Jim Warren is a recovering academic as retired adjunct professor and lecturer in environmental sociology at the University of Regina.
Oil and agriculture trucks rolled through Regina to rally in 2019 to rally against the carbon tax, Bills C-69 and C-48, and in support of pipelines. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
What, no happy dance? On 9 September the Carney government delivered a long-awaited win to supporters of conventional energy. The heavy hand of C-69, the “No More Pipelines Act”, will no longer apply to major projects in the oil and gas sectors including pipelines to Canada’s coasts. Perhaps the lack of a more exuberant celebration on the Prairies is because we’re still not convinced that Carney really means to push any new pipelines through to completion.
And besides, it was high time the federal government did something about C-69. In 2023 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that sections of C-69 (aka the Impact Assessment Act) were an unconstitutional infringement on provincial jurisdiction. Environment and Climate Change minister, Steven Guilbeault, made a few weak token tweaks to the legislation; but they fell far short of addressing the court’s concerns.
Alberta was in the process of taking the federal government back to the Supreme Court when the C-69 changes appeared in the Canada Gazette the 9th.
While fans of fossil fuel aren’t actively celebrating, environmentalists are having aneurisms over the changes. We know this because journalists at CBC and CTV have them on speed dial. Mainstream media news stories the day the changes were announced were replete with denunciations from suitably alarmed environmental activists.
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CTV’s story about the fate of C-69 featured comments by Julia Levin of Environmental Defence. But it failed to obtain the reaction of officials from the conventional energy industry.
Levin told CTV, “The government has wiped its hands of doing a fulsome environmental review of the most polluting projects like oil pipelines and gas plants, at a time of unprecedented climate disaster.”
(FYI: Environmental Defence bills itself as one of Canada’s Leading environmental organizations. The 2021 Allan report into the Anti-Alberta energy campaign reported that Environmental Defence received $5,418,917 from foreign foundations in support of its aniti-oilsands activities and $3,367,647 in grants from Canadian governments during the campaign which ran from 2006 until 2021.)
The media coverage doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Our state-funded mainstream media outlets know what their benefactor expects of them. For instance, any news item about an extreme weather event or forest fire must be followed by comments identifying climate change as the cause and predicting such events will become more frequent and severe due to climate change. Rarely is any actual scientific evidence provided in support of these compulsory story endings.
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The prime minister has finally come to the obvious conclusion that increasing oil and gas exports to non-US customers is one of the few economic strategies available to revive the flagging Canadian economy and reduce our export dependence on a Trump led America. The problem is that Carney has done little to nothing to prepare his caucus or his fans in the environmental movement for the change.
There has been a dearth of messaging coming out of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to explain the economic necessity of getting C-69 off the energy sector’s back. No less critical is explaining to environmentalists that their policy preferences need to be put on the back burner given the recent surge in global political and economic disruption.
These are not normal times. The global trade war launched by the Trump administration, associated supply chain disruptions, the oil and LNG supply crisis caused by the US war with Iran and threats to the stability of NATO have all contributed to a decline in the rate of global GDP growth and a rise in geopolitical uncertainty.
Carney can claim he still views global warming as a problem while at the same time explaining why it is important to press pause on the climate crusade. Any nation critically weakened by today’s economic challenges would find it difficult to maintain the stringent environmental policy measures imposed by the Trudeau government.
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Liberal policies including C-69, emissions caps, carbon taxes and EV adoption mandates placed unacceptable stress on ordinary Canadians already challenged by the rising cost of living. New investment in support of industrial development has dried up, largely because Trudeau era environmental approval processes made getting anything built a virtual impossibility. The relocation of Stellantis’ Brampton Assembly plant to avoid policies like EV mandates signals the erosion of Canada’s industrial base and threatens serious job losses.
The truth is the prime minister has been engaged in a low intensity environmental policy retreat since he assumed office. EV mandates have been pushed back. The pipeline MOU eliminated the emissions cap. And financial concessions have been made to encourage proponents of the Pathways Alliance carbon capture and utilization project.
Strangely, the 18 month policy climb down has occurred without the PMO developing a convincing narrative that explains the benefits of the changes. Perhaps they thought it could be done by stealth.
I believe it was Mussolini who said you can pluck a live chicken without much fuss if you do it one feather at a time.
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As we’ve discovered, the climate fanatics noticed and they’re making a fuss.
The bizarre fact is the government failed to develop a communications strategy for its modest environmental climb down. Is our Liberal government less competent and more confused than we imagined? Is Carney intimidated by the “Green 14” members of the Liberal caucus who have publicly criticized his environmental backsliding?
Some observers wonder if the C-69 announcement was an effort to reduce anti-Ottawa sentiment during the month leading to Alberta’s separation referendum. If so, it suggests that the federal government is more worried about the outcome of the referendum than they’ve been letting on. If that’s really the reason for the changes it represents an embarrassingly awkward effort to complete a hale Mary pass.
Regardless of the motivation behind the changes to C-69, the failure to explain the reasons for making them is a communications error. It echoes the Trump administration’s failure to credibly explain why it attacked Iran on February 28. Only weeks later did Washington come up with a mixture of barely credible excuses for why they started the war.
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The Liberal caucus held a policy retreat in Banff shortly after the C-69 announcement. Perhaps the prime minister used the opportunity to take his environmentally pure caucus members to the woodshed.
Hopefully, the government recognizes the need to explain why stepping away from Justin Trudeau’s environmental policy legacy is a good idea. Maybe the Banff event was a first step. If so it would be a welcome development for supporters of Canada’s conventional energy sector.
Anything that supports getting new export pipelines has to be good news; especially if it reduces the barriers to progress thrown up by the environmental movement. The majority of Canadians recognize the need for new pipelines it’s about time the Liberal government caught up with them.
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