Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

Energy

Jagmeet Singh’s mythematical numbers

Published

5 minute read

From Resource Works

Singh… somehow has failed to correct his original post.

National NDP leader Jagmeet Singh earns a new mark for his business mathematics — though his subject is better called “mythematics.” He gets an F for his declaration that Cenovus Energy had record profits of $37 billion in 2023.

He began with this post on X (Twitter): “Last year, Cenovus raked in $37 billion in profits. And a whopping $64 billion in 2022. Big Oil is making record profits, burning the planet AND asking for massive public handouts. It’s time to end the free ride for oil and gas.”

Readers quickly hit back: “Per Cenovus’ own 2023 Financial Year report, profits were $4.11 billion CAD, down 36% from 2022. Mr. Singh conflates revenue (which includes no expenses, government fees, or taxes) with profit.”

Some pointed to Cenovus’s own figures:
Revenue: CA$52.2b (down 22% from FY 2022)
Net income: CA$4.11b (down 36% from FY 2022)
Profit margin: 7.9% (down from 9.6% in FY 2022)

Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and special adviser to the Business Council of Canada, added: “Not sure why Singh would just make up numbers? Anyone can look up their annual financial results. There was no $37 billion in profits. Although if they did have that kind of year, it would be great for Albertan royalties and Canadian business taxes.”

She included a link to Cenovus’s 2023 annual report. Singh, though, somehow has failed to correct his original post.

The NDP leader’s earnings from Parliament now run at $271,700 a year. But under his strange “mythematics,” as applied to Cenovus, he presumably has no expenses and pays no taxes, so that $271,700 is all “profit.” Nice…

Pity that the average Canadian, whose gross income in 2023 was $64,850, has to pay out living expenses such as accommodation, food, and taxes to assorted governments. That’s realistic mathematics, not mythematics.

And that average Canadian does not have Parliament to pick up such expenses as Singh racked up from April 1 to June 30: travel, $28,304; hospitality, $3,319; and contract, $38,053.

In his support for the Trudeau Liberal government, we see Singh’s “mythematics” at work again. As the small-c conservative Fraser Institute points out: the Trudeau government’s recent fiscal record includes unprecedented levels of spending and debt.

“The Trudeau government has consistently spent at record-high levels before, during, and after COVID. In fact, Prime Minister Trudeau is on track to record the seven-highest years of per-person spending in Canadian history between 2018 and 2024. Inflation-adjusted spending (excluding debt interest costs) is expected to reach $11,856 per person this year—10.2% higher than during the 2008-09 financial crisis and 28.7% higher than during the peak of the Second World War.

“Consequently, the Trudeau government has posted 10 consecutive deficits since taking office. The projected deficit in 2024/25 is a whopping $39.8 billion. This string of deficits has spurred a dramatic increase in federal debt. From 2014/15 (Prime Minister Harper’s last full year), total federal debt is expected to have nearly doubled to $2.1 trillion. To make matters worse, the government plans to run more deficits until at least 2028/29, and total debt could rise by an additional $400.1 billion by March 2029.

“Indeed, due to reckless decisions, the Trudeau government is on track to record the five-highest years of per-person debt (inflation-adjusted) in Canadian history between 2020 and 2024. As of 2024, Ottawa’s debt equals $51,467 per Canadian—12.3% more than in 1995 when Canada reached a near-debt crisis.”

The New Democrats back the Liberals on confidence and budgetary votes in Parliament, in exchange for concessions on key political priorities. When it came to the current budget, the government included things Singh’s NDP supports, such as funding for pharmacare and a national school lunch program.

But Singh withheld support for the budget for two weeks, saying it didn’t provide adequate funding for a new disability benefit or for Indigenous communities. In the end, he did vote for the budget, and thus those fiscal issues raised by the Fraser Institute. Singh did not disclose if he has been offered Liberal solutions down the road to his concerns.

All a question of “mythematics,” we assume.

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

2025 Federal Election

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

Published on

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.

Continue Reading

2025 Federal Election

Canada’s pipeline builders ready to get to work

Published on

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.”

Continue Reading

Trending

X