In Manitoba: Net-Zero 1; Reality 0

Here's an interesting bit of news, highlighted by Dan McTeague of Canadians for Affordable Energy, which illustrates the delusional unreality of the climate crowd. It concerns some Canadian inside baseball, namely the firing of the CEO of the Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board, the electric and natural gas utility of the province of Manitoba.

The now-ex CEO is named Jay Grewal, and she was appointed to run Manitoba Hydro in 2019, with "decades of experience and impeccable credentials" to recommend her. By all accounts she was good at her job, a fact attested to by the government minister whom she reported to. He commended her for “leading the utility through significant challenges, including two droughts, a severe snowstorm and the Covid-19 pandemic.”

So why did she get the axe? Well Grewal's first problem was that, this past October, Manitoba tossed out the Progressive Conservative party and elected the Far-Left New Democratic Party (NDP). Manitoba's new government -- lead by former indigenous rapper and CBC broadcaster Wab Kinew -- is thoroughly committed to the environmentalist narrative: to "save the planet" from "climate change" by waging brutal war against the natural resource sector, etc., etc. So they were primed to be hostile to the operation of her organization from the get-go.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

The apparent justification for Grewal's firing, according to the provincial newspapers, had to do following incident, as described by McTeague:

Ms. Grewal, speaking off the cuff at a public event, suggested the wind and solar build-out Manitoba Hydro had committed to was best financed privately, not through the public utility, given the huge costs and uncertainties involved. Daring to suggest private investment in the world of crown utilities is putting a red flag before a bull, and the NDP “crown ownership is sacrosanct” bull flew into a rage.

That is, Grewal suggested that they look for private investors for their various infrastructure projects, rather then charge it all to the taxpayers. Since the NDP, as true Leftists, believe the government should make much greater use of the public credit card, taxpayers be damned, they took exception to this and gave her the pink slip pronto.

But McTeague seems to think that this incident was just a pretext. That, essentially, the new NDP government had been looking for a reason to kick Grewal to the curb since they came to power and pledged that Manitoba Hydro would “chart a path to achieve a net-zero energy grid by 2035.” Since Grewal was in charge of Manitoba Hydro, reporters made it a point to ask her about it, and she gave her honest opinion, saying that such a transition -- in just over a decade's time -- was “not feasible.” “That is,” says McTeague, “it can’t be done.”

The thing is, Grewal is right. She actually knows what she's talking about. Whereas the Leftists who sacked her are ideologues who can't abide when reality doesn't match up with the talking points they've been given by their environmental activist comrades. Their task now is finding someone of their own ideological ilk who is willing to take the reins, which shouldn't be hard, since Leftists are obsessed with power. What will be hard -- in fact, impossible -- is actually making it work. Because reality can't be brown beaten into submission.

That is likely to become apparent to everyone over the next few years. Until then, Manitobans might want to stock up on blankets. Because it gets cold out there -- Winnipeg, the province's capital, is regularly the coldest major city in Canada -- and there are gonna be some blackouts. Stay warm!