Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Newly elected Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, speaking at Davos, has strongly criticised Leonardo DiCaprio’s recent pontification about alleged oil industry greed.
Justin Trudeau faces off with Leonardo DiCaprio over climate change
CANADIAN Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Leonardo DiCaprio to tone down his “inflammatory rhetoric” on climate change, saying it was not helping those who have lost their oil-industry jobs.
The movie star had told the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain town of Davos on Wednesday that corporate greed was causing climate change.
At a dinner later in the day, Trudeau, elected in October as the head of a Liberal government, took the 41-year-old actor to task.
“I pointed out that both Alberta and Canada have new governments over the past year that are committed to action on climate change … and that there are families suffering, out of work, who need to be supported, and inflammatory rhetoric doesn’t necessarily help those families or help Canada,” Trudeau said, recounting his remarks to reporters on Friday.
“He actually said if we took concrete action on climate change he would be the first to come up and celebrate with us.”
Trudeau was elected on what appeared to be a green policy platform, but the reality is Canada is deeply dependent on oil and mineral extraction industries. Low oil prices are already causing significant economic problems. Any further pressure on the Canadian oil industry could exacerbate long term damage to the Canadian economy.
If Trudeau’s green sympathies receive some of the blame for Canada’s worsening economic stagnation, voter anger might translate into a major swing against the Trudeau government, at the next Federal Election.
Gerald,
It’s OK. DiCaprio bought carbon credits. All is well in Hollywood.
This is a great example of the hypocrisy of Prime minister carebear. He thinks inflammatory rhetoric “inflammatory rhetoric doesn’t necessarily help those families or help Canada”, but fails to mention that the policies of his government will directly and negatively affect families that are already affected by the downturn of the oil market. Translation: It’s okay to implement policies that will hurt people, just don’t talk about them.
Daryl M ….YES! Given a choice between DiCaprio who merely throws insults at us, and a Prime Minster actively trying to take down the industry that pays for nearly everything in Canada, I’ll chose DiCaprio! The disgusting hypocrisy of Trudeau is sickening. Such a shame that most of our media are sleepwalking through life with arrogant notions they understand the world around them when at best they are no better than children at the big table.
Justin Trudeau…Just when you thought there’d be no more Home Alone sequels.
Government by twitter.
Trudeau inveigled against the oil industry and resource industries in general all through the election and the 4 years leading up to it. Did someone just recently notify him where all that government revenue comes from? What a change of tune.
By the way, there won’t be any major swing against the Trudeau government at the next Federal Election. He’s our Obama. Our rock-star Prime Minister. Like Obama, people didn’t vote for him because of policies.
Surprised me as well – wish all alarmists/greens would do such an about-face.
Not an about face – just playing to the audience. Remember, his qualifications for office, other than snowboarding, and waving “hi, mom” to any camera in view, was as a part time drama teacher. Part time.
I would love to know how many oil industry executives earn even half what he does when he talks of greed. More so when you compare wages of the remainder of the staff in that industry where oil usually pays well right down to delivery drivers but the entertainments industry bitches about the national minimum wage here.
This man’s one skill is making fantasy seem real so he is the right man to represent the climate change lobby.
Can anyone name a self-powered alternative energy manufacturer? One that uses only their own alternative energy solutions for all aspects of their enterprise? That, I think, is the minimum qualifier for validating alternative energy as a justification for the rest of us to abandon reliable alternative energy – that being coal, hydro, oil, and gas.
I call on US oil companies to go further than DiCaprio asked. I call on them to stop delivering fuel to gas stations, stop delivering fuel to airports or sea ports, stop delivering to heating oil distributors. In short, stop delivering oil products to anyone. And when the inevitable furore erupts, I call on them to say ‘We’ll recommence deliveries when DiCaprio comes crawling on his hands and knees and begs us to do so.
Any day now the Reform Party will make it,s reappearance in the West. Alberta and Saskatchewan are already demanding there equalization payments 10 billion be returned. The Greens will not allow the new Pipe Line through Quebec. Separation anxiety back on the table this time from the West.
Most important they should stop selling the tons of fuel his superyacht and private jets consume. Lets see how him travelling on a bicycle or a bus then I might take his ‘green’ credentials seriously.
I suggest that the first step is to stop all fuel deliveries or sales to DiCaprio. Nothing for his yachts, planes, cars or homes. It would be gross hypocrisy for him not to practice what he preaches. Walk the walk (literally). He should never again be allowed to use fossil fuels for any reason until he loudly, continuously and publicly declares that he was wrong about global warming/climate change.
Leonardo DiCaprio is to climate science as Jenny McCarthy is to epidemiology. Leo is an ignoramus who is popular because he’s a movie star. DiCaprio can mouth off about anything that pops into his head, and a sizable cohort will hang on his every word because he’s sooooooo good-looking.
Trudeau is almost as bad. I know Americans oohing and aahing over his recent election because he’s sooooo good-looking, his wife is sooooo good-looking, and what’s more, he’s so youthful and fit he can stand on one leg like a stork.
This is what comes of blurring politics with show biz.
I get it now: If you’re good at your job (I was), and you earn many accolades and awards from your peers (I did), and you’re known internationally for what you did (I was), you get to stand on a world political stage and tell the rest of the hoi-polloi how to run their humdrum little lives; where they’re all going wrong, killing the world; and how it’ll cost ’em dear to allow me and my mates to fix it for them – and how they are gonna thank me for it in the end.
So where do I sign up?
You can’t fight socialism. The world as we know it is changed forever. The only true and lasting change will come from an everlasting God who created the world so many people are not satisfied with and want to change. So go and save the world…spin your wheels…you waste your time and accomplish nothing.
Reform Party Harper will make a return, separation anxiety will be back on the agenda thanks to the Greens. Both Alberta and Saskatchewan outraged, demanding their 10 billion dollars back. The federal government makes equalization payments to less wealthy Canadian provinces like Quebec. The City of Montreal opposes the Western Pipe Line through Quebec,Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre this AM.
He’s not suddenly pro oil. From what I’ve seen in the local news it sounds to me like he just wanted to enlighten Leo that there has been a pro-climate change government elected federally and at the state (province) level in Alberta as well. This is his broader message so it would make sense he’s passing it on to Leo. I am embarrassed to have him as Prime Minister. I would not even hire him to work at my engineering firm much less manage a $270 billion government budget. He’s kind of a shmuck who’s inexperience is almost certain to manifest itself. Maybe his looks got him elected, I don’t know. Of course, both Trudeau and Leo flew to Davos on private jets, because there’s an impending climate catastrophe.
Bernie Roseke: I agree Justin Trudeau is not pro oil. But he is pro getting re-elected again. The vote change started in the Maritimes last election. He wants to keep that constituency happy. Unemployment in the Maritimes is very high and would be HIGHER except for all the Maritimers working in Saskatchewan and Alberta. With the western oil patch losing thousands of jobs and Maritimers heading home, a pipeline to the refineries in the east will boost employment and assist in is re-election next time around. He’ll be able to say how he helped employment in the east at the same time as getting western oil to market.
It’s a good move politically. He has also promised a “Green Bond” fund, Carbon Taxes, and subsidies for wind, solar, and other “alternative” energies and removal of all “subsidies” for fossil fuels. (see their platform).
That is clearly not pro-oil but it will all be done stealthily. A pick pocket doesn’t want you to know your pocket is being picked so diversion is a necessary part of the scam. The Middle Class and people who saved for their retirement are having their pockets picked while JT says he is taxing the rich. Sure.
Feeding time. Gotta go chip some ice.
It is kind of hollow for DiCaprio to talk about business greed and ignore the greed of his own profession. It is easy to criticize another nations energy plans and ignore the same faults in your own country. Where was DiCaprio when Canada was applying for permission to build the Keystone pipeline and was delayed for 7 years due to phoney environmental excuses, while at the same time US was busy building 12000 miles of new pipelines all over US. Sorry, Leonardo , but you come across as a false crusader . You show little credibility.
Trudeau/Coderre Press Conference just over Respect for others Bla bla bla phoney environmental excuses . Trudeau has been bought out by the Greens Get over it. Reform Party must return.
First we have to somehow “reform” most Canadians. I was flabbergasted when he got voted in. I think he’s a nice boy and all, but this is an adult job.
Gary – Canadians have a funny way of electing governments. Trudeau wasn’t elected. Harper was tossed out. Same in Alberta. The NDP weren’t elected. Jim Prentiss was tossed out. His “look in the mirror” comment is pretty close to Katherine Wynnes’ comment on power supply in Ontario.
http://www.tomadamsenergy.com/2014/10/27/crock-of-conservation/
We tend to un-elect incumbents we have become tired of or angry with, and as you saw, people just follow the crowd with what they think is the most likely replacement.
Socialism – where everyone gets the same whether they work for it or not – that’s the Liberal and NDP policy. Mind you, all politicians in Canada are pretty close to centre left.
DiCaprio charges 20 MILLION dollars per movie and with a straight face talks about other people’s greed? Pathetic.
Let’s be fair to DiCaprio, he’s only an actor whose world revolves around repeating what other people say or write. Their world does not demand too much intelligence or interlectual thought. They do not have to have too much between the ears to do their job.Their only other requirement for their profession is to create as much publicity as they can about themselves in order to get more acting commissions, which is precisely what he did at Davos. The people that should take criticism about what he said are the organisers of the conference who dicided to give him a platform from which to project his personal publicity.
Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who opined in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”.
DiCaprio should be paying about one thousand times (or more) the regular price for aviation fuel and for his cars and homes, and then he’ll start to live in the same world as the rest of us.
When I hear the Trudeau name, I know that good things are several years over the horizon.
Did you hear that? That was my irony sensor exploding. A multi-millionaire entertainer that lives in the U.S., criticizing the oil industry from Europe. I’m afraid I will no longer be able to sense irony after this one.
I have always thought that the oil and gas pipelines should shut down for a week in the middle of January for 48 hours…..you know, sort of like “Earth Hour”….to show solidarity with “The Earth”. It would be interesting to see how well society fares through that period of time. Might actually wake some flakes up from their slumber.
There is a backroom of battle-scared Liberals running the show, so I guess it was okay for the party to put a pretty face on their agenda.
You don”t mean Jean Chretien
Paul Martin
How about the average worker in Canada that drives to work in fossil fuel powered vehicles? Do they not even get noticed other than paying the taxes to drive whole government labyrinth? Or do the only Canadians that count live along a rail line?
The Government understands that the average person will trust them.I had heard the above quote from a positivist friend some time ago. Also, the dictionaries define “faith” as a “belief that is not based on proof” or an “unreasoned belief”.
He has no choice but to say something, or watch regional elections turn against the urban Utopian elitists.
Regional elections mean nothing in Canada to a federal politician.
Deflection from green greed. Di Caprio has a secret friend.
“……greed was causing climate change”. He might have a point if we shorten the message slightly – but it has little to do with the oil industry.
The Adolescent apparently has nothing to do as PM. He will be in Toronto this week to sit in on a CTV version of “The View”, called “The Social” (of course, being Canadian, its not a b*tch fest like the view, but equally vacuous). He’s going to promote “mental health” – an ironic joke – since the federal public service pumped that horse all last year, and yet did nothing to facilitate anything at all. I lost two staffers last year who couldn’t re-enter the workplace after MH issues because their managers couldn’t get a grip on why they were off in the first place. I’m perennially surprised that when you see his selfies, he’s actually in the picture, there’s so little substance there.
Empty vessels make the best noise.
Trudeau is play acting
Canada is on the brink of separation.
The vote split geographically down the middle, the traditional thieves are back in power and the economy is diving.
The new Prime Minister will make the divisions worse, the arrogance and incompetence of his party and self is their badge of honour..Fools are not aware they become bandits.
We have a moral divide, in the east canadians have consistently rewarded corrupt and destructive politicians.
In the west the voters have consistently shown these same types the door.
Equalization has been a poison pill, the feds take from the productive regions and reward the lazy spendthrift provinces.
The anger of the west over the last betrayal, the National Energy programme, was slowly fading away.
This current bunch of politicians will fix that.
Reform will return,as “The West is out”.
Bye.