The green dilemma with fuel-efficient pickup trucks

National Post, 31 July 2021

Some uncomfortable facts for Toronto elites to consider while sipping their vegan mochas.

The dust-up over pickup trucks illustrates the ambiguous relationship of technological advancement with the environmental movement.

It began when Marcus Gee, a columnist with the Globe and Mail, wrote that pickups are a plague on our streets and decried their enormous popularity with Canadian motorists who buy them in large numbers despite, in Gee’s view, not needing them for their urban lifestyles.

Enter premiers Jason Kenney and Scott Moe, who defended the pickup against a “Toronto columnist” who doesn’t understand that a little hatchback is not up to the rigours of a Prairie snowstorm in the depths of winter.

True enough; Gee is an almost a caricature of the Toronto columnist. Years back, when he was mortified that his city had elected Rob Ford as mayor, he wrote about the true Toronto:

“Toronto is a Chinese-speaking man cooling his bare feet in the reflecting pool at Nathan Phillips Square as his small daughter playfully loops her frilly red purse over his shoulder. Toronto is the café in Kensington Market advertising ‘vegan mocha.’ Toronto is more than 100 same-sex couples getting married in the sun at Casa Loma. Toronto is the woman waiting at the streetcar stop in black head scarf and wrap-around sunglasses, Mountain Equipment Co-op backpack slung over her shoulder. Toronto isn’t Rob Ford. Toronto is more than that.”

Gee’s vision of Toronto — let alone the country — extends to the boundaries of downtown Toronto where, despite the availability of the vegan mocha, very few ordinary Canadians live because it is simply unaffordable. Most of them couldn’t afford the monthly parking fees, whether for a pickup or anything else.

So there is that downtown Toronto/Western provinces split, always good for a bit of fun in the summer time, and helpful to both Gee and the Prairie premiers.

Continue reading at the National Post.