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Energy

Coldest city in Canada at war with natural gas and common sense

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4 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Joseph Quesnel

Winnipeg City Council’s War on Natural Gas Shows the Need to Counter Special Interests

Some members of the Winnipeg City Council are determined to continue their reckless war on natural gas in buildings in Canada’s coldest city.

The latest move occurred at City Council when the City’s Standing Policy Committee on Water, Waste and Environment considered a motion to discuss options for moving away from not using natural gas heating in existing and new residential, commercial and industrial buildings. The lack of action placed the motion in limbo.

It ought to remain in limbo forever. Winnipeg City Council should instead enshrine energy choice. Winnipeggers who favour energy choice and sensible policy can take heart from the experience of other Canadian cities. More cities are fighting these natural gas bans. Vancouver City Council ended a natural gas ban in new buildings this summer after a group of councillors pushed back. They raised housing affordability concerns because homeowners and landlords are subject to costly retrofits with a ban on natural gas heaters, gas furnaces and gas boilers.

Unfortunately, a recent tied vote defeated the policy reversal. This organized opposition, however, shows what is happening at ground level: Average people pummeled by inflation and higher energy costs are finally fighting back.

Opponents of energy choice make exaggerated claims regarding the influence of the energy lobby in these debates, while they are tone-deaf about the actual organized interests at play. Environmental organizations such as the Pembina Institute are well-funded and always present at protests. They also funnel misleading information to local activists and politicians.

Manitoba Hydro has spoken out against natural gas bans for years. In 2021, the Crown electric utility said moving the province from natural gas to electricity as a home-heating source was unrealistic. Despite abundant hydropower, Manitoba does not have the generating capacity to support this switch. Manitoba Hydro said the grid cannot serve peak demand without natural gas. Meeting our energy needs without natural gas would require doubling the province’s generating capacity. This is the province’s utility saying this based on a simple analysis of the evidence, not a ‘right-wing’ economist.

The problem with these debates is that ideologically driven environmental organizations drown out reasonable voices. These groups are often behind local campaigns to deny energy choice. They are well-funded special interests ‒ often using foreign funding or even funding from our governments.

Individuals and organizations committed to energy choice must become active and counter these well-funded voices. Pro-energy choice voices must refute the misinformation spread by environmentalist interests. In municipal elections, they should promote candidates and even electoral slates that respect energy choice and sensible policy.

In the United States, some Republican-led states have successfully prevented localities from banning certain hydrocarbon-based heating infrastructure. However, their efforts are limited because a change in state-level politics could reverse the move to limit local governments.

Strong citizen-led local movements are the answer. They should always watch for policies that oppose energy choice. Such movements must be active in local politics, opposing these elitist environmental special interests. Reasonable Winnipeggers ‒ right and left ‒ must defend reasonable energy policies. This is not a partisan issue. It is never too late to stand up for sanity in the local fight for energy abundance and freedom for all.

Joseph Quesnel is a Senior Research Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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2025 Federal Election

Mark Carney Wants You to Forget He Clearly Opposes the Development and Export of Canada’s Natural Resources

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From Energy Now

At COP26, Mark Carney also said that he thinks “we have both far far too many fossil fuels in the world” and “as much as half of oil reserves, proven oil reserves need to stay in the ground” climate goals.

Mark Carney claims that he supports Canada’s oil and gas industry and wants to see Canada export more of our natural resources. But Carney is yet again lying.

If Carney was sincere, he would immediately commit to the full repeal of the Liberals’ C-69, the ‘No More Pipelines’ Act, C-48, the West Coast Tanker Ban, and the production cap. Instead he doubled down on capping Canadian energy production.

But it’s not just that, Mark Carney has a clear history of opposing Canadian energy and infrastructure projects in favour of his radical anti-energy ideology and his goal of shutting down Canadian energy production.

However, while deliberately fighting against Canadian energy, this high flying hypocrite was having his company, Brookfield Asset Management, invest in some of the largest global pipeline projects in Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.

When asked by Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre at an Industry Committee meeting, if he supported Justin Trudeau’s decision to veto the Northern Gateway pipeline, Mark Carney said “given both environmental and commercial reasons … I think it’s the right decision.”

Then, just six months later at COP26, Mark Carney also said that he thinks “we have both far far too many fossil fuels in the world” and “as much as half of oil reserves, proven oil reserves need to stay in the ground” climate goals.

If this wasn’t enough Mark Carney has now teamed up with Trudeau’s radical anti-energy ministers to finish off Canada’s energy sector, a goal that he has outlined while attending a World Economic Forum event in Davos.

Starting with the radical, self-proclaimed socialist, Steven Guilbeault, who’s history of anti-energy and infrastructure policies is all too familiar to Canadians.

Mark Carney has enabled Steven Guilbeault to do even more damage by promoting him to his Quebec Lieutenant, giving him three new ministerial responsibilities so he can continue his climate crusade against Canadian energy and infrastructure projects.

Canadians remember when Guilbeault said that “I disagree with the [Trans Mountain] pipeline” and that “Canada shouldn’t be investing in new infrastructure for fossil fuels.”

They also remember when he proudly proclaimed that “Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure.” All from a minister who shamed Canadians for owning cars.

Then there is the pipeline hating Jonathan Wilkinson, who Carney appointed as Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. Recently, Wilkinson wrote a scathing letter to Canada’s energy leaders for their opposition to the Carney-Trudeau Liberals production cap on Canadian oil and gas.

Despite Canadian industries being subject to unjustified tariffs from the United States, Jonathan Wilkinson recently told reporters that “Everybody’s sort of running around saying, ‘Oh my God, we need a new pipeline, we need a new pipeline.’ The question is, well, why do we need a new pipeline?”

Finally, there is Carney’s new Minister of Environment and Climate Change Terry Duguid.  Duguid has doubled down on Mark Carney’s climate radicalism by stating that “a Mark Carney government will maintain the cap on emissions from the production of oil and gas”.

From 2015 to 2021 Carney-Trudeau environmental and anti-industry policies have cancelled over $176 billion in Canadian energy projects, with many more being cancelled afterwards. That means $176 billion worth of jobs and powerful paycheques have been blocked from Canadians so Mark Carney and his Ministers can impose their radical net zero ideology.

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2025 Federal Election

Canada’s pipeline builders ready to get to work

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From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation”

It was not a call he wanted to make.

In October 2017, Kevin O’Donnell, then chief financial officer of Nisku, Alta.-based Banister Pipelines, got final word that the $16-billion Energy East pipeline was cancelled.

It was his job to pass the news down the line to reach workers who were already in the field.

“We had a crew that was working along the current TC Energy line that was ready for conversion up in Thunder Bay,” said O’Donnell, who is now executive director of the Mississauga, Ont.-based Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada (PLCAC).

“I took the call, and they said abandon right now. Button up and abandon right now.

“It was truly surreal. It’s tough to tell your foreman, who then tells their lead hands and then you inform the unions that those three or four or five million man-hours that you expected are not going to come to fruition,” he said.

Workers guide a piece of pipe along the Trans Mountain expansion route. Photograph courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

“They’ve got to find lesser-paying jobs where they’re not honing their craft in the pipeline sector. You’re not making the money; you’re not getting the health and dental coverage that you were getting before.”

O’Donnell estimates that PLCAC represents about 500,000 workers across Canada through the unions it works with.

With the recent completion of the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink pipelines – and no big projects like them coming on the books – many are once again out of a job, he said.

It’s frustrating given that this could be what he called a “golden age” for building major energy infrastructure in Canada.

Together, more than 62,000 people were hired to build the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink projects, according to company reports.

O’Donnell is particularly interested in a project like Energy East, which would link oil produced in Alberta to consumers in Eastern and Atlantic Canada, then international markets in the offshore beyond.

“I think Energy East or something similar has to happen for millions of reasons,” he said.

“The world’s demanding it. We’ve got the craft [workers], we’ve got the iron ore and we’ve got the steel. We’re talking about a nation where the workers in every province could benefit. They’re ready to build it.”

The “Golden Weld” marked mechanical completion of construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project on April 11, 2024. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

That eagerness is shared by the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA), which represents about 170 construction and maintenance employers across the country.

The PCA’s newly launched “Let’s Get Building” advocacy campaign urges all parties in the Canadian federal election run to focus on getting major projects built.

“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation,” said PCA chief executive Paul de Jong.

“Most of the companies are quite busy irrespective of the pipeline issue right now. But looking at the long term, there’s predictability and long-term strategy that they see missing.”

Top of mind is Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA), he said, the federal law that assesses major national projects like pipelines and highways.

In 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada found that the IAA broke the rules of the Canadian constitution.

Construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Photograph courtesy Coastal GasLink

The court found unconstitutional components including federal overreach into the decision of whether a project requires an impact assessment and whether a project gets final approval to proceed.

Ottawa amended the act in the spring of 2024, but Alberta’s government found the changes didn’t fix the issues and in November launched a new legal challenge against it.

“We’d like to see the next federal administration substantially revisit the Impact Assessment Act,” de Jong said.

“The sooner these nation-building projects get underway, the sooner Canadians reap the rewards through new trading partnerships, good jobs and a more stable economy.”

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