We can strengthen economic sovereignty and resilience: Unlock private-sector investment, responsibly develop our world-class natural resources, support climate action
The Rt. Hon. Mark Carney, PC, MP Prime Minister of Canada
Dear Prime Minister Carney,
On behalf of Canada’s leading energy companies, please accept our congratulations on your election victory and appointment as Canada’s new Prime Minister.
This moment marks not only the first chapter for your government, but also a vital opportunity for our nation to come together around shared goals and build the trust necessary to get big things done. Together we can Build Canada Now and strengthen economic sovereignty and resilience, by unlocking private sector investment, through responsibly developing Canada’s world class natural resources and supporting climate action to reduce emissions. As business leaders in Canada, we look forward to working constructively with you and your cabinet to achieve our energy sector’s potential and our shared goal to position our country as a global energy superpower.
For context, global prosperity will continue to rely on oil and natural gas for decades to come. Regardless of whether absolute global demand will grow or weaken over time, the natural decline of oil and natural gas production requires ongoing investment to replace that decline. Without continued investment, global supply could fall by more than half within 10 years—the question is, in what producing countries will investment occur, and the economic benefits realized? With abundant resources, a strong commitment to environmental stewardship and responsible energy production, it should be Canada, and it should be now. Canada can be a global energy leader and secure long-term economic prosperity.
We have reviewed your platform for governing Canada, particularly your ambition of building the fastest growing economy in the G7. As a major contributor to the Canadian economy, with significant untapped potential, the energy sector must play a pivotal role in your pursuit of this ambition. Growth in the Canadian oil and natural gas sector supports GDP growth, job creation, and tax revenue. Your focus on fostering energy independence and enhancing Canada’s energy infrastructure and clean technology, requires major sector investment and globally competitive energy and carbon policies. Over the last decade, the layering and complexity of energy policies has resulted in a lack of investor confidence and consequently, a barrier to investment – especially when compared to the United States, which is taking steps to simplify its permitting process.
In March, a subset of us wrote to you and the other federal leaders, outlining an urgent action plan needed to support ongoing and future investment from the energy sector in Canada. We note that many of these issues were talked about in your campaign and are of growing interest for Canadians as is evidenced by recent polling. The bullets below reflect our earlier action plan. Beneath each statement we have described opportunities to work together to deliver on our shared objectives.
“Simplify regulation. The federal government’s Impact Assessment Act and West Coast tanker ban are impeding development and need to be overhauled and simplified. Regulatory processes need to be streamlined, and decisions need to withstand judicial challenges.”
Current regulatory processes are complex, unpredictable, subjective, and excessively long. These processes inhibit the ability of industry to make timely investments, add unnecessary costs and create uncertainty within capital markets. Aligned with your proposal to streamline the approval process, industry is committed to working with your government to ensure Canada can grow exports of oil and natural gas to other regions.
“Commit to firm deadlines for project approvals. The federal government needs to reduce regulatory timelines so that major projects are approved within 6 months of application.”
Your proposal to have all federal regulatory authorities complete reviews of nationally significant projects within a two-year timeframe is a positive step, but insufficient. In our opinion, two years is still too long of a period for review and we must target a 6-month approval process to bring capital back to Canada. Additional clarity with regards to provincial jurisdiction is required. We believe that we can work together to accelerate this even further to accomplish urgent economic growth, while maintaining environmental standards and addressing Indigenous rights.
“Grow production. The federal government’s unlegislated cap on emissions must be eliminated to allow the sector to reach its full potential.”
We continue to believe the federal government’s cap on emissions creates uncertainty, is redundant, will limit growth and unnecessarily result in production cuts, and stifle infrastructure investments. Together, we can drive investment into emissions reductions by simplifying the regulatory regime, establishing an attractive fiscal environment, and ensuring carbon policies protect our export industries.
“Attract investment. The federal carbon levy on large emitters is not globally cost competitive and should be repealed to allow provincial governments to set more suitable carbon regulations.”
Recognizing the global nature of oil and natural gas, industry needs clear, competitive, and durable fiscal frameworks, including carbon policy and associated costs, sufficient to secure the required capital and incentivize investment in the sector. The current federal price and stringency trajectory results in uncompetitive costs compared to those we compete with to deliver our products to market. Additionally, the potential benefits of a federal approach, like consistency across jurisdictions and connected carbon markets, has failed to materialize. A solution is to revert back to the functioning system where provinces administer the policies and pricing to enable emissions-reduction investments, improve emissions performance, and maintain competitiveness.
“Incent Indigenous co-investment opportunities. The federal government needs to provide Indigenous loan guarantees at scale so industry may create infrastructure ownership opportunities to increase prosperity for communities and to ensure that Indigenous communities benefit from development.”
Your intention of doubling Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program to $10 billion to support infrastructure ownership opportunities and increase prosperity for communities is aligned with our earlier recommendation. That being said, Indigenous loan guarantee programs are only effective if Canada fosters a competitive investment environment. We look forward to working with you on this initiative to grow the prosperity of Indigenous communities and earn their support for our shared ambitions.
The time is now to take action, signaling to the global investment markets that Canada is ready to move forward with achieving our shared vision of Canada as a leading global energy superpower.
We know the decisions in the coming months will have a lasting impact on Canada’s economic sovereignty, economy and global position, and that each of us—governments, industry, and Canadians—has a role to play. We can’t do it without each other.
The energy industry looks forward to working together, with you and your government, on an urgent basis, for the benefit of this country and Canadians nationwide.
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“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon – we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels, we’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
President Donald Trump said Thursday that changes are coming to his aggressive immigration policies after complaints from farmers and business owners.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote in a social media post Thursday morning. “In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
Later Thursday, Trump made it clear that businesses need workers.
“Our farmers are being hurt badly. They have very good workers – they’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great. And we’re going to have to do something about that,” the president said.
He added: “We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have, maybe, what they’re supposed to have.”
Just how Trump may change his approach to immigration enforcement remains unclear, but he said he wants to help farmers and business owners.
“You go into a farm and you look and people, they’ve been there for 20 or 25 years and they work great and the owner of the farm loves them and you’re supposed to throw them out. You know what happens? They end up hiring the criminals that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else,” Trump said.
Trump said changes would be coming soon, but gave little detail on how policies could change.
“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon – we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels, we’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
In a later post on Truth Social, Trump said illegal immigration had destroyed American institutions.
“Biden let 21 Million Unvetted, Illegal Aliens flood into the Country from some of the most dangerous and dysfunctional Nations on Earth — Many of them Rapists, Murderers, and Terrorists. This tsunami of Illegals has destroyed Americans’ Public Schools, Hospitals, Parks, Community Resources, and Living Conditions,” the president wrote. “They have stolen American Jobs, consumed BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in Free Welfare, and turned once idyllic Communities, like Springfield, Ohio, into Third World Nightmares.”
He added that deportations would continue: “I campaigned on, and received a Historic Mandate for, the largest Mass Deportation Program in American History. Polling shows overwhelming Public Support for getting the Illegals out, and that is exactly what we will do. As Commander-in-Chief, I will always protect and defend the Heroes of ICE and Border Patrol, whose work has already resulted in the Most Secure Border in American History. Anyone who assaults or attacks an ICE or Border Agent will do hard time in jail. Those who are here illegally should either self deport using the CBP Home App or, ICE will find you and remove you. Saving America is not negotiable!”
For years, Canada’s political class sold us on the idea that carbon taxes were clever policy. Not just a tool to cut emissions, but a fair one – tax the polluters, then cycle the money back to regular folks, especially those with thinner wallets.
It wasn’t a perfect system. The focus-group-tested line embraced for years by the Trudeau Liberals made no sense at all: we’re taxing you so we can put more money back in your pocketbooks. What the hell? If you care so much about my taxes being low, just cut them already. Somehow, it took years and years of this line being repeated for its internal contradiction to become evident to all.
Yet, even many strategic conservative minds could see the thinking had internal logic. You could sell it at a town hall. As an editorial team member at an influential news organization when B.C. got its carbon tax in 2008, I bought into the concept too.
And now? That whole model has been thrown overboard, by the very parties had long defended it with a straight face and an arch tone. In both Ottawa and Victoria in 2025, progressive governments facing political survival abandoned the idea of climate policy as a matter of fairness, opting instead for tactical concessions meant to blunt the momentum of their foes.
The result: lower-income Canadians who had grown accustomed to carbon tax rebates as a dependable backstop are waking up to find the support gone. And higher earners? They just got a tidy little gift from the state.
The betrayal is worse in B.C.
This new chart from economist Ken Peacock tells the story. He shared it last week at the B.C. Chamber of Commerce annual gathering in Nanaimo.
Ken-Peacock- B.C. Chamber of Commerce annual gathering in Nanaimo.
What is shows is that scrapping the carbon tax means the poor are poorer. The treasury is emptier.
What about the rich?
Yup, you guessed it: richer.
Scrubbing the B.C. consumer carbon tax leaves the lowest earning 20 percent of households $830 per year poorer, while the top one-fifth gain $959.
“Climate leader” British Columbia’s approach was supposed to be the gold standard: a revenue-neutral carbon tax, accepted by industry, supported by voters, and engineered to send the right price signal without growing the size of government.
That pact broke somewhere along the way.
Instead of returning the money, the provincial government slowly transformed the tax into a $2 billion annual cash cow. And when Mark Carney won the federal election, B.C. Premier David Eby, boxed in by his own pledge, scrapped the tax like a man dropping ballast from a sinking balloon. Gone. No replacement. No protections for those who need them most.
Filling the gas tank, on the other hand, is noticeably cheaper. Of course, if you can’t afford a car that might not be apparent.
Spare a thought for the climate activists who spent 15 years flogging this policy, only to watch it get tossed aside like a stack of briefing notes on a Friday afternoon.
Who could not conclude that the environmental left has been played. For a political movement that prides itself on idealism, it’s a brutal lesson in realpolitik: when power’s on the line, principles are negotiable.
But here’s the thing: maybe the carbon tax model deserved a rethink. Maybe it’s time for a grown-up look at what actually works
With B.C. now reviewing its CleanBC policies, here’s a basic question: what’s working, and what’s not?
A lot of emission reductions in this province didn’t come from government fiat. They were the result of business-led innovation: more efficient technology, cleaner fuels, and capital discipline.
That, plus a hefty dose of offshoring. We’ve pushed our industrial emissions onto other jurisdictions, then shipped the finished goods back without attaching any climate cost. This contradiction particularly helped to fuel the push to dump carbon pricing as a failed solution.
The progressives’ choice was made once the anti-tax arguments could no longer be refuted: to limit losses it would be necessary to deep six an unpopular strand of the overall carbon strategy. This, to save the rest. That’s why policies like the federal emissions cap haven’t also been abandoned.
To give another example, it’s also why British Columbia’s aviation sector is in a flap over the issue of sustainable aviation fuel. Despite years of aspirational policy, low emissions jet fuel blends remain more scarce than a long-haul cabin upgrade. The policy’s designers correctly anticipated that refiners would never be able to meet the imposed demand, and so as an alternative they provided a complex carbon credit trading scheme that will make the cost of flying more expensive. For those with a choice, nearby airport hubs in the United States where these policies do not apply will become an attractive alternative, while remote communities that have no choice in the matter will simply have to eat the cost. (Needless to say, if emissions reduction is your goal this policy isn’t needed anyways, since the decisions that matter in reducing global aviation emissions aren’t made in B.C. and never will be.)
I’m not showing up to bash those who have been genuinely trying to figure things out, and found themselves in a world of policy that is more complicated and unpredictable than they realized. Simply put, the chapter is closing on an era of energy policy naïveté.
The brutally honest action by Eby and Carney to eject carbon taxes for their own political survival could be read as a signal that it’s now okay to have an honest public conversation. Let’s insist on that. For years now, debate has been constrained in part by a particular form of linguistic tyranny, awash in terminology designed to cow the questioner into silence. “So you have an issue with clean policies, do you? What kind of dirty reprobate are you?” “Only a monster doesn’t want their aviation fuel to be sustainable.” Etc. Now is the moment to move on from that, and widen the field of discourse.
Ditching bad policy is also a signal that just maybe a better approach is to start by embracing a robust sense of the possibilities for energy to improve lives and empower all of the solutions needed for tomorrow’s problems. Because that’s the only way the conversation will ever get real.
Slogans, wildly aspirational goal setting and the habit of refusing to acknowledge how the world really works have been getting us nowhere. Petroleum products will continue to obey Yergin’s Law: oil always gets to market. China and India will grow their economies using reliable energy they can afford, having recently approved the construction of the most new coal power plants in a decade amid energy security concerns. Japan, which has practically worn itself out pleading for natural gas from Canada, isn’t waiting for the help of last-finishing nice guys to guarantee energy security: today, they are buying 8% of their LNG imports from the evil Putin regime.
Meanwhile, we’re in the worst of both worlds: our courageous carbon tax policy that was positioned as trailblazing not just for B.C. residents but for the world as a whole – climate leadership! – is gone, the poorest are puzzling over why things feel even more expensive, and nobody knows what comes next.
Ken-Peacock- B.C. Chamber of Commerce annual gathering in Nanaimo.
