Ottawa’s promised “just transition” to a new, low-carbon economy is now revealed as a useless sham. Coal miners in Alberta and Saskatchewan have faced transition for several years now. That’s the conclusion of the federal auditor general’s office, which finds that bureaucrats sat on their fat portfolios even as coal workers were losing their jobs.

Maybe Alberta will look like Newfoundland and Labrador after the federal shutdown of the cod fishery in 1992-93. The auditor general report, prepared by environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco, is a terrifying example of the pain federal incompetence can wreak on citizens, whatever the party in power. “We found that the government was unprepared to deal with the consequences of the moratorium,” the report says. Rather than ramp up a coherent plan for the coal workers, DeMarco finds, the bureaucrats and politicians did little more than tinker with employment insurance.

“”In our view this represents a significant missed opportunity, as the coal phaseout is the first of several transitions to a low-carbon economy facing Canadian workers, communities and governments. Wrap the cod fishery into the coal screwup and we have a hint of the damage this government of high dreams and low achievements could visit on Alberta, Saskatchewan, northern B. He was on the job in February when Ottawa formally rejected the Energie Saguenay LNG project in Quebec. It had already been spurned by Quebec, but Ottawa had to pile on just to show that special zeal. Wilkinson was soon rushing around to assure everyone that heroic Canada would produce more oil and gas for Europe.

The Liberals, with the NDP in line, are piloting a massive change in the shape of Canada’s economy.                                                                               

Source: Don Braid | NP