It's Just Everyday Life

People voted for all of this to happen.

Never forget that:

Over half of Canadians are now driving less as gas prices skyrocket across the country, a new survey says.

The Leger survey, conducted for BNN Bloomberg and insurance comparison company RATESDOTCA, found 54 percent out of roughly 1,500 Canadians surveyed say that are driving less due to mounting gas prices. Another 15 percent say they are planning to adjust their driving patterns.

The drivers’ responses to recent gas price hikes are largely similar across the country in terms of how people are changing their habits, according to John Shmuel, managing editor for RATESDOTCA.

“Clearly, this is having a big impact on the average Canadian,” he told CTV News on March 27.

In British Columbia, where gas prices are typically the highest in the country, drivers are not modifying their habits at a higher rate than in other provinces, though Shmuel noted roughly three-quarters of its residents have already cut back on driving, or are planning to do so.

Among those surveyed in Ontario, 55 percent say they are driving less, while in Alberta, 46 percent say so—the lowest in the country. In Atlantic Canada, up to 70 percent say they are now driving less.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian oil industry Tuesday that it should use the massive bump in profits from the current surge in prices to fund a transition to cut their emissions.

The federal government unveiled its new emissions-reduction plan to reach its new greenhouse-gas targets by 2030. It projects the oil and gas industry needs to cut emissions 42 per cent from current levels if Canada is to meet its new goals. ...

The report forecasts that emissions from waste, including landfills, can be cut by 43 per cent by 2030, electricity by 77 per cent, heavy industry by 32 per cent, and emissions from buildings by 42 per cent.

 

Did everybody get that? 

And where will one get that lovely power to recharge their electric cars?

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People voted for Trudeau to sue veterans.

Never forget that:

Authorities must prioritize benefits claims by the neediest veterans, says Veterans Ombudsman Colonel (Ret’d) Nishika Jardine. Tens of thousands of former soldiers, sailors and air crew remain on waiting lists for disability benefits.

“Understand who is the person applying for this benefit,” said Jardine: “Does this person have a family doctor? Is this person in financial difficulty? Do they have access to the public service health care plan?”

The Department of Veterans Affairs in 2021 counted a backlog of 41,541 claims from veterans citing disability as a result of service. Wait times for the initial review of first-time applications averaged more than 300 days. Petitions for reassessments averaged another 140 days, with 340 days for further review.

“Which veterans need a decision faster than other veterans?” Ombudsman Jardine told the Commons veterans affairs committee. “A veteran who has a full pension, access to the public service health care plan and has secured a second job after they have left the Canadian Armed Forces may not need that decision as quickly as the veteran who does not have a pension, who cannot qualify for public service health care, doesn’t have access to rehabilitation programs but was broken by the Canadian Armed Forces and has walked out the door with their little baggie of three months’ worth of medications for a condition that is related to their service, and they have to wait.”

Jardine noted the department did prioritize veterans over 80 or those who “self-identify as having a life threatening condition” but made few other attempts to prioritize claims according to need. “It is the thing that disturbs me the most and it is the reason for my comments,” said Jardine. “We can get lost in the statistics and the numbers and how many weeks and how long.”

Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay on Friday told the Commons his department was doing its best. “We recognize more needs to be done,” said MacAulay, who earlier remarked that veterans’ paperwork was so onerous “I mightn’t be great at it myself.”

“You know this difficulty,” MacAulay testified at 2020 hearings of the veterans affairs committee. “You know about filling out forms. I mightn’t be great at it myself.”

“But the thing is you need the people that know how to fill out the forms,” said MacAulay. “The problem that you have with the forms is there’s something missing, something vitally important that could be missing, and you have to make sure that it is all there.”

Conservative MP Frank Caputo (Kamloops-Thompson, B.C.) told the committee Friday that claimants “are all veterans who have unique circumstances.” Proposals to ease the backlog date back five years.

“You can’t really tell a check box on a form that you are broken, and conversely a check box on a form can’t see that you’re broken,” said MP Caputo. “That’s one of the biggest problems I really see with this.”

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I'll believe it when I see it:

Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre promises to ban all overseas oil imports within five years of being elected prime minister while also removing government red tape he says hampers the construction of a west-to-east pipeline.