Business Council of Canada’s Michael Gullo

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

‘Canada’s GDP outlook for this year will be a dismal 0.6 % and Canada is poised to be the worst-performing advanced economy from 2020 to 2030 and from 2030 to 2060,’ said the Business Council of Canada’s Michael Gullo.

The Business Council of Canada has warned that the Trudeau government’s proposed oil and gas emissions cap could cripple the economy. 

On February 5, the Business Council of Canada wrote an open letter to Assistant Deputy Minister Environmental Protection Branch John Moffet to voice concerns over the Liberal government’s proposed regulations on oil and gas.  

“Imposing an emissions cap will likely force operators to involuntarily curtail their production.  This would effectively reduce the overall capacity of the most productive segment of Canada’s economy at a time when investment and growth is desperately needed,” Michael Gullo, the council’s vice-president of policy, wrote.  

Furthermore, Gullo warned that the emissions cap could “exacerbate the country’s inflation and affordability problems by applying a broad-based economic shock that will reduce tax revenues and add pressure to the federal deficit.” 

“Canada’s GDP outlook for this year will be a dismal 0.6 % and Canada is poised to be the worst-performing advanced economy from 2020 to 2030 and from 2030 to 2060,” he added.  

“Our energy sector is a stalwart of the country’s economy,” Gullo explained. “It accounts for more than 10 per cent of Canada’s GDP, drives our trading relationship with the United States, and props up real wages and household and retirement incomes.” 

Gullo’s warning comes in response to the Liberal government’s Regulatory Framework to Cap Oil and Gas Sector Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The draft regulations, published in December, aim to severely limit the gas and oil emissions by 2030 to make a net-zero goal by 2050 possible.  

The regulations seek to set emission caps for all provinces, which Gullo pointed out could interfere with current emission policies, potentially leading to lawsuits. Gullo also explained that the policy’s proposed timeline is “unrealistic.”  

He argued the new regulations could undermine carbon pricing mechanisms and endanger the competitiveness of the oil and gas industry within Canada.  

“Investments are not made on speculative legislation. It is simply unrealistic to assume that projects, technologies and decarbonization strategies will be deployed, permitted and operational in four years,” wrote Gullo.  

The Business Council of Canada’s warning comes on the heels of Alberta announcing that it would not be enforcing the proposed regulations.  

“Albertans will not accept this cap or the attack on its constitutional jurisdiction, economy, and citizens that the cap represents,” Alberta (Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz) wrote.  

Alberta pointed out that the proposed regulations are unconstitutional, unrealistic, would prove detrimental to Canada’s economy, and would not necessarily reduce emissions worldwide.  

However, the Liberal government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, seems intent on pushing emission regulations regardless of their effects on Canadians.  

Currently, the Trudeau government is trying to force net-zero regulations on all Canadian provinces, notably on electricity generation, as early as 2035. His government has also refused to extend a carbon tax exemption on heating fuels to all provinces, allowing only Atlantic provinces this benefit. 

Trudeau’s current environmental goals are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” and include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades. 

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved. 

In November, after announcing she had “enough” of Trudeau’s extreme environmental rules, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her province has no choice but to assert control over its electricity grid to combat federal overreach by enacting its Sovereignty Act. The Sovereignty Act serves to shield Albertans from future power blackouts due to the federal government’s decisions.  

Unlike most provinces in Canada, Alberta’s electricity industry is nearly fully deregulated. However, the government still could take control of it at a moment’s notice.