Viewpoint

Derrick Hunter: Taking food and fuel for granted is a mistake our government seems intent on making

Today, less than two percent of the Canadian workforce is engaged in agriculture
The Reid family work around an oil pumpjack as they bale their hay crop, which will be compressed and exported to Japan, near Cremona, Alta., Friday, July 29, 2022. Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press.

The history of mankind has mostly been one of starvation and scarcity.

For the vast majority of human existence, humans devoted the bulk of their time and energy to the acquisition of two things essential for life: food and fuel. As recently as two hundred years ago, 79 percent of the American labour force was engaged in agriculture. This is unsurprising; many have observed that civilization is “only nine meals away from anarchy”. Survival of the nation demands the dedication of whatever resources are needed to provide the necessities of life. 

This skewed division of labour changed with the invention of the internal combustion engine. Previously, the amount of energy available to till a field or reap a harvest was a function of the stamina of the farmer and whatever draught animals he might have. Since the amount of energy in a single barrel of oil is equivalent to 23,000 man-hours of labour,1What is a Human Being Worth (in Terms of Energy)? https://twitter.com/David_Mulroney/status/1565285864061779974?s=20&t=mdNUXFxVXMHqr5BiNLcmxg the use of machinery freed up many people to apply their skills in other pursuits. Today, less than two percent of the Canadian workforce is engaged in agriculture. Due to the application of concentrated energy in the form of fossil fuels, mankind enjoys a lot of things today that would have been incomprehensible just two hundred years ago along with a greatly improved standard of living and confidence that the necessities of life will always be available when we want them.

In fact, it is so easy to become complacent in the face of all the abundance that we, perhaps inevitably, take it for granted. We observe that the things we need have always been there and conclude therefore they will always be there. We lose appreciation as to how they came to be available in the first place; electricity comes from the wall socket, steaks come from the butcher shop, gasoline comes from the service station, etc. Our appreciation for supply chains fades with time and distance, exacerbated by the increasing amount of time we spend in the digital, rather than the physical world.

This lack of awareness might be the kindest explanation for the onslaught of policies emanating out of Ottawa that seem designed to put Canadian society back on the road to deprivation and scarcity that we only escaped from a few generations ago.

Having mounted a spirited attack for the last several years against Canada’s most important export industry (oil and gas), our government has recently turned its attention to impairing the country’s ability to feed itself through the imposition of fertilizer regulations which farmers assert will dramatically reduce crop yields. Learning nothing at all from the self-immolation of the Sri Lankan economy under comparable diktats, Canada is preparing to rush headlong into a similar predicament. 

In a world facing impending food shortages and dealing with wicked price inflation, this makes little apparent sense. One wonders if Hanlon’s Razor applies here.2Hanlon’s razor advises that we “should not ascribe to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence.” For substantiation, listen to this interview of the Minister of Agriculture with CBC Radio. The minister acknowledges that she is not farmer and not a scientist and really has no answer for all the experts that question this foolish policy, but fear not: she intends to hire a lot more bureaucrats!

Shortly thereafter, Justin Trudeau advised the President of Germany, which is about to endure possibly the coldest winter in decades due to a shortage of natural gas, that there has never been a “business case” for the export of LNG from Canada. This would be news to the many private companies that have been attempting to build such facilities with private capital over the past decade. It is estimated that our failure to build LNG terminals due to government interference has an opportunity cost to the Canadian economy equal to nine figures worth of GDP every day.3Canada Set To Miss Out On A Massive LNG Opportunity https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Canada-Set-To-Miss-Out-On-A-Massive-LNG-Opportunity.html At the same time, he maintains that there is a business case for the export of hydrogen, an element that actually consumes more energy to produce than it provides in its combustion. 

The dismissal of LNG in favour of hydrogen is preposterous. LNG is sold into an enormous and established global market. It is essential to the German economy for heat, power, and manufacturing. Canada has it in abundance and private companies are willing to invest the necessary capital. In contrast, hydrogen as fuel is not yet utilized at scale anywhere in the world and will require much research, time, and investment before it can be widely deployed. Not to mention gobs of government money. Yet the absurdity of Canada’s position seemed to be meekly accepted by the media and population at large. 

So…once again it comes down to food and fuel. Critical for maintaining civilization yet blithely taken for granted by political leaders and the population generally. Perhaps it is inevitable this insouciance will continue to prevail until the things we think will always be there, aren’t.

Economic decisions invariably involve trade-offs; there are always costs AND benefits. A singular fixation on carbon “pollution”, to the exclusion of all other considerations, prevents consideration of the other side of the equation. This includes factors such as economic growth, employment opportunities, and food security. This myopic perspective is leading to the inexorable dismantling of essential parts of the Canadian economy. Canada has already experienced capital flight totalling billions of dollars over the past seven years4Canadian Investors Shatter Records By Putting $115 Billion in Foreign Securities https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-17/canada-foreign-investment-spree-hits-record-amid-capital-bleed and is forecast to have the lowest GDP growth over the next twenty according to the OECD.5OECD predicts Canada will be the worst performing advanced economy over the next decade…and the three decades after that https://bcbc.com/insights-and-opinions/oecd-predicts-canada-will-be-the-worst-performing-advanced-economy-over-the-next-decade-and-the-three-decades-after-that 

And yet, while we deteriorate, we are imposing anti-development policies that favour radical environmentalism and global virtue-signalling over logic and economic self-interest. All in the name of averting a climate catastrophe which we cannot avert because Canada contributes only 1.5 percent of emissions while major emitters remain largely unconstrained.  

Constraining Canada’s ability to produce food and fuel, thereby costing the country economically and ceding competitive advantage to other nations, in exchange for an immeasurably small environmental impact, is reckless and destructive. It’s well past time for Canadians to say “enough”. Canadian public policy should put the interests of Canada first.

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