phase out oil and gas explorations, the very sources that allowed the U.S. to veer away from its huge dependency on coal, the most environment polluting of all energy sources.

Canadian Natural Resources’ Horizon oilsands plant south of Fort McMurray.

And here is Canada, whose prime minister has undermined under the guise of aiding, the home-grown energy industry in a country whose natural endowment of oil and gas is second to none in the world, but is unable to extract and ship the products either throughout the country rather than buy from questionable sources, or out of country to others eager to acquire and use it. Alberta, whose funding through equalization of all other provinces is critical to Canada, is forced to forego world price values for their barrels of oil, victim to a country that preys on its wealth and spurns its profit.

Aerial view of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. oilsands mining operation near Fort McKay, Alta. Canada’s biggest producer is cutting production as prices plummet. Postmedia News