Energy
New oil and gas drilling company launched by Indian Resource Council of Canada

Energy worker in Alberta. Photo courtesy Government of Alberta
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Mario Toneguzzi and Deborah Jaremko
‘This is a great opportunity for our members to be on the ground floor of a First Nations-supported energy services company’
Indigenous ownership in Canadian oil and gas continues to grow with the launch of a new drilling company.
Along with industry heavyweights, the Indian Resource Council of Canada (IRC) is one of the founding partners of newly-formed Indigena Drilling. IRC’s aim is to provide economic benefits to its more than 155 member nations across the country.
“[This] is a great opportunity for our members to be on the ground floor of a First Nations-supported energy services company,” said Stephen Buffalo, Indian Resource Council CEO.
Gurpreet Lail, CEO of Enserva, a national trade association representing the service, supply, and manufacturing sectors of the Canadian energy industry, welcomes the new company.
“There are so many discussions happening around Indigenous economic reconciliation, but this actually is doing that instead of just talking about it,” she said.
“This kind of partnership is actually going to help all Nations, not just one.”
Indigena Drilling is an evolution of the relationship between Indigenous communities and drilling operators, says Mark Scholz, CEO of the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors (CAOEC).
“We see a lot of joint partnerships within the industry where it could be ownership or shared ownership of a rig, but I think this is a unique one coming from the lens of a company starting out with significant ownership from an Indigenous perspective would be quite new, at least in the last 10, 20 years,” he said.
Historically it has been more common for Indigenous partnerships on the service rig side of the industry, Scholz said. The main difference is that smaller service rigs conduct work on existing wells, versus drilling rigs that drill new wells.
“A service rig can actually stay very tethered to a particular area and doesn’t have to move long distances, so it’s actually quite conducive to a lot of First Nations communities that often want to stay in the community,” Scholz said.
The CAOEC forecasts approximately 6,400 wells will be drilled across western Canada this year, an increase of about 800 wells compared to 2022.
Scholz said he expects more Indigenous ownership examples like Indigena in the future, particularly in British Columbia, because of the tremendous drilling opportunities that are going to exist in supporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
“Obviously long-term, both Alberta and British Columbia have huge gas reserves. As we start talking about the energy transformation, gas is going to be incredibly important,” he said.
“I think we’re going to see more LNG takeaway capacity that’s going to have First Nations support and I do see additional opportunities for First Nations communities to have a very robust energy services sector within their communities that they’re going to be operating in.”
Lail said there are more Indigenous-owned energy services companies today than previously, but more need to come into the space.
“As an industry on the whole, I think we’ve done a really good job at moving the needle but there’s more movement that needs to happen,” she said.
“I think this is a good news story and I hope we get more of these into the future.”
Banks
The Great Exodus from the Net Zero Banking Alliance has arrived

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Gina Pappano
Next, we need a Great Exodus from net zero ideology
In 2021, all of Canada’s Big Five Banks – TD, CIBC, BMO, Scotiabank and RBC – signed onto the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) and the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA).
U.N.-sponsored and Mark Carney-led, GFANZ is a sector-wide umbrella coalition whose goal is to accelerate global decarbonization and the emergence of a worldwide net zero global economy.
But now, in the first month of 2025, four of Canada’s Big Five Banks – TD, CIBC, BMO and Scotiabank – have announced their decision to exit the NZBA.
This came on the heels of similar announcements by six of the biggest U.S. banks – Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo as well as the investment firm BlackRock leaving the Asset Management subgroup of the GFANZ.
That group, the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, has now suspended operations altogether, and the GFANZ and all of its subgroups are falling like a house of cards.
At InvestNow, the not-for-profit that I lead, we’re considering these developments a victory and a vindication of our work.
In November of 2024, we submitted shareholder proposals to Canada’s Big Five banks asking them to leave both the NZBA and the GFANZ. As of this writing, all but one of them have done just that.
But this is only a partial victory.
When they signed on to the NZBA, the banks pledged to align their lending, investment and banking activities with decarbonization goals, including achieving net zero emissions by 2050. They pledged to focus on higher emitting sectors first and foremost. In practice, this means they would be setting their sights on Canada’s natural resource sector.
That’s because the net zero ideology motivating these groups requires the drastic reduction of oil and gas production and use over a comparatively short period of time.
That is a serious threat to Canada since we’ve been blessed with an abundance of natural resources. Hydrocarbon energy has become the backbone of our economy, and the war being waged against it has already made our lives harder and more expensive. Left unchecked, these difficulties will compound, with ruinous results.
In joining the NZBA, the Big Five Banks agreed to divest from oil and gas, eliminating projects and companies from the investment pool simply because of the sector they work in, as part of a long-term goal of totally decarbonizing the economy.
Presumably, having left the Alliance, those banks could now change course, increasing investment in and lending to oil and gas firms with an eye toward increasing the return on investment for their shareholders.
Except the banks have stressed that they have no intention of doing so. In the press releases and articles about leaving the NZBA, each bank emphasized that this move should not be interpreted as them abandoning net zero itself. All of these banks remain committed to aligning their activities with decarbonization, no matter the cost to Canada, the Canadian economy or the good of its citizens.
This means we still have work to do. While we applaud the banks for exiting the NZBA, we will continue to work to get them to leave behind the net zero ideology as well. Then, and only then, will we claim a full victory.
Gina Pappano is the former head of market intelligence at the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange and executive director of InvestNow , a non-profit dedicated to demonstrating that investing in Canada’s resource sectors helps Canada and the world. Join the movement and pass the InvestNow resolution at investnow.org.
Energy
There is nothing green about the ‘green’ agenda

Quick Hit:
RealClearEnergy contributor Steve Milloy argues that the environmental left has been disingenuous about the true costs of so-called green energy. He exposes the environmental and human toll of electric vehicles, solar, and wind power, calling the movement’s claims “Orwellian.”
Key Details:
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Milloy criticizes Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm for claiming President Trump is helping China by cutting subsidies for the green economy.
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He highlights the use of child labor and environmental destruction in mining for electric vehicle (EV) components like lithium and nickel.
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He challenges the credibility of climate activists, pointing out decades of failed predictions and misleading rhetoric.
Diving Deeper:
Now that Democrats no longer control the federal government, Steve Milloy argues that climate activists are scrambling to rebrand their agenda to appeal to conservatives. In a recent op-ed for RealClearEnergy, Milloy calls out Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm for claiming that Trump’s rollback of green energy subsidies is a win for Communist China. Milloy translates this as frustration from the left over the end of “the flow of billions of taxpayers’ dollars to subsidize electric vehicles that nobody wants and only the well-off can afford.”
According to Milloy, the so-called green agenda is anything but environmentally friendly. “If the climate movement was truly sincere and intellectually honest in its desire to stop actions contributing to global environmental degradation, it would stand fast against solar panels and electric vehicles,” he writes. He details the horrific conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where children mine cobalt for lithium-ion batteries with their bare hands, breathing in toxic dust while contaminating their own water supply. Meanwhile, he says, activists remain “blithely unaware or unconcerned in the comfort of their own homes.”
The mining of nickel, another key EV battery component, also devastates the environment. Milloy describes Indonesia’s nickel refining operations, where thick brown smog chokes the air, and chemicals leach into groundwater. “Whatever else climate activists may try to tell us, there is nothing green going on here,” he asserts.
In Brazil, an aluminum refinery linked to Ford’s now-canceled all-electric F-150 Lightning has been accused of poisoning local communities with toxic chemicals. Milloy highlights a lawsuit alleging that heavy metal contamination has caused cancer, birth defects, and neurological disorders. Meanwhile, a separate Brazilian EV factory was recently shut down due to “slavery”-like working conditions. “How is that a green virtue?” Milloy asks.
The environmental destruction doesn’t stop with EVs. “Solar energy, long the prize pig of the climate crowd, isn’t green either,” Milloy writes, citing studies showing that clearing forests for solar farms actually increases carbon emissions. Wind power, he notes, is no better, with massive wind farms killing wildlife and disrupting ecosystems both on land and offshore.
Milloy argues that the climate movement has long relied on fear-mongering and deception. “In 1970, they assured us that human activity would cause an ice age by the 21st century,” he recalls. Predictions of global famine, acid rain catastrophes, and rising sea levels have all failed to materialize. He points to Al Gore’s 2008 claim that the North Pole would be ice-free within five years and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s 2009 declaration that the world had “fewer than 50 days to save our planet from catastrophe.” “Spoiler alert: We’re still here and thriving,” Milloy quips.
Ultimately, he says, there is no such thing as “clean” or “dirty” energy—only trade-offs and solutions. With energy costs already high, Milloy argues that reliable fossil fuels remain essential. “Word sophistry from our friends on the left won’t change that,” he concludes.
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