Connect with us

Energy

Did the Environment Minister announce the end of Alberta’s Oil and Gas Industry at COP 27?

Published

3 years ago

5 minute read

Steven Guilbeault (center) arrested after climbing the CN Tower for a Greenpeace protest on July 16, 2001.

PHOTO BY AARON HARRIS/THE CANADIAN PRESS

News Release From the Alberta Institute

Stop The Federal Cap On Oil And Gas

This week, Environment and Climate Change Minister, Steven Guilbeault, effectively announced the end of Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

In Egypt, at COP27, he announced that his government will cap oil and gas sector emissions from the end of next year, and work to reduce them after that.

Remember, even Justin Trudeau said that no country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.

But that, of course, was before he was Prime Minister.

Radical environmental activist Steven Guilbeault does believe we should leave 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground.

Now, yes, technically, he said he would cap and reduce emissions, not oil and gas production, and some energy companies are confident they can find efficiencies to allow them to continue producing some oil and gas without increasing emissions.

But anyone who’s been in the game long enough has seen the goalposts moved often enough to recognize another goalpost shifting when they see it, and that’s exactly what happened today.

How so?

Well, you would think Minister Guilbeault’s friends in the eco-activist industry – the same people who just a few years ago were calling for this cap on emissions – would be happy about this week’s announcement, wouldn’t you?

But no, these same people who were calling for exactly this policy just a few years ago actually attacked his announcement.

They think that this week’s announcement – the policy they were calling for until recently – is woefully inadequate.

They now want, you guessed it, a cap on production.

They don’t actually care about the level of carbon emissions, they don’t actually care whether emissions go down, they want the amount of oil and gas producedto go down.

This, fellow Albertans, is what Alberta is up against.

The radical eco-activist environmental movement doesn’t want Alberta’s oil and gas industry to be more environmentally friendly, they want Alberta’s oil and gas industry to die.

Meanwhile, having shifted the goalposts a dozen times already – the federal government’s environmental policies are as close to a complete ban on oil and gas as you can get, without actually banning it.

One more goalpost shift, and it will be an outright ban.

The environmental groups are pushing for that last final goalpost shift.

And Albertans are just supposed to trust the federal government that, despite all the previous times they shifted the goalposts, this time they definitely won’t.

The time to stand up for Alberta, and stand up for Albertans is now.

If we don’t do so right now, it might be too late.

In the 1980s, Alberta Premier, Peter Lougheed, fought for – and won – an amendment to the Canadian Constitution – Section 92A – that gave Alberta (and the other Provinces) the exclusive right to explore, develop, conserve, and manage their natural resources.

This amendment made clear that these resources belonged to the Provinces, not the federal government, and Alberta would not have signed on to the Constitution had that clause not been included.

Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault do not believe in that clause in the Canadian Constitution.

They have already ignored it many times, and intend to continue to ignore it.

Justin Trudeau’s view is that Alberta can do whatever we want with our resources… as long as whatever we want to do is exactly what the federal government wants us to do.

And the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change’s view is that we should leave them in the ground – all of them.

Enough is enough.

Now is the time for every Albertan – and the Alberta government – to stand up to the federal government.

If you agree, please join our campaign to stop the federal cap on oil and gas:

Please also consider forwarding this email to your friends, family, colleagues, and every Canadian.

Regards,

The Alberta Institute Team

Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
Business / 22 mins ago

Taxpayers Federation calls on politicians to reject funding for new Ottawa Senators arena

Business / 34 mins ago

Albertans give most on average but Canadian generosity hits lowest point in 20 years

Censorship Industrial Complex / 4 hours ago

Ottawa’s New Hate Law Goes Too Far

Bruce Dowbiggin

Carney Hears A Who: Here Comes The Grinch

Published on December 11, 2025

By

It’s a big day for the Who’s of Whoville. Mayor Augustus Maywho is now polling at 62 percent approval. Cindy Lou Who and Martha May Whovier can barely contain their trans-loving heart that finally the Pierre The Grinch is done.

Okay it’s not WhoVille. It’s Canada and it is leader Mark Carney who’s zooming in the polls against Pierre Poilievre. But it might as well be the real nation that Carney commands today. As 2025 comes to a conclusion Donald Trump seems the least of Whoville’s perils. For example:

The NDP government in B.C. has now declared that future legislation must be interpreted through the lens of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. According to Chief Bent Knee (David Eby) this means that the province cannot act independently of the progressive diktats of Sudan, Nepal, Moldova and other international titans. Having been informed of Canada’s “genocidal” behaviour by Trudeau in the Rez Graves pantomime, the UN folk will no doubt look on Canadians as worthy of punishment.

The UNDRIP menace has been around since the days when Skippy Trudeau was wielding the mace in Parliament. On June 20, 2021 the federal government passed UNDRIP into law by a vote of 210 to 118. (The Liberals, NDP and Bloc all voted in favour.) The only party that opposed it were the Conservatives. In defence of those hapless boobs none of them voting yes ever expected a province to align itself with such legislation. That’s the Canadian way. Act on conscience. Retract on self preservation.

But on the heels of Eby’s unopposed capitulation to B.C.’s many “peoples” in recent land settlements, ones that threaten the legal right to properties of home owners, the wholesale framework for governing the province now will be determined by appeal to the UN.

The Carney crew — who act as though Canada’s indigenous communities are now equal partners in Confederation— assure Canadians that judicious lawyering by government savants has everything under control, but anyone trusting the Liberals after the past decade is in need of counselling.

The B.C. conundrum plays into another of the challenges (read: disasters) faced in B.C. by the Elbows Up brigade. Namely the much-heralded memorandum of understanding on energy policy between the feds and Alberta. Canadians were assured by Ottawa that this federal government sees pipelines as a priority, and getting Alberta’s product to tidewater as an urgent infrastructure need. Carney described the MOU as if it were a love-letter to the restless West. How is he going to get pipelines through to the B.C. coast when Eby and the indigenous said it was a no-go? Trust us, said Carney.

Before you could say Wetaskiwin dark clouds gathered on the deal. Smith took it in the ear from Alberta separatists for compromising anything to the feds. Carney, meanwhile, ran into the predictable roadblock from B.C. Eby talked of maybe allowing pipelines in the future, but the ban on shipping off the province’s shoreline was verboten.

To test the resilience of the MOU the federal Conservatives (remember them?) put forward a motion to build the pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast. Even though the motion used the same language of the MOU between Danielle Smith and Mark Carney, the Liberals and their hand maidens defeated the motion. Carney himself abstained because, hey look at that shiny object.

Immediately the Trudeaupian Deflection Shield was employed. Here’s Liberal Indigenous Service minister and proud Cree operative Mandy Gull Masty “Today’s motion that’s being put on the floor is not a no vote for the MOU. It’s a no vote against the Conservatives playing games and creating optics and wasting parliamentary time when they should be voting on things that are way more important.”

Robert Fife, the highly rated G&M scribbler who just won some big award, led the media pack, “Conservatives persist with cute legislative tricks, while the government tries to run a country.” Run a country? Into the ground?

Let’s not forget the $1.5 billion bloviators at CBC. They, too, say the vote is a big loss for the Tories. “It risks putting them offside, what is a very top priority and frankly, was considered a big win for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.’” said Janyce McGregor. Here’s Martin Patriquin on one of the Ceeb’s endless panels. “It’s embarrassing, man. I don’t see any sort of political advantage to what happened today.”

Embarrassing? The Libs have committed to re-building gas pipelines in Ukraine, even as they stall on developing pipelines in Canada. Luckily CBC washrooms have no mirrors. And there’s always Donald Trump to deflect from the pantomimes of Canadians Laurentian debating club.

Here, CTV hair-and-teeth Scott Reid is nursing a Reuters poll that has Trump’s approval at historic lows of 36 percent. Reuters is a firm that predicted Kamala winning the presidency. Until she didn’t on Nov.4. Meanwhile Rasmussen, which correctly had Trump ahead the entire campaign, has his current approval at 44 percent while the RCP average is 43.9.

But corrupt data to make Trump seem odious is no sin in WhoVille Ottawa. Keep feeding the Karens bad data.  At least Canadians have their beloved healthcare to fall back on. Or maybe their beloved MAID. A Saskatchewan woman suffering from parathyroid disease has revealed that she is considering assisted suicide, because she cannot get the surgery she needs.

“Jolene Van Alstine, from Saskatchewan, has extreme bone pain, nausea and vomiting. She requires surgery to remove a remaining parathyroid, but no surgeons in the province are able to perform the operation.  In order to be referred to another province for the operation, Van Alstine must first be seen by an endocrinologist, yet no Saskatchewan endocrinologists are currently accepting new patients.

The pain has become so unbearable that she has been approved for Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide program, with the ending of her life scheduled to take place on 7 January 2026.”

Well. Happy New Year, Canada. May no one offer you MAID in the next twelve months.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

Continue Reading

Daily Caller

US Supreme Court Has Chance To End Climate Lawfare

Published on December 10, 2025

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

All eyes will be on the Supreme Court later this week when the justices conference on Friday to decide whether to grant a petition for writ of certiorari on a high-stakes climate lawsuit out of Colorado. The case is a part of the long-running lawfare campaign seeking to extract billions of dollars in jury awards from oil companies on claims of nebulous damages caused by carbon emissions.

In Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc., et al. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, major American energy companies are asking the Supreme Court to decide whether federal law precludes state law nuisance claims targeting interstate and global emissions. This comes as the City and County of Boulder, Colo. sued a long list of energy companies under Colorado state nuisance law for alleged impacts from global climate change.

The Colorado Supreme Court allowed a lower state trial court decision to go through, improbably finding that federal law did not preempt state law claims. The central question hangs on whether the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) preempts state common law public nuisance claims related to the regulation of carbon emissions. In this case, as in at least 10 other cases that have been decided in favor of the defendant companies, the CAA clearly does preempt Colorado law. It seems inevitable that the Supreme Court, if it grants the cert petition, would make the same ruling.

Dear Readers:

As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers.

Please consider making a small donation of any amount here.

Thank you!

Such a finding by the Supreme Court would reinforce a 2021 ruling by the Second Circuit Appeals Court that also upheld this longstanding principle of federal law. In City of New York v. Chevron Corp. (2021), the Second Circuit ruled that municipalities may not use state tort law to hold multinational companies liable for climate damages, since global warming is a uniquely international concern that touches upon issues of federalism and foreign policy. Consequently, the court called for the explicit application of federal common law, with the CAA granting the Environmental Protection Agency – not federal courts – the authority to regulate domestic greenhouse gas emissions. This Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, should weigh in here and find in the same way.

Boulder-associated attorneys have become increasingly open to acknowledging the judicial lawfare inherent in their case, as they try to supplant federal regulatory jurisdiction with litigation meant to force higher energy prices rise for consumers. David Bookbinder, an environmental lawyer associated with the Boulder legal team, said the quiet part out loud in a recent Federalist Society webinar titled “Can State Courts Set Global Climate Policy. “Tort liability is an indirect carbon tax,” Bookbinder stated plainly. “You sue an oil company, an oil company is liable. The oil company then passes that liability on to the people who are buying its products … The people who buy those products are now going to be paying for the cost imposed by those products.”

Oh.

While Bookbinder recently distanced himself from the case, no notice of withdrawal had appeared in the court’s records as of this writing. Bookbinder also writes that “Gas prices and climate change policy have become political footballs because neither party in Congress has had the courage to stand up to the oil and gas lobby. Both sides fear the spin machine, so consumers get stuck paying the bill.”

Let’s be honest: The “spin machine” works in all directions. Make no mistake about it, consumers are already getting stuck paying the bill related to this long running lawfare campaign even though the defendants have repeatedly been found not to be liable in case after case. The many millions of dollars in needless legal costs sustained by the dozens of defendants named in these cases ultimately get passed to consumers via higher energy costs. This isn’t some evil conspiracy by the oil companies: It is Business Management 101.

Because the climate alarm lobby hasn’t been able to force its long-sought national carbon tax through the legislative process, sympathetic activists and plaintiff firms now pursue this backdoor effort in the nation’s courts. But their problem is that the law on this is crystal clear, and it is long past time for the Supreme Court to step in and put a stop to this serial abuse of the system.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Continue Reading

Trending

X