From a FaceBook post by former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall
Your Mom likely told you what mine told me – if you can’t say something nice ..don’t say anything at all. So maybe that’s why it has taken me a day to offer a few thoughts on Trudeau’s resignation announcement yesterday. I miss my Mom everyday but I’m not sure I will be able to follow her advice for this post. (On the other hand.. remembering some of her comments during the Trudeau years – she might be fine with this!)
I truly believe that those who put their name forward for public office, no matter how much I might disagree with them personally and politically should be thanked for their willingness to wade into the increasingly toxic waters of politics. But the undeniable truth is that Canada would be better off today had he decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps.
His Prime Ministership was manifestly the most divisive and economically damaging of any in our history…including the record of the elder Trudeau ..who generationally knee-capped the economy of western Canada with the National Energy Program.
I dealt with this particular Trudeau in my old job at First Ministers’ Conferences, in bilateral relations and one on one discussions. He struck me as someone who was the product of an abiding central Canadian/Quebec world view with a focus on progressive trends rather than policy development or political and economic thought. That was my impression anyway.
Somewhere along the way he found and then clung to wokeism and an obsession with man-made climate change. They were very trendy things for those on the left. Shiny buttons that permanently distracted Trudeau.
His government continues to risk our economy, our trade competitiveness and exacerbate affordability issues for all Canadians with his forced march to a carbon tax that in 4 years will be a debilitating $170.00 per tonne. All in the name of reducing Canada’s emissions that account for less than 2% of global emissions. Imagine – stubbornly pursuing a policy like his carbon tax that is that damaging – in the name of maybe, possibly reducing emissions by a quantum that will make no impact..no change on this thing you’ve sworn us all to fight – climate change. A leader shoving his citizens ahead of him into a winless fight, forcing them to pay for the costs of that fight and risking the competitiveness of the entire economy (at a time when we are now facing the threat of Trump’s tariffs).
The carbon tax is just one policy on a laundry list of damaging and often feckless policies that Trudeau has introduced in his 10 years as Prime Minister. He all but declared his disdain for the western Canadian resource sector. He never much liked how we made a living in the west; how we live by and rely on fossil fuels in rural Canada. He never respected the values that a majority of western or rural Canadians hold dear.
He, more than any PM in contemporary Canadian political history, was found wanting in ethics and third party investigations. He chose to fire or force out strong female Ministers rather than be held accountable for things he very much said…and very much did. All this from a self-proclaimed feminist who would regularly lecture Canadians on the importance of his ‘feminist’ view.
He offered the same when it came to Reconcilation yet he failed to fulfill his promise for clean drinking water on First Nations reserves.
He demonized millions of Canadians who were represented by the Freedom Convoy or who had concerns about lock- downs and vaccine mandates – dismissing them as un-Canadian and fringe and ..much worse.
His fiscal record and tendencies were so bad that even the big spending, big government advocating Chrystia Freeland quit his cabinet.
People will observe that Canada has never had an NDP Prime Minister. I beg to differ.
He was unserious. He said things and believed things like “The budget will balance itself” and “I don’t think too much about monetary policy “
Incredible.
I recall when I was the lone Premier and Saskatchewan was the lone province opposing his carbon tax. I know the kinds of things he and his Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said about us…about Saskatchewan..behind closed doors and to some whom they believed had assured discretion.
And yet despite all of this – I did not feel as gratified as some did when the news broke yesterday. You see yesterday was a good day for the Liberal Party of Canada. Or at least a better day than they have had in a long while. Granted the Liberals have huge hole from which to dig out but the digging could not begin until Trudeau quit.
I’d rather he had decided to lead his party into the next election. We would be much more assured of much needed change had that been the case.
Because make no mistake – with him or without him – this is a new Justin Trudeau-shaped leftwing, woke, anti-resource development Liberal party of Canada. Long gone is the pragmatism of the Chretien/Martin era. Trudeau policies for the most part will continue to be front and centre with the Liberal party long after he is gone.
I hope the Conservative Party of Canada keeps it head down, humbly asking Canadians to be their agents of much needed change.. and running like they are 10 points behind – not 20 points ahead.
I believe that Canada as we have known it- hangs in the balance of the next election. If somehow, we continue to have a federal government with the ghost-vestigial policies of the man who announced his departure plans yesterday… well that would very bad for the west and not much better for the rest of the country.
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A new Ontario-wide survey conducted by Nanos Research on behalf of Canada Action finds strong public consensus that Canadian oil and gas revenues are critical to jobs, economic growth, and trade – and that Canada should lean into its energy advantage at home and abroad.
“Our polling feedback shows that a majority of Ontarians recognize the vital, irreplaceable role oil and gas has to play in our national economy. Canadians are telling us they want to see more support for the oil and gas sector, which is foundational to our standard of living and economy at large,” said Canada Action spokesperson, Cody Battershill.
The online survey of 1,000 Ontarians shows that more than four in five (84 per cent) respondents believe oil and gas revenues are important for creating jobs for Canadians and building a stronger economy. Additionally, four-in-five (80 per cent) support Canada developing a strategy to become a preferred oil supplier to countries, while Ontarians are more than eight times as likely to support as to oppose Canada supplying oil and gas, provided it remains a major source of energy worldwide.
“Building new trade infrastructure, including pipelines to the coasts that would get our oil and gas resources to international markets, can help Canadians diversify our trading partners, maximize the value of our resources, and secure a strong and prosperous future for our families,” Battershill said.
Also, nearly four-in-five (79 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important for keeping energy costs manageable for Canadians.
“Our poll is just one of many in Canada since the start of 2025 that show a majority of Canadians are supportive of oil and gas development. It’s time we get moving forward on these projects without delay and learn from the lessons of our past, where we saw multiple pipelines cancelled to the detriment of Canada’s long-term economic success.”
Additional findings include:
Four-in-five (80 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada supplying oil and gas, provided it remains a major source of energy worldwide.
Four-in five (80 per cent) of Ontarians believe oil and gas revenues are important when it comes to building stronger trading partnerships.
Nearly four-in-five (79 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important for keeping energy costs manageable for Canadians.
Nearly four-in-five (78 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada stepping up to provide our key NATO allies with secure energy sources.
Nearly four-in-five (78 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada increasing oil and gas exports around the world, about six and a half times more likely than to oppose.
Nearly four-in-five (77 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada providing Asia and Europe with oil and gas so that they are less reliant on authoritarian suppliers.
Nearly three-in-four (74 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada increasing oil and gas exports around the world, five times more likely than to oppose.
Nearly three-in-four (74 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important to reducing taxes for Canadians.
More than seven-in-ten (71 per cent) of Ontarians support building new energy infrastructure projects without reducing environmental protections and safety.
More than six-in-ten (63 per cent) of Canadians say they are important for paying for social programs, including health care, education, and other public services.
Respondents were nine times more likely to say the government approval process for energy infrastructure projects is too slow (46 per cent) rather than too fast (5 per cent).
About the survey
The survey was conducted by Nanos Research for Canada Action using a representative non-probability online panel of 1,000 Ontarians aged 18 and older between December 10 and 12, 2025.
While a margin of error cannot be calculated for non-probability samples, a probability sample of 1,000 respondents would have a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Pathways Alliance CEO Kendall Dilling is interviewed at the World Petroleum Congress in Calgary, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Carbon capture gives biggest bang for carbon tax buck CCS much cheaper than fuel switching: report
Canada’s climate change strategy is now joined at the hip to a pipeline. Two pipelines, actually — one for oil, one for carbon dioxide.
The MOU signed between Ottawa and Alberta two weeks ago ties a new oil pipeline to the Pathways Alliance, which includes what has been billed as the largest carbon capture proposal in the world.
One cannot proceed without the other. It’s quite possible neither will proceed.
The timing for multi-billion dollar carbon capture projects in general may be off, given the retreat we are now seeing from industry and government on decarbonization, especially in the U.S., our biggest energy customer and competitor.
But if the public, industry and our governments still think getting Canada’s GHG emissions down is a priority, decarbonizing Alberta oil, gas and heavy industry through CCS promises to be the most cost-effective technology approach.
New modelling by Clean Prosperity, a climate policy organization, finds large-scale carbon capture gets the biggest bang for the carbon tax buck.
Which makes sense. If oil and gas production in Alberta is Canada’s single largest emitter of CO2 and methane, it stands to reason that methane abatement and sequestering CO2 from oil and gas production is where the biggest gains are to be had.
A number of CCS projects are already in operation in Alberta, including Shell’s Quest project, which captures about 1 million tonnes of CO2 annually from the Scotford upgrader.
What is CO2 worth?
Clean Prosperity estimates industrial carbon pricing of $130 to $150 per tonne in Alberta and CCS could result in $90 billion in investment and 70 megatons (MT) annually of GHG abatement or sequestration. The lion’s share of that would come from CCS.
To put that in perspective, 70 MT is 10% of Canada’s total GHG emissions (694 MT).
The report cautions that these estimates are “hypothetical” and gives no timelines.
All of the main policy tools recommended by Clean Prosperity to achieve these GHG reductions are contained in the Ottawa-Alberta MOU.
One important policy in the MOU includes enhanced oil recovery (EOR), in which CO2 is injected into older conventional oil wells to increase output. While this increases oil production, it also sequesters large amounts of CO2.
Under Trudeau era policies, EOR was excluded from federal CCS tax credits. The MOU extends credits and other incentives to EOR, which improves the value proposition for carbon capture.
Under the MOU, Alberta agrees to raise its industrial carbon pricing from the current $95 per tonne to a minimum of $130 per tonne under its TIER system (Technology Innovation and Emission Reduction).
The biggest bang for the buck
Using a price of $130 to $150 per tonne, Clean Prosperity looked at two main pathways to GHG reductions: fuel switching in the power sector and CCS.
Fuel switching would involve replacing natural gas power generation with renewables, nuclear power, renewable natural gas or hydrogen.
“We calculated that fuel switching is more expensive,” Brendan Frank, director of policy and strategy for Clean Prosperity, told me.
Achieving the same GHG reductions through fuel switching would require industrial carbon prices of $300 to $1,000 per tonne, Frank said.
Clean Prosperity looked at five big sectoral emitters: oil and gas extraction, chemical manufacturing, pipeline transportation, petroleum refining, and cement manufacturing.
“We find that CCUS represents the largest opportunity for meaningful, cost-effective emissions reductions across five sectors,” the report states.
Fuel switching requires higher carbon prices than CCUS.
Measures like energy efficiency and methane abatement are included in Clean Prosperity’s calculations, but again CCS takes the biggest bite out of Alberta’s GHGs.
“Efficiency and (methane) abatement are a portion of it, but it’s a fairly small slice,” Frank said. “The overwhelming majority of it is in carbon capture.”
From left, Alberta Minister of Energy Marg McCuaig-Boyd, Shell Canada President Lorraine Mitchelmore, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Ben van Beurden, Marathon Oil Executive Brian Maynard, Shell ER Manager, Stephen Velthuizen, and British High Commissioner to Canada Howard Drake open the valve to the Quest carbon capture and storage facility in Fort Saskatchewan Alta, on Friday November 6, 2015. Quest is designed to capture and safely store more than one million tonnes of CO2 each year an equivalent to the emissions from about 250,000 cars. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
Credit where credit is due
Setting an industrial carbon price is one thing. Putting it into effect through a workable carbon credit market is another.
“A high headline price is meaningless without higher credit prices,” the report states.
“TIER credit prices have declined steadily since 2023 and traded below $20 per tonne as of November 2025. With credit prices this low, the $95 per tonne headline price has a negligible effect on investment decisions and carbon markets will not drive CCUS deployment or fuel switching.”
Clean Prosperity recommends a kind of government-backstopped insurance mechanism guaranteeing carbon credit prices, which could otherwise be vulnerable to political and market vagaries.
Specifically, it recommends carbon contracts for difference (CCfD).
“A straight-forward way to think about it is insurance,” Frank explains.
Carbon credit prices are vulnerable to risks, including “stroke-of-pen risks,” in which governments change or cancel price schedules. There are also market risks.
CCfDs are contractual agreements between the private sector and government that guarantees a specific credit value over a specified time period.
“The private actor basically has insurance that the credits they’ll generate, as a result of making whatever low-carbon investment they’re after, will get a certain amount of revenue,” Frank said. “That certainty is enough to, in our view, unlock a lot of these projects.”
From the perspective of Canadian CCS equipment manufacturers like Vancouver’s Svante, there is one policy piece still missing from the MOU: eligibility for the Clean Technology Manufacturing (CTM) Investment tax credit.
“Carbon capture was left out of that,” said Svante co-founder Brett Henkel said.
Svante recently built a major manufacturing plant in Burnaby for its carbon capture filters and machines, with many of its prospective customers expected to be in the U.S.
The $20 billion Pathways project could be a huge boon for Canadian companies like Svante and Calgary’s Entropy. But there is fear Canadian CCS equipment manufacturers could be shut out of the project.
“If the oil sands companies put out for a bid all this equipment that’s needed, it is highly likely that a lot of that equipment is sourced outside of Canada, because the support for Canadian manufacturing is not there,” Henkel said.
Henkel hopes to see CCS manufacturing added to the eligibility for the CTM investment tax credit.
“To really build this eco-system in Canada and to support the Pathways Alliance project, we need that amendment to happen.”
