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Fraser Institute

Young people increasingly embrace conservatism

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From the Fraser Institute

By Philip Cross

One of the most intriguing recent political trends in North America is the growing support for conservative parties among young people. Once a reliable source of overwhelming support for the elections of Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau, a rising share of the youth vote is trending towards candidates such as Donald Trump and Pierre Poilievre. Young people voting for conservative politicians could be dismissed as just a backlash against failed economic policies, but there are indications of a more fundamental shift to embracing at least some conservative values.

Canadian youths now support the Conservatives more than any other party, a development not seen in decades, if ever. According to an Abacus poll, 36 per cent of Canadians between 18 and 29 years old would support the Conservatives versus 27 per cent for the NDP and a paltry 19 per cent for the Liberals. Nor is support for Poilievre’s Conservatives just a backlash from the failing fortunes of youths under the Trudeau regime. An Environics polls found young people in Canada would vote for Trump more than any other age group: 28 per cent of Canadians between 18 and 34 years old prefer Trump versus 13 per cent for those 55 and over and 27 per cent between 35 and 54.

Faced with a health-care system that’s clearly broken in Canada, youths have fewer qualms about involving the private sector than older generations who were raised to believe that publicly-provided health care was a fundamental Canadian value. A recent poll by Leger published in Le Journal de Quebec found that 44 per cent of youths 18 to 34 years old support private delivery of health-care services, the mirror image of the views of people 55 and over who oppose it. Meanwhile, youths in the United States identify as having more conservative views than their parents even more than millennials did 20 years ago, with the largest shift among young men.

Rising support for conservative politicians and initiatives among young people reveals several trends. Most obviously is that many of today’s youths reject the radical woke agenda espoused by a small but vocal minority. When confronted with the reality of an economy that’s not generating the jobs, incomes and housing they desire, these youths prioritize results over ideology, especially immigrant youths who came to Canada for economic reasons. The importance attached to results is driving many youths even to question the usefulness of democracy. In his 2023 book The Fourth Turning Is Here, historian Neil Howe cites polls that one in four young Americans would prefer a dictatorial president unconstrained by Congress while only one in 10 Americans over age 65 agree.

Howe’s analysis is based on the proposition that historical movements move in cyclical ebbs and flows rather than by extrapolating straight lines. This is intuitively easy for me to understand after a career specializing in the study of business cycles. It’s well known that there are regular cycles in financial markets and the economy, partly because long periods of prosperity and bullish financial conditions lull the next generation into under-estimating the risks of a downturn. This complacency inevitably precipitates the sort of risky decisions that trigger a slump. As economist Hyman Minsky wrote, “Success breeds a disregard of the possibility of failure… Stability leads to instability. The more stable things become and the longer they are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits.”

Cyclical analysis is also useful in understanding political trends instead of just assuming history continues on a linear trajectory. For example, for years it seemed inevitable that support for Quebec separatism would rise inexorably until independence was achieved. Instead, support peaked during the 1995 referendum then steadily evaporated as younger generations had more pressing priorities than independence.

We see the same cyclical phenomenon play out in the political preferences of today’s youths, even if conservatives still represent only a minority and their longer-term commitment to conservative values remains uncertain. Instead of reinforcing the left-wing bias of youths that helped propel Obama and Trudeau to power, youths are reacting against the status quo that ignores their pocket-book concerns. These shifting attitudes of young people could help reshape North America’s political landscape in ways few would have thought possible a decade ago.

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Alberta

Energy sector will fuel Alberta economy and Canada’s exports for many years to come

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From the Fraser Institute

By Jock Finlayson

By any measure, Alberta is an energy powerhouse—within Canada, but also on a global scale. In 2023, it produced 85 per cent of Canada’s oil and three-fifths of the country’s natural gas. Most of Canada’s oil reserves are in Alberta, along with a majority of natural gas reserves. Alberta is the beating heart of the Canadian energy economy. And energy, in turn, accounts for one-quarter of Canada’s international exports.

Consider some key facts about the province’s energy landscape, as noted in the Alberta Energy Regulator’s (AER) 2023 annual report. Oil and natural gas production continued to rise (on a volume basis) in 2023, on the heels of steady increases over the preceding half decade. However, the dollar value of Alberta’s oil and gas production fell in 2023, as the surging prices recorded in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine retreated. Capital spending in the province’s energy sector reached $30 billion in 2023, making it the leading driver of private-sector investment. And completion of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project has opened new offshore export avenues for Canada’s oil industry and should boost Alberta’s energy production and exports going forward.

In a world striving to address climate change, Alberta’s hydrocarbon-heavy energy sector faces challenges. At some point, the world may start to consume less oil and, later, less natural gas (in absolute terms). But such “peak” consumption hasn’t arrived yet, nor does it appear imminent. While the demand for certain refined petroleum products is trending down in some advanced economies, particularly in Europe, we should take a broader global perspective when assessing energy demand and supply trends.

Looking at the worldwide picture, Goldman Sachs’ 2024 global energy forecast predicts that “oil usage will increase through 2034” thanks to strong demand in emerging markets and growing production of petrochemicals that depend on oil as the principal feedstock. Global demand for natural gas (including LNG) will also continue to increase, particularly since natural gas is the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel and more of it is being traded in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Against this backdrop, there are reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for Alberta’s energy sector, particularly if the federal government dials back some of the economically destructive energy and climate policies adopted by the last government. According to the AER’s “base case” forecast, overall energy output will expand over the next 10 years. Oilsands output is projected to grow modestly; natural gas production will also rise, in part due to greater demand for Alberta’s upstream gas from LNG operators in British Columbia.

The AER’s forecast also points to a positive trajectory for capital spending across the province’s energy sector. The agency sees annual investment rising from almost $30 billion to $40 billion by 2033. Most of this takes place in the oil and gas industry, but “emerging” energy resources and projects aimed at climate mitigation are expected to represent a bigger slice of energy-related capital spending going forward.

Like many other oil and gas producing jurisdictions, Alberta must navigate the bumpy journey to a lower-carbon future. But the world is set to remain dependent on fossil fuels for decades to come. This suggests the energy sector will continue to underpin not only the Alberta economy but also Canada’s export portfolio for the foreseeable future.

Jock Finlayson

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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Automotive

Electric cars just another poor climate policy

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From the Fraser Institute

By Bjørn Lomborg

The electric car is widely seen as a symbol of a simple, clean solution to climate change. In reality, it’s inefficient, reliant on massive subsidies, and leaves behind a trail of pollution and death that is seldom acknowledged.

We are constantly reminded by climate activists and politicians that electric cars are cleaner, cheaper, and better. Canada and many other countries have promised to prohibit the sale of new gas and diesel cars within a decade. But if electric cars are really so good, why would we need to ban the alternatives?

And why has Canada needed to subsidize each electric car with a minimum $5,000 from the federal government and more from provincial governments to get them bought? Many people are not sold on the idea of an electric car because they worry about having to plan out where and when to recharge. They don’t want to wait for an uncomfortable amount of time while recharging; they don’t want to pay significantly more for the electric car and then see its used-car value decline much faster. For people not privileged to own their own house, recharging is a real challenge. Surveys show that only 15 per cent of Canadians and 11 per cent of Americans want to buy an electric car.

The main environmental selling point of an electric car is that it doesn’t pollute. It is true that its engine doesn’t produce any CO₂ while driving, but it still emits carbon in other ways. Manufacturing the car generates emissions—especially producing the battery which requires a large amount of energy, mostly achieved with coal in China. So even when an electric car is being recharged with clean power in BC, over its lifetime it will emit about one-third of an equivalent gasoline car. When recharged in Alberta, it will emit almost three-quarters.

In some parts of the world, like India, so much of the power comes from coal that electric cars end up emitting more CO₂ than gasoline cars. Across the world, on average, the International Energy Agency estimates that an electric car using the global average mix of power sources over its lifetime will emit nearly half as much CO₂ as a gasoline-driven car, saving about 22 tonnes of CO₂.

But using an electric car to cut emissions is incredibly ineffective. On America’s longest-established carbon trading system, you could buy 22 tonnes of carbon emission cuts for about $660 (US$460). Yet, Ottawa is subsidizing every electric car to the tune of $5,000 or nearly ten times as much, which increases even more if provincial subsidies are included. And since about half of those electrical vehicles would have been bought anyway, it is likely that Canada has spent nearly twenty-times too much cutting CO₂ with electric cars than it could have. To put it differently, Canada could have cut twenty-times more CO₂ for the same amount of money.

Moreover, all these estimates assume that electric cars are driven as far as gasoline cars. They are not. In the US, nine-in-ten households with an electric car actually have one, two or more non-electric cars, with most including an SUV, truck or minivan. Moreover, the electric car is usually driven less than half as much as the other vehicles, which means the CO₂ emission reduction is much smaller. Subsidized electric cars are typically a ‘second’ car for rich people to show off their environmental credentials.

Electric cars are also 320440 kilograms heavier than equivalent gasoline cars because of their enormous batteries. This means they will wear down roads faster, and cost societies more. They will also cause more air pollution by shredding more particulates from tire and road wear along with their brakes. Now, gasoline cars also pollute through combustion, but electric cars in total pollute more, both from tire and road wear and from forcing more power stations online, often the most polluting ones. The latest meta-study shows that overall electric cars are worse on particulate air pollution. Another study found that in two-thirds of US states, electric cars cause more of the most dangerous particulate air pollution than gasoline-powered cars.

These heavy electric cars are also more dangerous when involved in accidents, because heavy cars more often kill the other party. A study in Nature shows that in total, heavier electric cars will cause so many more deaths that the toll could outweigh the total climate benefits from reduced CO₂ emissions.

Many pundits suggest electric car sales will dominate gasoline cars within a few decades, but the reality is starkly different. A 2023-estimate from the Biden Administration shows that even in 2050, more than two-thirds of all cars globally will still be powered by gas or diesel.

Source: US Energy Information Administration, reference scenario, October 2023
Fossil fuel cars, vast majority is gasoline, also some diesel, all light duty vehicles, the remaining % is mostly LPG.

Electric vehicles will only take over when innovation has made them better and cheaper for real. For now, electric cars run not mostly on electricity but on bad policy and subsidies, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, blocking consumers from choosing the cars they want, and achieving virtually nothing for climate change.

Bjørn Lomborg

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