In case you haven’t noticed Canada is on its way to a federal election this fall. The Conservative Party of Canada under Andrew Scheer has already started its campaign. I am disturbed by the nature of that campaign so far. It has a disturbingly American flavour to it. There has been a flurry of attack tweets that are misleading and lacking in truth, just like Donald Trump’s. In none of these has there been any hint of what the Conservatives would do, just mudslinging. This is typical of American politics and their failing democracy, but simply unbecoming of a Canadian political party. It may be considered their best approach to win, but I can’t say that I can accept this Americanization of our electoral process. There is nothing in the current US political process that Canadians should wish to import into Canada. As voters we can fight this. If you are a Conservative voter, make it clear to your representatives that these American tactics don’t work here in Canada. If you are not a Conservative follower, then make sure you vote to not accept this tarnishing of our democratic process.  

Macleans magazine, December 2018. Paul Wells, a gifted journalist and thinker provided an informative article on a group that I can only think of as the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Mr Wells set out to provide a political commentary on the five Conservative leaders who have banded together to take on the Trudeau Liberals. Fair enough, politics is a game and the opposing team is trying to build its strength for the oncoming contest to be fought out in the near future. The key players on this team are Scott Moe, Jason Kenney, Doug Ford, Andrew Sheer and Brian Pallister. Wells focused on their opposition to the Liberal’s Carbon Tax, which I have argued earlier is the most efficient and effective way to price pollution. Wells also points out that many of these individuals have supported a Carbon Tax at one point or another. However in the world of political expediency and hatred of anything Liberal and progressive these guys have to chosen to oppose the Carbon Tax in order to attack the liberal government in the next election. Standard political playbook stuff, no surprise.
 
So what is my point you may ask?  We are as a species standing on the brink. We are way past giving into political urges and rash behaviour. We have refused to internalize the externality in environmental pollution. Recent reports have confirmed that our worst fears regarding climate change. Donald Trump’s own science team have flagged the catastrophic effects of unmitigated climate change, though Donald refuses to believe them. These five politicians, in their zeal to win, are willing to bring on the apocalyptic effects that we dread, in order to defeat the opposition.  Therefore the  Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  Canadians have to beware of the global trend to reject progressive, globalist and liberal values in favour of xenophobic, populist craziness. That is not what defines Canada. When I worked overseas I took pride in the way that Canada was perceived, we need to protect that and sustain it, not erode it with the toxic poisons that contaminate the modern conservative movement.