Asked how he went bankrupt, a character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises answers, “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.” He was talking about how financial collapse happens but he was also foretelling Canada’s economic future if Steven Guilbeault, minister of environment and climate change, continues to foist his destructive lunacy on Canadians. Not only does his environmental extremism impoverish us, it undermines our democratic freedoms.

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Joe Oliver: Liberals need to ditch Steven Guilbeault’s radical activism Back to video

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The federal government flogs Guilbeault’s autocratic socialist vision — “I am a Liberal and proud socialist,” he told the House of Commons last fall — with persistent fear-mongering about a supposedly looming calamity of extreme weather and unendurable heat if Canadians do not repent from their sinful, carbon-spewing ways.

But all is not lost, we are told. There is the redemptive promise of a carbon-free environment, which we must urgently pursue or civilization is doomed (as we have been warned for the past 40 years is about to happen, though somehow it hasn’t). Guilbeault, who says he entered politics to continue his activism, does not dwell on the crushing costs of his radical policies, although he occasionally opens up about how they will transform our lives. Recently, he gave poor mortals a peak into a bleak future.

In Montreal, he proclaimed that existing road infrastructure “is perfectly adequate to respond to the needs we have” — “perfectly adequate” not being a phrase Montrealers customarily use to describe their potholed streets, which are chronically under repair. Reasonable people can debate whether Ottawa should continue to finance major road projects. But to pretend our roads are adequate demonstrates an appalling indifference to Canadians’ daily challenges, the dreadful state of our transportations systems and the rising pressure from massive immigration and subsidized EVs. Then again, Guilbeault’s hidden agenda may be to deindustrialize Canada, which even he must understand is a sure vote-killer.

Add to his green wish list: 15-minute cities, limitations on agriculture, restricted diets, criminalization of actions and advocacy that deviate from ordained climate narratives and of course the deliberate and calamitous elimination of the fossil fuel industry.

As he bashes away at Canadians’ lifestyles, Guilbeault could be crooning from the Sound of Music, “Brown paper packages tied up with strings/Insects for breakfast (relieved of their stings) …These are just two of my favourite things.” What most of his captive audience hears is cacophony portending deprivation.

The World Economic Forum wants us to “give insects the role they deserve in our food systems” by offering an environmentally friendly solution to an impending food crisis. In the 1970s, the Club of Rome forecast mass starvation, too. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen. As long as we are not all forced to eat from a prix fixe menu catered by entomologists, I say chacun à son goût, although I doubt the prime minister is gorging on grasshoppers, termites and mealworms at Rideau Cottage.

The alarmist-in-chief and his boss keep telling us what we must do to avert global calamity, but the effort is futile, as people increasingly understand. Two thirds of emissions come from countries clearly hellbent on using fossil fuels to develop their economies and raise their people up from dire poverty. The other third is from already developed countries where popular resistance is forcing rapid retreat from net-zero promises. “Farmers are in revolt and Europe’s climate policies are crumbling. Welcome to the age of ‘greenlash,’” reads a headline in the Guardian.

Seeing this social tsunami coming, the corporate sector is starting to withdraw from policies that disadvantage their investors. Last week, JPMorgan Chase and institutional investors BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors (with over $12 trillion under management) announced they are quitting or scaling back involvement in a huge United Nations climate alliance.

There is no good ethical or pragmatic reason to: upend society, damage the economy, hurt the poor, weaken our international standing, deny sales of energy to our allies who need it, or become more vulnerable ourselves in an increasingly dangerous world.

According to a Nanos poll conducted at the end of January, a pitiful three per cent of Canadians believe Justin Trudeau leading it is the best way to increase the Liberal Party’s chances of winning the next election. A mere six per cent believe it should continue with its current policy priorities. Canadians are obviously fed up with autocratic socialism.

Steven Guilbeault’s unrepentant radicalism, abetted by the PM, is pushing the Liberals to electoral oblivion. Ideologues may be willing to go down with a sinking ship while singing the Internationale. But Liberal Party grandees and backroom operatives prefer a more ruthless focus on power. It is probably too late, but stay tuned for major Liberal backtracking and political tumult.

Joe Oliver was minister of natural resources and then minister of finance in the Harper government.

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