Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

Energy

Canadian natural resource minister’s wife invests in oil stocks as gov’t attacks industry

Published

1 year ago

6 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Records show Tara Wilkinson’s stock purchases include ‘fossil fuel’ producers targeted for eventual elimination by the Liberal government.

The wife of Canadian Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson bought oil and gas company stocks, records show, at the same time the federal Liberal government has been attacking the industry in a bid to curb so-called “fossil fuel” use and “fight against climate change.”

According to records as per a recent Blacklock’s Reporter report, Wilkinson’s wife, Tara, amped up her trading in oil and gas stocks last year in Enbridge Incorporated and Shell PLC. The records were found filings under Canada’s Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons.

Records show Mrs. Wilkinson also has shares in the globalists linked BlackRock Inc., Amazon, and Finning International Inc., the military-industrial complex linked to Lockheed Martin Corporation, along with COVID jab promoting Pfizer and 3M Company. She also holds stock in Royal Bank and Toronto Dominion Bank.

As early as December, Wilkinson boasted that “Canada became the first oil and gas producer in the world to put a cap on oil and gas emissions.”

He also has claimed that he is looking out for his family’s future by promoting federal climate programs.

Indeed, in 2021, he said he would “honour the commitments we made to our children that we’re going to leave them something that is a workable and sustainable world,” claiming “climate change” is the “existential issue of our time.”

He also claimed, despite his wife and by extension family profiting off oil and gas companies, that “we are on a trajectory to reducing to net zero by 2050” and that “it is important in our fight against climate change.”

Other current and former Liberal cabinet ministers also have oil and gas stocks, such as former Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett, former Attorney General David Lametti and current Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor.

Oil and gas companies have been racking in high profits due to both a high demand for oil and gas and higher oil prices.

The federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since 2015 has pushed a radical environmental agenda similar to the agendas being pushed the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the United Nations “Sustainable Development Goals.”

Late last year, the Trudeau government forged ahead with many policies that if they come to full fruition will destroy Canada’s oil and gas industry, which provides jobs to thousands and is important in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

At COP28 held late last year, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault unveiled a plan to slash oil and gas emissions by 35% to 38% below 2019 levels. He claimed that it is important to reach “carbon neutrality in Canada by 2050.”

At COP28, he announced a new Liberal federal government climate policy that aims to incentivize beef cattle ranchers to reduce how much gas their cows emit by giving them feed additives.

A recent near power blackout in Alberta due to the failure of wind and solar power, however, highlights how so-called sustainable wind and solar power, which the Trudeau government heavily promotes, are not a good fit for Canada’s cold climate.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has blasted Guilbeault as a “menace” for going after her province and the oil and gas industry in general and vowed to fight him with every tool available to her government.

The Trudeau government has also pledged to mandate that all new cars and trucks by 2035 be electric, which would in effect ban the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-only powered vehicles after that year.

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

A June 2017 peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician confirmed that most of the recent global warming data have been “fabricated by climate scientists to make it look more frightening.”

There have been two recent court rulings that have dealt a blow to Trudeau’s environmental laws, however.

The most recent was the Federal Court of Canada on November 16 overturned the Trudeau government’s ban on single-use plastic, calling it “unreasonable and unconstitutional.”

The second ruling comes after Canada’s Supreme Court recently sided in favor of provincial autonomy when it comes to natural resources. The Supreme Court recently ruled that Trudeau’s law, C-69, dubbed the “no-more pipelines” bill, is “mostly unconstitutional.” This was a huge win for Alberta and Saskatchewan, which challenged the law in court. The decision returned authority over the pipelines to provincial governments, meaning oil and gas projects headed up by the provinces should be allowed to proceed without federal intrusion.

The Trudeau government, however, seems insistent on defying the recent rulings by pushing forward with its various regulations.

Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
2025 Federal Election / 1 hour ago

Pierre Poilievre Declares War on Red Tape and Liberal Decay in Osoyoos

Alberta / 3 hours ago

Is Canada’s Federation Fair?

International / 4 hours ago

Biden Lied About Everything, Including Nuclear Risk, During Ukraine Operation

Alberta

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.

Subscribe to The Audit.

For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.

Continue Reading

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.

Dear Readers:

As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers.

Please consider making a small donation of any amount here. Thank you!

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.

Continue Reading

Trending

X