Prime Minister Mark Carney greets members of the public during Canada Day celebrations at LeBreton Flats in Ottawa on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
The American writer, William Burroughs, could have been writing for our times when he said, “If you are not paranoid you are not in full possession of the facts.”
It remains a struggle to be optimistic about Canadian national cohesion and the chances for a new oil pipeline to the West Coast.
Optimists have only what Mark Carney sort-of-sometimes says about fast tracking new energy-related projects which could possibly involve oil. Whereas, pessimists can rely on common sense and observed reality to support their cynicism about the chances for new pipelines getting built or the resolution of many of the other grievances alienating people in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The evidence encouraging optimists is thin. There is the Building Canada Act, Bill C-5. If you read the Act while wearing the right glasses and hold your tongue exactly in the middle of your mouth, there could be a chance you can get it to say new oil and gas pipelines will be among projects which might be approved for fast tracking.
Yet, Mark Carney, the key adjudicator over whether or not projects make it to the full speed ahead list, has not specifically said he wants to fast track pipelines since the first week of the election campaign. When asked about pipelines since then, Carney has said Quebec can veto proposals for pipelines touching its territory. Or he’s dodged questions about new pipelines to tidewater by answering with incomprehensible dissembling.
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If Carney truly sees the wisdom of broadening our oil exporting horizons, why can’t he say so? If fast tracking projects is a real thing, why will provisions under Bill 69 be employed as part of the assessment process under the Building Canada Act? If oil pipelines to the West coast are eligible for approval, the overturning of the tanker ban, Bill C-48, should have accompanied the fast tracking legislation.
Optimists might argue that our new prime minister is an intelligent person who would not risk inflaming already alienated Westerners by failing to support new pipelines; especially one from Alberta to the BC coast. Polls already indicate approximately one third of the people from Alberta and Saskatchewan favour separating from Canada. Carney can’t be so daft that he thinks those numbers won’t increase if a Northern Gateway 2.0 is proposed and then rejected.
If the prime minister actually gives a hoot about national harmony and cohesion, he wouldn’t risk further angering people in the producing provinces. Or would he?
History is on the side of the pessimists. Ottawa has intruded on the constitutional rights of the provinces to own and control their natural resources since the 1970s. As Danielle Smith has aptly quipped, under Pierre Elliot Trudeau Ottawa only wanted to steal our oil, under Justin Trudeau they have been trying to kill the industry.
Federal Liberals have cynically rationalized their reasons for attacking the Western energy sector and generating high levels of Western alienation. It’s all about their strategy for winning federal elections. “Screw the West we’ll take the rest.”
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Demonization of oil and us is just around the corner
No less disturbing is the likelihood the Liberals, along with their powerful allies in the conventional media and the environmental movement, will launch a full-court press assault on the conventional energy sector and Westerners who have the audacity to be alienated.
It has already begun. In the last week of June The Canadian Press sent out a news item indicating groups of young people, from northern Ontario have announced a summer of protest to block the fast tracking of new mine developments in Ontario’s Ring of Fire. Oil will be the environmentalists next target.
The anti-oil factions, including the federal government, the environmental movement and the legacy media can be expected to launch well-financed anti-oil campaigns. Those who favour voting “leave” in the upcoming Alberta referendum will be characterized as anti-woke rednecks who ignore the plight of the planet because they are greedy. Supporters of the conventional energy sector and supporters of independence will be lumped together—both causes will be tarred with the same brush.
Saskatchewan won’t escape unscathed. Not after its plans to keep coal-fired electrical power generating plants open well passed 2035 become more widely known.
Despite all the talk of nation building, the Liberal caucus and Cabinet remains loaded with many of the same climate change alarmists and environmental protection zealots who sat with the Justin Trudeau government. Sure it is possible they really aren’t as committed environmentalists as they once claimed to be. Much of what the Trudeau government did was clearly motivated by virtue signaling as opposed to creating practical environmental legislation.
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But even if they are less green than as previously advertised, Mark Carney has been signaling he plans to be every bit as zealous as the Europeans, if not more so, when it comes to combating climate change. The Carney government has recently doubled down on its EV mandates, despite the mountain of evidence which show the plan is overly ambitious, expensive and impractical. Not to mention—a threat to thousands of Canadian auto workers’ jobs. At the same time a number of European states are scrambling to save their auto industries, but that is next to impossible given their overly ambitious EV mandates. This is why net zero mandates and green transition deadlines are already being pushed back in the UK and Europe in response to voter opposition to the impacts of these policies on the cost of living.
So what do we do?
Let’s not wait until it becomes clear that Bill C-5 isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Now is the time to be developing and implementing defensive strategies. Common sense online news and political commentary outlets need to be furnished with the information required to effectively respond to outrageous anti-oil claims. Peaceful counter-demonstrations and public displays of grassroots support need to be organized. And, a well-funded advertising campaign appearing on both conventional and digital news outlets should be implemented. And as I once said, only somewhat tongue in cheek, the bargaining power of the West will increase as a result of a strong showing by the “leave” side in the Alberta referendum. Keeping the conservative, pro-development and the alienated groups united in the months ahead will be important. If that becomes the biggest challenge, perhaps we don’t deserve to win.
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