From EnergyNow.ca

By Jim Warren

By spring 2024 it was pretty clear the Liberal government was headed for palliative care. A Leger poll on May 25 and an Abacus poll June 10 showed the Conservatives with a 20 point lead over the Liberals.

As the likelihood of their imminent defeat increased, the Trudeau Liberals stepped up the implementation of legislation and regulations inimical to the gas and petroleum industries. Their efforts in 2024 included legislation limiting freedom of speech for companies and individuals who publicize environmental progress in the oil and gas sector (aka Bill C-59). The speech-muzzling measure became law on June 21.

Around the same time, Environment and Climate Change Minister, Steven Guilbeault was busy shepherding two particularly ominous regulatory packages through to finalization. One set of regulations supported Canada’s Clean Electricity Regulations—intended to eliminate the use of coal and natural gas in the production of electricity with staged decommissioning deadlines between 2035 and 2050. The second package finalized the rules for the natural gas and oil industries emissions cap intended to restrict production and growth in those industries, to take effect in 2026.

The regulations weren’t finalized until the month before the House shut down for the holidays, just weeks before Justin Trudeau’s political career was put on life support.

The green policy stampede extended to the international stage. Never mind deficits and debt, the Liberals found plenty of cash to enhance their status as world class environmental luminaries.

At November’s COP29* conference at Baku, Azerbaijan, Guilbeault and Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change (who knew we had one?), Catherine Stewart signed us on to 15 pledges to take action on fighting climate change. Around half of the promises were merely motherhood and apple pie statements, concessions to the environmentally woke who attend these sorts of international conferences.

But several of the commitments made on our behalf came with price tags. I’m still unclear on exactly which line item in a federal budget, legislative authority or policy statement authorized the spending.

Canada’s COP29 delegation launched the $2 billion GAIA project. Apparently we are cost sharing the project with Mitsubishi. The official government report on the conference doesn’t indicate how much of the $2 billion Canada is kicking in.

Canada also showcased its green bona fides by contributing to the effort to finance the green transition and climate change adaptation in poor countries—a task expected to require developed countries to collectively spend $110 billion to $300 billion per year by 2035. Our delegation announced Canada would lead by example, making a $1billion donation to the effort.

Guilbeault and Stewart gave $10 million to Conservation International’s “Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area” project. They “invested” another $2.5 million in the World Wildlife Fund’s “Building Resilient Communities through Marine Conservation in Madagascar” project.

Guilbeault may indeed be angling for that UN job I mentioned in my last EnergyNow column. Read it Here Canada made a $1.25 million payment directly to the office of UN Secretary General, António Guterres. The donation is supposed to assist Guterres in his efforts to encourage countries to get their “Nationally Determined Contributions” handed in on time.

In a podcast conversation with Jordan Peterson several months ago, Danielle Smith noted the accelerated pace of the Liberal government’s announcement and implementation of new environmental policies detrimental to Alberta’s oil and gas sectors and the economies of both Alberta and Canada.

Smith said one of the effects of enacting so many new environmental measures would be to make it extremely difficult for the next government to reverse them all in its first term. This probably was one of the reasons behind the rush to get so much done this past year.

Peterson added a psychological dimension to the discussion. He suggested Guilbeault and Trudeau were behaving like wounded narcissists. They were acting like egomaniacs who recognized their time in office was coming to an end and wanted to do as much as possible in the time they had left to pad their reputations as “do or die” climate warriors. They were striving to guarantee their legacies as planet-saving heroes.

They are probably both right. But Smith’s assessment speaks more directly to the practical challenges a new Conservative government will confront while trying to unwind the morass of legislation and regulations needlessly hampering the growth of environmentally responsible resource development in the west. It is an effort by the outgoing government to make their anti-oil legacy tamper proof.

Simply wading through the legislative quagmire and assessing where reform is most urgent and readily achievable will take time and effort. The wheels of parliament can turn slowly. No doubt some of the bureaucrats employed by the Liberals are true believers—frightened of the “impending climate apocalypse” and unlikely to expedite changes to environmental legislation and regulations. And, there could be multi-year contracts with consultants and other suppliers and long-term funding arrangements with companies and NGOs that will be difficult to unwind.

Let’s not forget the inevitable legal challenges that will threaten to hold up the reform process. Environmental groups and other special interests can be expected to use the courts to block efforts to reverse Liberal government policy. Ideally, the new government will cut off funding support for anti-oil environmental groups. Then at least supporters of the gas and petroleum sectors won’t be sued by activists funded with our tax dollars.

Then there are all the other important things governments are required to do and a limited amount of time to do them—drafting fiscally responsible budgets and dealing with the possibility of US tariffs on our exports come to mind as things near the top of the to-do list.

The highly anticipated Poilievre government may not be able to move as far and fast in reversing the Trudeau-Guilbeault legacy as we might like. They will face immense challenges and should be given a fair bit of slack if they can’t fix everything early in their first term.

*COP stands for Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The framework was adopted by the countries attending the UN sponsored Rio Earth Summit held at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. The number in COP29 indicates it is the 29th annual post-Rio conference of the parties.