Canada’s flippant rejection of our generous natural resource inheritance

From the Macdonald Laurier Institute

By David Polansky

The fanaticism of environmental elitists has made people unwilling to discuss the serious human and economic costs of poorly considered environmental policies.

Strategic energy resources have long been associated with some of the world’s most odious regimes. Above the surfaces that cover rich mineral and fossil fuel deposits one finds religious fanatics, brutal tyrants, and corrupt kleptocracies. And yet with one resource rich nation in particular we find not Wahhabism or gangsterism but Mounties and maple syrup.

Canada is the world’s second-largest country and its lands and territorial waters hold some of the world’s most substantial oil and gas reserves. Looking at its energy policies, one might think it was Belgium. Canada’s resource wealth would seem to be a case of the good guys winning for once. Why then does Canada flee in shame from its geological (and geopolitical) situation?

The answer is that Canada’s elites have long ceased to think in terms of its national interests or fiscal priorities but have adopted a naïve environmental dogmatism. Since it ratified the Paris Agreement in 2015, Canada has embraced an ambitious, top-down, international agenda to achieve “net-zero” emissions and limit global climate change.

But the fact is that, despite its size, In absolute terms, its output has risen marginally over the past half century, even as its population has nearly doubled. And embracing this climate agenda is hardly a perfunctory matter: it will continue to result in declining incomes for the average Canadian as well as a weakened trade balance for Canada as a whole. Canada’s economy is being sacrificed on the altar of elite preferences divorced from the realities of how Canadians actually heat our homes or put food on our tables.

An honest assessment of Canada’s flippant rejection of its generous natural resource inheritance looks more like serial masochism than virtue.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the global sanctions it triggered, The irony is that with so much of Russia’s supply coming offline, Canada could have had a remarkable opportunity to fill the vacuum with its own production capacity.

Despite being the world’s sixth-largest producer of natural gas, Canada lacks even a single export terminal for LNG. When critics of Canadian LNG production pointed to the unfeasibility of meeting overseas demand, despite the entreaties of the Germans and other Europeans, they were only technically correct. Canada couldn’t easily meet overseas demand because our regulatory regime has held up the construction of as many as 18 proposed LNG projects over the past decade, largely due to climate concerns.

Ironically, Germany—the continent’s greatest industrial power—needed to reactivate discontinued coal plants to meet its energy demands (hardly an ideal outcome from an environmental standpoint).

Much of the shortfall caused by sanctions on Russia was also made up by LNG contributions from Norway—whose leaders have maintained that reducing LNG output would only cede the market to authoritarian regimes with weaker regulatory controls around their energy industries from both environmental and human rights standpoints. Thankfully, Norway’s government moved forward with LNG production and export despite past pressure from environmentalist in the European Union that attempted to curtail its fossil fuel extraction.

Canada could have followed Norway’s level-headed approach and in that could have helped replace Russian oil in the aftermath of the Ukraine invasion. The curtailing of Canada’s energy infrastructure is not imposed by a physical limitation in the world, nor was it commanded from the heavens; it was ordered by the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act of 2021, supplemented by ambitious plans promulgated by Ottawa to reshape the institutions and practices of the entire country in pursuit of this quixotic goal. Not just the oil-and-gas sector, but housing, construction, agriculture, etc. must bend before Net Zero.

One can already hear activist outrage that, “to oppose this agenda is to choose temporary profits over the preservation of human life and the planet that supports it.” This rhetoric has proven effective in advancing environmental policies but it is also a false dichotomy, as it treats the dilemma as one of “good vs. greed” rather than one of complex competing goods.

A society that has signed on to this sort of imposed austerity is one with less money for infrastructure, entrepreneurship, healthcare, and defense. A lack of investment in these sectors also brings serious and immediate human costs. And further, the real issue is not the value of environmental stewardship or of taking steps to moderate consumption—both of which are worthy goals in and of themselves—but of blindly adhering to preselected targets at all costs. These apparently unassailable commitments have deprived Canada of the kind of flexible management of strategic interests that prudent political leadership requires.

Indeed, the unrealism of these climate ideals has produced systemic dissembling across the country’s major institutions, given the pressure to comply regardless of the efficacy of their practices. In other words, the fanaticism of environmental elitists has made people unwilling to debate the issues at hand or to even discuss the serious human and economic costs of poorly considered environmental policies.

The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) model has had the effect of placing certain questions effectively beyond the reach of politics. But questions of policy—as environmental and energy questions surely are—are by their nature political; they have inevitable tradeoffs that should be a matter of debate with an eye to our collective interests.

Instead, we have an intolerant environmental elitism that obstructs the open and honest public deliberation that is the hallmark of democratic politics. A more truthful and practical approach wouldn’t necessarily promote any one policy, but it would allow for public discussion that recognizes the genuine toll that environmental policy takes on Canada’s domestic well-being and our standing in the world.

David Polansky is a Toronto-based writer and political theorist. Read him at strangefrequencies.co or find him on X @polanskydj.

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Alberta’s grand bargain with Canada includes a new pipeline to Prince Rupert

Published on June 15, 2025

Todayville

From Resource Now

By Nelson Bennett

Alberta renews call for West Coast oil pipeline amid shifting federal, geopolitical dynamics.

Just six months ago, talk of resurrecting some version of the Northern Gateway pipeline would have been unthinkable. But with the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. and Mark Carney in Canada, it’s now thinkable.

In fact, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith seems to be making Northern Gateway 2.0 a top priority and a condition for Alberta staying within the Canadian confederation and supporting Mark Carney’s vision of making Canada an Energy superpower. Thanks to Donald Trump threatening Canadian sovereignty and its economy, there has been a noticeable zeitgeist shift in Canada. There is growing support for the idea of leveraging Canada’s natural resources and diversifying export markets to make it less vulnerable to an unpredictable southern neighbour.

“I think the world has changed dramatically since Donald Trump got elected in November,” Smith said at a keynote address Wednesday at the Global Energy Show Canada in Calgary. “I think that’s changed the national conversation.” Smith said she has been encouraged by the tack Carney has taken since being elected Prime Minister, and hopes to see real action from Ottawa in the coming months to address what Smith said is serious encumbrances to Alberta’s oil sector, including Bill C-69, an oil and gas emissions cap and a West Coast tanker oil ban. “I’m going to give him some time to work with us and I’m going to be optimistic,” Smith said. Removing the West Coast moratorium on oil tankers would be the first step needed to building a new oil pipeline line from Alberta to Prince Rupert. “We cannot build a pipeline to the west coast if there is a tanker ban,” Smith said. The next step would be getting First Nations on board. “Indigenous peoples have been shut out of the energy economy for generations, and we are now putting them at the heart of it,” Smith said.

Alberta currently produces about 4.3 million barrels of oil per day. Had the Northern Gateway, Keystone XL and Energy East pipelines been built, Alberta could now be producing and exporting an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. The original Northern Gateway Pipeline — killed outright by the Justin Trudeau government — would have terminated in Kitimat. Smith is now talking about a pipeline that would terminate in Prince Rupert. This may obviate some of the concerns that Kitimat posed with oil tankers negotiating Douglas Channel, and their potential impacts on the marine environment.

One of the biggest hurdles to a pipeline to Prince Rupert may be B.C. Premier David Eby. The B.C. NDP government has a history of opposing oil pipelines with tooth and nail. Asked in a fireside chat by Peter Mansbridge how she would get around the B.C. problem, Smith confidently said: “I’ll convince David Eby.”

“I’m sensitive to the issues that were raised before,” she added. One of those concerns was emissions. But the Alberta government and oil industry has struck a grand bargain with Ottawa: pipelines for emissions abatement through carbon capture and storage.

The industry and government propose multi-billion investments in CCUS. The Pathways Alliance project alone represents an investment of $10 to $20 billion. Smith noted that there is no economic value in pumping CO2 underground. It only becomes economically viable if the tradeoff is greater production and export capacity for Alberta oil. “If you couple it with a million-barrel-per-day pipeline, well that allows you $20 billion worth of revenue year after year,” she said. “All of a sudden a $20 billion cost to have to decarbonize, it looks a lot more attractive when you have a new source of revenue.” When asked about the Prince Rupert pipeline proposal, Eby has responded that there is currently no proponent, and that it is therefore a bridge to cross when there is actually a proposal. “I think what I’ve heard Premier Eby say is that there is no project and no proponent,” Smith said. “Well, that’s my job. There will be soon. “We’re working very hard on being able to get industry players to realize this time may be different.” “We’re working on getting a proponent and route.”

At a number of sessions during the conference, Mansbridge has repeatedly asked speakers about the Alberta secession movement, and whether it might scare off investment capital. Alberta has been using the threat of secession as a threat if Ottawa does not address some of the province’s long-standing grievances. Smith said she hopes Carney takes it seriously. “I hope the prime minister doesn’t want to test it,” Smith said during a scrum with reporters. “I take it seriously. I have never seen separatist sentiment be as high as it is now. “I’ve also seen it dissipate when Ottawa addresses the concerns Alberta has.” She added that, if Carney wants a true nation-building project to fast-track, she can’t think of a better one than a new West Coast pipeline. “I can’t imagine that there will be another project on the national list that will generate as much revenue, as much GDP, as many high paying jobs as a bitumen pipeline to the coast.”

Business

Carney’s European pivot could quietly reshape Canada’s sovereignty

Published on June 15, 2025

Todayville

This article supplied by Troy Media.

By Isidoros Karderinis

Canadians must consider how closer EU ties could erode national control and economic sovereignty

As Prime Minister Mark Carney attempts to deepen Canada’s relationship with the European Union and other supranational institutions, Canadians should be asking a hard question: how much of our national independence are we prepared to give away? If you want a glimpse of what happens when a country loses control over its currency, trade and democratic accountability, you need only look to Bulgaria.

On June 8, 2025, thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets in front of the country’s National Bank. Their message was clear: they want to keep the lev and stop the forced adoption of the euro, scheduled for Jan. 1, 2026.

Bulgaria, a southeastern European country and EU member since 2007, is preparing to join the eurozone—a bloc of 20 countries that share the euro as a common currency. The move would bind Bulgaria to the economic decisions of the European Central Bank, replacing its national currency with one managed from Brussels and Frankfurt.

The protest movement is a vivid example of the tensions that arise when national identity collides with centralized policy-making. It was organized by Vazrazdane, a nationalist, eurosceptic political party that has gained support by opposing what it sees as the erosion of Bulgarian sovereignty through European integration. Similar demonstrations took place in cities across the country.

At the heart of the unrest is a call for democratic accountability. Vazrazdane leader Konstantin Kostadinov appealed directly to EU leaders, arguing that Bulgarians should not be forced into the eurozone without a public vote. He noted that in Italy, referendums on the euro were allowed with support from less than one per cent of citizens, while in Bulgaria, more than 10 per cent calling for a referendum have been ignored.

Protesters warned that abandoning the lev without a public vote would amount to a betrayal of democracy. “If there is no lev, there is no Bulgaria,” some chanted. For them, the lev is not just a currency: it is a symbol of national independence.

Their fears are not unfounded. Across the eurozone, several countries have experienced higher prices and reduced purchasing power after adopting the euro. The loss of domestic control over monetary policy has led to economic decisions being dictated from afar. Inflation, declining living standards and external dependency are real concerns.

Canada is not Bulgaria. But it is not immune to the same dynamics. Through trade agreements, regulatory convergence and global commitments, Canada has already surrendered meaningful control over its economy and borders. Canadians rarely debate these trade-offs publicly, and almost never vote on them directly.

Carney, a former central banker with deep ties to global finance, has made clear his intention to align more closely with the European Union on economic and security matters. While partnership is not inherently wrong, it must come with strong democratic oversight. Canadians should not allow fundamental shifts in sovereignty to be handed off quietly to international bodies or technocratic elites.

What’s happening in Bulgaria is not just about the euro—it’s about a people demanding the right to chart their own course. Canadians should take note. Sovereignty is not lost in one dramatic act. It erodes incrementally: through treaties we don’t read, agreements we don’t question, and decisions made without our consent.

If democracy and national control still matter to Canadians, they would do well to pay attention.

Isidoros Karderinis was born in Athens, Greece. He is a journalist, foreign press correspondent, economist, novelist and poet. He is accredited by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a foreign press correspondent and has built a distinguished career in journalism and literature.

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.