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Premier Danielle Smith tours Jasper, Alberta, Canada, in July.
Chemtrail conspiracy takes flight over Alberta
British journalist Christopher Hitchens once described conspiracy theories as “the exhaust fumes of democracy.” But it is doubtful he was referring to so-called “chemtrails.” A slightly unhinged school of thought now has it that vapor trails in the sky are sprayed deliberately to poison or control the people below.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was asked about chemtrails at a town hall in Edmonton last weekend and, after being heckled for saying no one is allowed to spray anything over the province, conceded she’d been told the source might be the US Department of Defense, according to Global News.
A reporter who contacted the Pentagon was told they didn’t know what Smith was talking about and referred him to the North American Aerospace Defence Command, which said it is not conducting any flights that involve spraying chemicals.
One health expert dismissed the idea as a baseless, “ridiculous” conspiracy theory, while federal Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault said Smith’s comment was “simply bonkers.”
The premier later clarified that there is no evidence of chemtrails and she was simply sharing what she’d been told.
But, then again, she would say that …
FILE PHOTO: France, Paris, 03-12-2022. March against the Uighur genocide
Hard Numbers: Slave labor gets free pass, China probes fried chicken blast, Fresh beef over origins of meat, Windfarms vs. farmlands, Record numbers at US-Canada border
0: Is Canada complying with its obligation, under the revamped NAFTA accords, to stop importing goods that are made with forced labor? A Politico report earlier this week suggested Canadian border services officials were starting to detain shipments from Western China, where Beijing is accused of using slave labor among the Uighur population. But the Globe and Mail reports that zero imports have so far been rejected. Of particular concern are exports of relatively inexpensive Chinese solar panels, which have helped businesses and homes wean themselves off fossil fuels without breaking the bank.
7: Speaking of China, authorities are probing the cause of a massive explosion on Thursday at a fried chicken restaurant near Beijing that left at least 7 people dead and 27 injured. The incident comes amid a big safety crackdown on restaurants following a fatal gas explosion at a barbecue restaurant last year. Crispy fact: Fried chicken is wildly popular in China – KFC was the first US fast food chain to open in China when the country opened up in 1978.
795,000: The US imports an average of about 795,000 head of cattle from Canada every year, but there’s a fresh beef this week over new meat labeling requirements in the US. The Biden administration on Monday issued new rules that permit sellers to label their products as “made in the USA” only when the animals were born, raised, slaughtered, and packaged within the 50 states. The Canadian meat industry says the new rules will depress Canadian exports and raise prices for American meat-lovers.
1: A study in Alberta has determined that even if renewable energy sources grew rapidly, they would still take up less than 1% of the sprawling province’s land two decades from now. The findings come amid a frothy local debate about the merits of giving precious farmland to cows, crops, or wind farms. The government recently imposed a moratorium on the use of any prime land for renewables until a consensus is reached.
7,000: Border patrol in the Swanton Sector, which touches the US states of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, arrested some 7,000 migrants trying to cross illegally into the United States last year, more than in the past 12 years combined. With so much attention on the US southern border, migrants (and human traffickers) are setting their sights up north. To put those 7,000 in perspective, in December alone, US border agents encountered 250,000 undocumented migrants entering from Mexico.Windmills generate electricity in the windy rolling foothills of the Rocky Mountains near the town of Pincher Creek, Alberta, September 27, 2010.
Hard Numbers: Alberta renewables ban, ‘Dirty Harry’ smuggler arrested, Three Amigos at risk, China keeps digging into Canadian mines
0: New regulations from the Alberta government will permitzero new renewable energy projects to be built on private property that has high value for irrigation, specialty crops, or other farming importance, as well as areas where projects would interfere with “pristine viewscapes.” Alberta, which leads Canada in renewables development, has drawn nearly $5 billion into the sector in recent years, stoking concerns about the balance of farmland vs. alternative energy.
25,000: A man has been arrested in Chicago and charged with human trafficking in connection with the death of an Indian family of four that froze to death while trying to cross illegally from Canada into the US in 2022. The 28-year old man, nicknamed “Dirty Harry,” is accused of paying $25,000 to the driver who smuggled the family. With so much attention on the migration situation at the US southern border, the number of migrants seeking to enter the US from Canada has soared in recent years.
2: The so-called “Three Amigos Summit” could wind up with only two amigos this year, after Mexican President Andrés Manual Lopez Obradorthreatened to ditch the North American Leaders meeting. AMLO, as the left-populist leader is known, said that he wouldn’t show up unless his country got “respectful treatment.” The remark comes as AMLO’s administration blasts possible new US and Canadian tariffs on Mexican steel, but it probably doesn’t help that last week it emerged that the US had spent “years” investigating ties between AMLO and drug cartels.
2.2 billion: Tighter restrictions on Chinese investment in Canada’s critical minerals industry appear not to have had much deterrent effect, according to a new study which shows that Chinese firms plowed at least C$2.2 billion into the sector last year. That came even after Ottawa forced three Chinese companies to sell their stakes in Canadian businesses in 2022. Copper miners were a particular focus, according to the report.
FILE PHOTO: Satellite image shows wildfires in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, September 24, 2023.
Alberta sounds alarm on 2024 wildfire season
It’s already begun … The Alberta government on Tuesday declared an early start to the 2024 wildfire season as firefighters there prepare for a hot, dry year ahead. Across Canada, authorities are bracing for a difficult year of fires after a record-setting year in 2023, which sent smoke plumes to population centers across the continent.
A warming climate is making forests drier and more susceptible to big, dangerous fires. More than 100 “zombie fires” (dormant in winter) are still smoldering in Western Canada, where they pose a threat when the weather warms up again.
“It's not something I've seen in any of the data sets,” Wilfrid Laurier University biology professor Jennifer Baltzer told CBC. “What we don't know is how many of these will actually translate to reignition in the spring.”
The continental United States was largely spared last year, and so far the projections look good for 2024 but worrying for the long term.A homeless man's tent is seen in an alley in downtown Toronto, Ontario.
HARD NUMBERS: Ontario’s ex-cons struggle to find homes, First Nations challenge carbon tax, “Super pigs” eye the border, Alberta cashes in on TV
17.3: The percentage of prisoners released from Ontario jails who have nowhere to live has nearly doubled over the past five years, reaching 17.3% in 2021-2022, the most recent annual data show. Experts blame a triple crisis of housing affordability, mental health, and addiction, and warn that there is a high correlation between homelessness and recidivism.
133: A group representing 133 indigenous groups in Ontario filed a lawsuit today challenging the federal government’s carbon tax, which they say disproportionately burdens their communities. The tax, a cornerstone of Justin Trudeau’s climate agenda, has seen growing local pushback, especially after the PM excluded home heating oil from the tax in October in a move viewed as a sop to his constituents in Atlantic Canada, where the fuel is most common.
62,000: As if there weren’t enough to worry about in the world, the US is now bracing for an invasion of “super pigs” from Canada. More than 62,000 of the voracious, destructive, and nearly unkillable creatures have already been spotted roaming the US-Canada borderlands. They are the crossbred descendants of wild boars that Canadian farmers released into the wild after the boar meat market crashed in the early 2000s. Experts say the pigs are an “ecological train wreck.” We can’t read this story without hearing “Super Pig” to the tune of Rick James’ “Superfreak” — and now … neither can you.
141 million: And the last (of us) shall be first … The post-apocalyptic HBO show “The Last of Us” generated $141 million for the province of Alberta, where it was shot in 2021-2022. That makes it the most lucrative TV show ever shot in Canada. Next season, the drama moves to British Columbia.AI generated images of armed rats
New Zealand declares war … on rats
It is a truth universally acknowledged that where there are humans there are, generally, rats. As humans have moved about the world, the rats have followed to feast on their crops, their garbage – and in the case of New Zealand – their native birds.
There are, to be fair, a few exceptions. Two, to be precise. One is Alberta, Canada, which launched a massive anti-rat mobilization in the 1950s and has been rat-free since. The other is South Georgia Island in the southern Atlantic Ocean, which was declared rat-free in 2018, after the government deployed helicopters to rain poison pellets from the sky.
Now New Zealand aims to become the third. The island nation is launching Predator Free 2050 Ltd, a public body that hopes to protect native birds by eradicating all rats. Their chances of success? Historians of the rat vs. human power struggle would say: “slim.”
Alberta’s war on rats was defensive – a whole-of-society mobilization unleashed before the rodents had shown up in large numbers. The borderlands with already-infested Saskatchewan were seeded with rat poison, hundreds of exterminators would fan out after a single sighting, and propaganda posters mobilized the population to vigilance.
But New Zealand is already infested: Rats run rampant there, devouring 26 million birds a year, and the country has just 36 rat catchers armed with peanut butter and poison.
As the next battle in the unending war between rats and mankind unfolds, the score stands at …
- Humans: 2 territories
- Rats: rest of the world
Your move, Kiwis.
A screen displays the logo for ConocoPhillips on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Hope for carbon sinks
Leaders at international oil companies, who have to worry about carbon balance sheets when they take projects to market, have divested from Alberta’s oil sands over the last decade. These energy giants face pressure to publicly report on the emissions that cause climate change, and the oil sands extraction in Alberta is some of the most carbon-intensive oil production in the world since the oil is boiled out of bitumen sand.
But there was a sign last week that investors may be changing their minds, based on the potential of carbon capture. Houston oil giant ConocoPhillips announced last Friday that it has invested CA$4.4 billion in the Surmont project, one of many massive oil extraction facilities in northern Alberta.
Why? Because ConocoPhillips is enthusiastic about carbon sequestration, which may allow companies to increase oil production while cutting emissions by diverting carbon from oil-processing facilities and storing it. Environmentalists are skeptical of the technology, but some in the oil industry are starting to see it as a potential savior.Danielle Smith of the United Conservative Party (UCP) gestures during her party's provincial election night party.
Populism in Alberta
The big political news of the week in Canada was the down-to-the-wire Alberta election, which pitted the ruling United Conservative Party against the left-leaning New Democratic Party. The UCP, led by controversial populist Danielle Smith, managed to defeat the NDP, whose leader, former premier Rachel Notley, managed to win most of the urban seats.
The results reveal a province more polarized than is typical for Canadian politics, where most legislatures have three parties. Alberta, which is politically influenced by Western states, now resembles them politically in a heavily polarized two-party alignment.
The reelected Smith, who spent much of the election struggling to explain controversial past comments about vaccines and lockdowns, promised to fight PM Justin Trudeau’s climate policies, including a cap on emissions from the oil industry and a net-zero electricity grid by 2035. Her election will pose a political challenge for the ruling Liberals as they try to bring down emissions in a province where the prime minister is widely despised.
Before the election, she brought in the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, which targets Canadian legislation in areas she sees as infringing on provincial jurisdiction. Legal experts are skeptical about the constitutionality of the law, which has not yet been used, and any attempt to use it in an area of federal or shared jurisdiction would likely end up in court.
The election outcome bodes well for Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who, like Smith, took over his party amid the fallout from COVID lockdowns and can expect to be attacked by Liberals for it in the next federal election. He now has less to fear: The results in Alberta suggest that right-leaning voters won’t let controversial views from the receding pandemic prevent them from voting along partisan lines.