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Energy

British Columbia electric grid ‘at risk of shortfall’ as province limits natural gas, report warns

Published

1 year ago

7 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By  Clare Marie Merkowsky

” B.C. could experience power shortfalls beginning in 2026 as the New Democratic Party (NDP) government continues to phase out natural gas. “

A report has found that the Canadian province of British Columbia’s electric grid is becoming increasingly inadequate as the government goes forward with plans to phase out natural gas power generation by 2030.   

According to a December report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, British Columbia’s electric grid is “at risk of shortfall” in extreme weather conditions, such as the conditions which shut down its power grid last October.    

“That should be a wake up call and should shake us out of our complacency that we have enough electricity to meet all of our potential desires, whether it’s electrification of vehicles, industry or home heating,” said Barry Penner, former B.C. cabinet minister and current employee of Resource Works.

The report warned that B.C. could experience power shortfalls beginning in 2026 as the New Democratic Party (NDP) government continues to phase out natural gas for power production.

Also in December, FortisBC, the province’s natural gas company, proposed to expand the province’s natural gas infrastructure in the ever-expanding Okanagan by building a new pipeline between Chute Lake and Penticton.  

The suggestion was rejected by B.C. Utilities Commission, however, which continues to dismiss the warnings that the government’s plan poses a threat to energy reliability. Instead, the BCUC has argued that the demand for natural gas may decrease as the CleanBC climate plan banning natural gas space and water heating in new homes by 2030 is further implemented.

B.C. is at the forefront of the push to outlaw natural resources. According to their climate plan, newly constructed homes will be primarily heated with options like electrical baseboard heat, while a heat pump will be installed to kick in at -20 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the provinces is pushing for all new vehicles sold in 2035 to be fully electric.  

B.C.’s climate plans come as last week Canadians across Alberta witnessed first-hand the instability and insufficiency of an electric power grid and renewable energy sources.  

 As LifeSiteNews previously reported, amid a cold snap in Western Canada that saw temperatures in some regions drop to nearly minus 50 degrees Celsius (-58 degrees Fahrenheit) over the weekend, the power grid in Alberta neared collapse due to inadequate production from renewable sources such as solar and wind. 

Many, including Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, noted that the incident served as a stark reminder of the potential dangers of a looming federal mandate calling for an eventual end to oil and gas power production in favor of less reliable wind and solar power. 

“SaskPower is providing 153 MW of electricity to AB this evening to assist them through this shortage. That power will be coming from natural gas and coal-fired plants, the ones the Trudeau government is telling us to shut down (which we won’t),” wrote Moe on X (formerly Twitter) at the time.    

During the outage, Canadians were also asked to delay charging their electric vehicles, which Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Leslyn Lewis argued shows how Trudeau’s green agenda, which looks to ban sales of new gas-powered cars starting in 2035, is “unrealistic.”    

The Trudeau government’s current environmental goals – which are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” – include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades.   

The reduction and eventual elimination of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.    

Even the recent energy crisis has not stopped the Trudeau government from pushing their radical agenda, which is apparently unaware or unsympathetic to Canadians suffering from the cold and power outages.   

Just last week, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told attendees at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2024 meeting in Davos that it is up to the government to “make” sure the “decarbonization” of Canada’s energy sector “happens.”  

However, some western provinces have declared they will not follow the regulations but instead focus on the wellbeing of Canadians.      

Both Alberta and Saskatchewan have repeatedly promised to place the interests of their people above the Trudeau government’s “unconstitutional” demands, while consistently reminding the federal government that their infrastructures and economies depend upon oil, gas, and coal.     

“We will never allow these regulations to be implemented here, full stop,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith recently declared. “If they become the law of the land, they would crush Albertans’ finances, and they would also cause dramatic increases in electricity bills for families and businesses across Canada.”        

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has likewise promised to fight back against Trudeau’s new regulations, saying recently that “Trudeau’s net-zero electricity regulations are unaffordable, unrealistic and unconstitutional.”      

“They will drive electricity rates through the roof and leave Saskatchewan with an unreliable power supply. Our government will not let the federal government do that to the Saskatchewan people,” he charged.     

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Is Canada’s Federation Fair?

Published on April 6, 2025

By

The Audit David Clinton

Contrasting the principle of equalization with the execution

Quebec – as an example – happens to be sitting on its own significant untapped oil and gas reserves. Those potential opportunities include the Utica Shale formation, the Anticosti Island basin, and the Gaspé Peninsula (along with some offshore potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

So Quebec is effectively being paid billions of dollars a year to not exploit their natural resources. That places their ostensibly principled stand against energy resource exploitation in a very different light.

You’ll need to search long and hard to find a Canadian unwilling to help those less fortunate. And, so long as we identify as members of one nation¹, that feeling stretches from coast to coast.

So the basic principle of Canada’s equalization payments – where poorer provinces receive billions of dollars in special federal payments – is easy to understand. But as you can imagine, it’s not easy to apply the principle in a way that’s fair, and the current methodology has arguably lead to a very strange set of incentives.

According to Department of Finance Canada, eligibility for payments is determined based on your province’s fiscal capacity. Fiscal capacity is a measure of the taxes (income, business, property, and consumption) that a province could raise (based on national average rates) along with revenues from natural resources. The idea, I suppose, is that you’re creating a realistic proxy for a province’s higher personal earnings and consumption and, with greater natural resources revenues, a reduced need to increase income tax rates.

But the devil is in the details, and I think there are some questions worth asking:

  • Whichever way you measure fiscal capacity there’ll be both winners and losers, so who gets to decide?
  • Should a province that effectively funds more than its “share” get proportionately greater representation for national policy² – or at least not see its policy preferences consistently overruled by its beneficiary provinces?

The problem, of course, is that the decisions that defined equalization were – because of long-standing political conditions – dominated by the region that ended up receiving the most. Had the formula been the best one possible, there would have been little room to complain. But was it?

For example, attaching so much weight to natural resource revenues is just one of many possible approaches – and far from the most obvious. Consider how the profits from natural resources already mostly show up in higher income and corporate tax revenues (including income tax paid by provincial government workers employed by energy-related ministries)?

And who said that such calculations had to be population-based, which clearly benefits Quebec (nine million residents vs around $5 billion in resource income) over Newfoundland (545,000 people vs $1.6 billion) or Alberta (4.2 million people vs $19 billion). While Alberta’s average market income is 20 percent or so higher than Quebec’s, Quebec’s is quite a bit higher than Newfoundland’s. So why should Newfoundland receive only minimal equalization payments?

To illustrate all that, here’s the most recent payment breakdown when measured per-capita:
Equalization 2025-26 – Government of Canada

For clarification, the latest per-capita payments to poorer provinces ranged from $3,936 to PEI, $1,553 to Quebec, and $36 to Ontario. Only Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC received nothing.

And here’s how the total equalization payments (in millions of dollars) have played out over the past decade:

Is energy wealth the right differentiating factor because it’s there through simple dumb luck, morally compelling the fortunate provinces to share their fortune? That would be a really difficult argument to make. For one thing because Quebec – as an example – happens to be sitting on its own significant untapped oil and gas reserves. Those potential opportunities include the Utica Shale formation, the Anticosti Island basin, and the Gaspé Peninsula (along with some offshore potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

So Quebec is effectively being paid billions of dollars a year to not exploit their natural resources. That places their ostensibly principled stand against energy resource exploitation in a very different light. Perhaps that stand is correct or perhaps it isn’t. But it’s a stand they probably couldn’t have afforded to take had the equalization calculation been different.

Of course, no formula could possibly please everyone, but punishing the losers with ongoing attacks on the very source of their contributions is guaranteed to inspire resentment. And that could lead to very dark places.

Note: I know this post sounds like it came from a grumpy Albertan. But I assure you that I’ve never even visited the province, instead spending most of my life in Ontario.

1

Which has admittedly been challenging since the former primer minister infamously described us as a post-national state without an identity.

2

This isn’t nearly as crazy as it sounds. After all, there are already formal mechanisms through which Indigenous communities get more than a one-person-one-vote voice.

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Banks

Wall Street Clings To Green Coercion As Trump Unleashes American Energy

Published on April 6, 2025

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Isaac

The Trump administration’s recent move to revoke Biden-era restrictions on energy development in Alaska’s North Slope—especially in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)—is a long-overdue correction that prioritizes American prosperity and energy security. This regulatory reset rightly acknowledges what Alaska’s Native communities have long known: responsible energy development offers a path to economic empowerment and self-determination.

But while Washington’s red tape may be unraveling, a more insidious blockade remains firmly in place: Wall Street.

Despite the Trump administration’s restoration of rational permitting processes, major banks and insurance companies continue to collude in starving projects of the capital and risk management services they need. The left’s “debanking” strategy—originally a tactic to pressure gun makers and disfavored industries—is now being weaponized against American energy companies operating in ANWR and similar regions.

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This quiet embargo began years ago, when JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, declared in 2020 that it would no longer fund oil and gas development in the Arctic, including ANWR. Others quickly followed: Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup now all reject Arctic energy projects—effectively shutting down access to capital for an entire region.

Insurers have joined the pile-on. Swiss Re, AIG, and AXIS Capital all publicly stated they would no longer insure drilling in ANWR. In 2023, Chubb became the first U.S.-based insurer to formalize its Arctic ban.

These policies are not merely misguided—they are dangerous. They hand America’s energy future over to OPEC, China, and hostile regimes. They reduce competition, drive up prices, and kneecap the very domestic production that once made the U.S. energy independent.

This isn’t just a theoretical concern. I’ve experienced this discrimination firsthand.

In February 2025, The Hartford notified the American Energy Institute—an educational nonprofit I lead—that it would not renew our insurance policy. The reason? Not risk. Not claims. Not underwriting. The Hartford cited our Facebook page.

“The reason for nonrenewal is we have learned from your Facebook page that your operations include Trade association involved in promoting social/political causes related to energy production. This is not an acceptable exposure under The Hartford’s Small Commercial business segment’s guidelines.”

That’s a direct quote from their nonrenewal notice.

Let’s be clear: The Hartford didn’t drop us for anything we did—they dropped us for what we believe. Our unacceptable “exposure” is telling the truth about the importance of affordable and reliable energy to modern life, and standing up to ESG orthodoxy. We are being punished not for risk, but for advocacy.

This is financial discrimination, pure and simple. What we’re seeing is the private-sector enforcement of political ideology through the strategic denial of access to financial services. It’s ESG—Environmental, Social, and Governance—gone full Orwell.

Banks, insurers, and asset managers may claim these decisions are about “climate risk,” but they rarely apply the same scrutiny to regimes like Venezuela or China, where environmental and human rights abuses are rampant. The issue is not risk. The issue is control.

By shutting out projects in ANWR, Wall Street ensures that even if federal regulators step back, their ESG-aligned agenda still moves forward—through corporate pressure, shareholder resolutions, and selective financial access. This is how ideology replaces democracy.

While the Trump administration deserves praise for removing federal barriers, the fight for energy freedom continues. Policymakers must hold financial institutions accountable for ideological discrimination and protect access to banking and insurance services for all lawful businesses.

Texas has already taken steps by divesting from anti-energy financial firms. Other states should follow, enforcing anti-discrimination laws and leveraging state contracts to ensure fair treatment.

But public pressure matters too. Americans need to know what’s happening behind the curtain of ESG. The green financial complex is not just virtue-signaling—it’s a form of economic coercion designed to override public policy and undermine U.S. sovereignty.

The regulatory shackles may be coming off, but the private-sector blockade remains. As long as banks and insurers collude to deny access to capital and risk protection for projects in ANWR and beyond, America’s energy independence will remain under threat.

We need to call out this hypocrisy. We need to expose it. And we need to fight it—before we lose not just our energy freedom, but our economic prosperity.

The Honorable Jason Isaac is the Founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

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