Energy
Trudeau gov’t ‘green’ heat pump scheme a dismal failure, records show

From LifeSiteNews
A recent Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons showed that only 80 homeowners have thus far installed a heat pump through the Trudeau government’s anti-oil ‘green’ program.
A Canadian federal government “green” program offering homeowners government money to switch their reliable heating oil furnaces for less reliable electric heat pumps has been a dismal failure, according to recently released records.
A recent Inquiry Of Ministry, as per Blacklock’s Reporter, tabled in the House of Commons showed that only 80 homeowners have thus far opted into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government heat pump program.
Conservative Party of Canada MP Shannon Stubbs had requested from the federal government, in her Inquiry Of Ministry, an answer to the question, “How many applications for funding through the Oil To Heat Pump Affordability Program have been received?”
The original scheme was to allow $10,000 to eligible homeowners to convert from their oil-fired furnaces to an electric heat pump. Trudeau’s cabinet last October expanded the grants to $15,000 along with a $250 “one-time bonus payment.”
Cabinet wrote in the Inquiry Of Ministry that the purchase and “installation of a new electric cold climate heat pump, save thousands of dollars annually on heating bills and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
In total, some 286,000 Atlantic Canadians currently use furnaces fired by heating oil, and since the original program was introduced in February of last year, of 1,241 homeowners who asked for a subsidy, some 361 were denied, a rejection rate of 29 percent.
The Inquiry confirmed that only 80 oil-fired furnaces have been replaced by heat pumps nationwide.
Last month, LifeSiteNews reported that the “green” heat pump program is set to cost nearly four times as much as originally thought, from $750 million to $2.7 billion.
In October of last year, amid dismal polling numbers that showed his government would be defeated in a landslide by the Conservative Party come the next election, Trudeau announced he was pausing the collection of the carbon tax on home heating oil in Atlantic Canadian provinces for three years.
The carbon tax break came at the same time Trudeau’s own polling shows that for the Liberals to hold onto their 24 seats in Atlantic Canada, a carbon tax break would help their polling numbers, as most people in the area oppose the tax.
However, Trudeau refused to offer carbon tax relief to other provinces, such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, for natural gas. This led to Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announcing his government would defy the Trudeau government, and stop collecting the federal carbon tax on natural gas in this province, as of Jan 1, 2024.
The Trudeau government is trying to force net-zero regulations on all Canadian provinces, notably on electricity generation, as early as 2035. His government has also refused to extend a carbon tax exemption on heating fuels to all provinces, allowing only Atlantic provinces, this benefit.
Daily Caller
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Resets The Energy Policy Playing Field

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Make no mistake about it, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed into law on Friday by President Donald Trump falls neatly in line with the Trump energy and climate agenda. Despite complaints by critics of the deal that Majority Leader John Thune struck with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to soften the bill’s effort to end wind and solar subsidies from the Orwellian 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the OBBBA continues – indeed, accelerates – the Trumpian energy revolution.
Leaders in the oil and gas industry, hamstrung at every opportunity by the Biden presidency, hailed the bill as a chance to move back into some semblance of boom times. Tim Stewart, President of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told his members in a memo that, “For the oil and gas industry, the bill…signals a transformative opportunity to enhance domestic production.”
API CEO Mike Sommers also praised the OBBBA as a positive step for his members: “This historic legislation will help usher in a new era of energy dominance by unlocking opportunities for investment, opening lease sales and expanding access to oil and natural gas development.
While leaders of organizations like those must curb their enthusiasm to some extent in their public statements, they and their peers must be somewhat amazed at how much real substantive change the thin GOP majorities shepherded by Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to stuff into this bill. This industry, historically an easily demonized bogeyman for Democrats and too often ignored by previous Republican presidents, does not experience days as encouraging as July 3 was in the nation’s capital.
Even so, many Republicans, especially in the House, remained unsatisfied by amendments the Senate made to the bill related to IRA subsidy rollbacks. To help Speaker Johnson hold the party’s narrow House majority together, President Trump committed the executive branch to strict enforcement of the new limitations, and promised the White House will work with congressional allies to move a major deregulation package ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
But the OBBBA as passed is chock full of energy and environment-related provisions. FTI Consulting, a business consultancy with a major presence in Washington, DC, published a quick analysis Thursday that projects natural gas and nuclear as the biggest winners as the OBBBA’s impacts begin to take hold across the United States. Interestingly, the analysis also projects battery storage to expand more rapidly over the next five years even as wind and solar suffer from the phasing-out of their IRA subsidies.
The side deal struck by Thune and Murkowski is likely to result in significant new investment into wind and solar facilities as developers strive to get as many projects on the books as possible to meet the “commenced construction” requirement by the July 4, 2026 deadline. The bill’s previous language would have required projects to be placed into service by that time. But even that softer requirement will almost certainly cause a flow of capital investment out of wind and solar once that deadline passes, given the reality that many of their projects are not sustainable without constant flows of government subsidies.
What it all means is that the OBBBA, combined with all the administration’s prior moves to radically shift the direction of federal energy and climate policy away from intermittent energy and electric vehicles back to traditional forms of power generation and internal combustion cars, effectively reset the policy playing field back to 2019, prior to the COVID pandemic. That was a time when America had become as energy independent as it had been in well over half a century and was approaching the “Energy Dominance” position so dear to President Trump’s heart.
Trump’s signing of the OBBBA gives the oil and gas, nuclear, and even the coal industry a chance at a do over. It is an opportunity that comes with great pressure, both from government and the public, to perform. That means rapid expansion in gas power generation unseen in 20 years, rapid development of next generation nuclear, and even a probable chance to permit and build new coal capacity in the near future.
Second chances like this do not come around often. If these great industries fail to grab this brass ring and run with it, it may never come around again. Let’s go, folks.
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.
Carbon Tax
Canada’s Carbon Tax Is A Disaster For Our Economy And Oil Industry

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Lee Harding
Lee Harding exposes the truth behind Canada’s sky-high carbon tax—one that’s hurting our oil industry and driving businesses away. With foreign oil paying next to nothing, Harding argues this policy is putting Canada at a major economic disadvantage. It’s time to rethink this costly approach.
Our sky-high carbon tax places Canadian businesses at a huge disadvantage and is pushing investment overseas
No carbon tax will ever satisfy global-warming advocates, but by most measures, Canada’s carbon tax is already too high.
This unfortunate reality was brought to light by Resource Works, a B.C.-based non-profit research and advocacy organization. In March, one of their papers outlined the disproportionate and damaging effects of Canada’s carbon taxes.
The study found that the average carbon tax among the top 20 oil-exporting nations, excluding Canada, was $0.70 per tonne of carbon emissions in fiscal 2023. With Canada included, that average jumps to $6.77 per tonne.
At least Canada demands the same standards for foreign producers as it does for domestic ones, right? Wrong.
Most of Canada’s oil imports come from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria, none of which impose a carbon tax. Only 2.8 per cent of Canada’s oil imports come from the modestly carbon-taxing countries of the U.K. and Colombia.
Canada’s federal consumer carbon tax was $80 per tonne, set to reach $170 by 2030, until Prime Minister Mark Carney reduced it to zero on March 14. However, parallel carbon taxes on industry remain in place and continue to rise.
Resource Works estimates Canada’s effective carbon tax at $58.94 per tonne for fiscal 2023, while foreign oil entering Canada had an effective tax of just $0.30 per tonne.
“This results in a 196-fold disparity, effectively functioning as a domestic tariff against Canadian oil production,” the research memo notes. Forget Donald Trump—Ottawa undermines our country more effectively than anyone else.
Canada is responsible for 1.5 per cent of global CO2 emissions, but the study estimates that Canada paid one-third of all carbon taxes in 2023. Mexico, with nearly the same emissions, paid just $3 billion in carbon taxes for 2023-24, far less than Canada’s $44 billion.
Resource Works also calculated that Canada alone raised the global per-tonne carbon tax average from $1.63 to $2.44. To be Canadian is to be heavily taxed.
Historically, the Canadian dollar and oil and gas investment in Canada tracked the global price of oil, but not anymore. A disconnect began in 2016 when the Trudeau government cancelled the Northern Gateway pipeline and banned tanker traffic on B.C.’s north coast.
The carbon tax was introduced in 2019 at $15 per tonne, a rate that increased annually until this year. The study argues this “economic burden,” not shared by the rest of the world, has placed Canada at “a competitive disadvantage by accelerating capital flight and reinforcing economic headwinds.”
This “erosion of energy-sector investment” has broader economic consequences, including trade balance pressures and increased exchange rate volatility.
According to NASA, Canadian forest fires released 640 million metric tonnes of carbon in 2023, four times the amount from fossil fuel emissions. We should focus on fighting fires, not penalizing our fossil fuel industry.
Carney praised Canada’s carbon tax approach in his 2021 book Value(s), raising questions about how long his reprieve will last. He has suggested raising carbon taxes on industry, which would worsen Canada’s competitive disadvantage.
In contrast, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre argued that extracting and exporting Canadian oil and gas could displace higher-carbon-emitting energy sources elsewhere, helping to reduce global emissions.
This approach makes more sense than imposing disproportionately high tax burdens on Canadians. Taxes won’t save the world.
Lee Harding is a research fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
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