Harrison Glicklich | (The other) NSO sucks, here's why

Good Luck | Please Schmucks, don't lie

By Harrison Glicklich 10/09/16 11:10pm

Two weeks ago I promised a disparaging NSO column. I’m lucky world events lined up so well. Like most of you, I was shocked to read about the drama in the wake of Canada’s carbon summit last week: In response to a proposed universal $10 CAD tax per ton in 2018, Nova Scotia’s minister left the building.

The province’s government had hoped it would be spared the tax. However, the decision shouldn’t come as a surprise. Despite its investment in green energy, Nova Scotia has taken no steps to address its consumption of liquid fuels like gasoline and heating oil. Furthermore, the province continues to invite bids for offshore drilling ventures.

Nova Scotia Oil and Natural Gas markets this decision as a way to reduce local energy costs, but this is not true. Considering the high production cost of oil in Canada, a reduction in the price per barrel is unlikely to occur and is against the interest of the local industry. In fact, OPEC is the group responsible for reduced prices. OPEC continues to flood the global market with cheap oil and then benefits from a superior profit margin at the expense of ventures in Canada, Brazil and Nigeria.

What then do Nova Scotia residents have to gain by supporting NSO-positive ballot measures? Though the notion of reduced energy costs is not true, residents do receive a relative tax break because of taxes collected from oil companies. However, a major reason behind recent NSO expansion compared to expansion in other oil-rich areas is extensive industry tax breaks. As a result, residents see only minimal return for putting their homes and the environment at risk. In short, NSO companies continue to profit in the province at the expense of the people who support them.

For many Nova Scotia residents, their deal with NSO companies is characterized by deception. I am reminded of the recent success of Brexit, where citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union as a result of widespread discontent and a campaign that trafficked in misinformation. Specifically, a popular claim stating, ‘we send the EU £350 million — let’s fund our NHS instead’ was later shown to be wrong on both counts. It’s scary to think that NSO and Brexit policies were put into place as a consequence of voter deception for the sake of political and monetary gain. Furthermore, I seriously suspect that such subterfuge is subjugated by statutes in the States.

In fact, The Daily Pennsylvanian is giving me reason to believe that this intuition is correct and intentional deception is actually commonplace. Though I’m not under the assumption that all politicians speak the truth all the time, or even most of the time, an article published just over a week ago denounced one of our presidential candidates as an abject liar who has perfected a system of mendacity. Not the one you’re thinking of. It states that the couple is inherently corrupt, embedded in an intractable web of lies yet somehow always managing to avoid justice. Of course, I was concerned. I don’t want to be abused in the same way as voters in Nova Scotia and the UK.

Then I thought, is it the candidate who is deceptive or is it the person telling me about them? Among the numerous claims mentioned against the Clintons, only one has been shown to be true with a preponderance of evidence. When there are cases where intentional deception is so clear-cut, isn’t it a shame to use hyperbolic language to score political points in an opinion piece?

For sure there are times in the United States where the electorate is intentionally misled, and this is a serious issue. However, claiming that someone is lying, when there is no proof behind it, is also a distortion of reality. I believe that this sort of writing deserves censure, given that it is false and that it numbs people to real cases of breaches of public trust. We should be working against the erosion of trust in the media by first not printing lies ourselves.

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