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Energy

New federal law may actually inject more facts into ‘climate’ debate

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4 minute read

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

A new federal law—Bill C-59, which received royal assent last month—has Canada’s oil and gas industry and the premiers of oil and gas provinces up in arms.

Specifically, in legalese, it allows government or outside litigants to review a “representation to the public in the form of a statement, warranty or guarantee of a product’s benefits for protecting the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological effects of climate change that is not based on an adequate and proper test, the proof of which lies on the person making the representation.”

These “reviews” would be conducted by government courts where claimants would have to prove the truthfulness of what they were saying.

Opponents of the law argue that it constitutes a gag order on Canada’s oil and gas sector, to prevent them from marketing their products, services and technologies in a positive way. And indeed, the legislation would gag a lot oil and gas sector talk, because all claims about climate change are highly uncertain. The law would impose severe penalties on those who can’t prove themselves innocent of misrepresentation, including fines up to $15,000,000.

Industry and political objections aside, however, a good argument can be made that government does have a legitimate interest in deterring businesses from engaging in fraudulent practices or false advertising.

For example, while warming is certainly real (1.1 degrees Celsius since 1850), the human contribution to this warming is unclear. Potentially harmful changes to the climate radiating from that increased warming are highly unclear, and the ultimate impacts on human health stemming from climate change are almost completely unknown and unknowable, depending, as they would, on unpredictable economic, technologic and social factors.

Thus, any claims about a technology such as “carbon capture and storage” reducing the risks of climate change almost certainly can’t be proven truthful in a rigorous cause-and-effect way before a courtroom standard of truth in advertising.

Similarly, technologies and practices that reduce the carbon intensity of oil and gas production, often portrayed as mitigating climate risk, cannot be shown to do so in a direct provable cause-and-effect way, because climate risks themselves are multi-factorial and still speculative, and the impacts of relatively small emission reductions remain unquantifiable.

With this new federal law, the Trudeau government seemingly wants to prevent the oil and gas sector from defending its products, operations, technologies and services on the grounds that some of their actions have already, and will in future, mitigate climate risk. The oil and gas industry and its supporters say this will render the industry unable to defend itself from onerous regulations and government actions meant to drive them out of business.

Of course, a fair argument can be made that businesses in the oil and gas sector should not make claims about climate change mitigation that they can’t back up in court, and that they should be subject to the same scrutiny as any other business. And due to this new law, they will likely appear in court someday to defend themselves against the government’s long-stated belief that the industry should be shut down.

However, to the extent the new law is limited to particularly unprovable claims regarding certain technologies, this may not be an entirely bad thing. It may actually force Canada’s climate policy discussions to be grounded more in fact than fancy.

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Dan McTeague

Will this deal actually build a pipeline in Canada?

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By Dan McTeague

Will Carney’s new pipeline deal actually help get a pipeline built in Canada? As we said before, the devil is in the details.

While the establishment and mainstream media cheer on the new pipeline agreement, there are specific details you need to be aware of.

Dan McTeague explains in his latest video.

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Alberta

Premier Smith: Canadians support agreement between Alberta and Ottawa and the major economic opportunities it could unlock for the benefit of all

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From Energy Now

By Premier Danielle Smith

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If Canada wants to lead global energy security efforts, build out sovereign AI infrastructure, increase funding to social programs and national defence and expand trade to new markets, we must unleash the full potential of our vast natural resources and embrace our role as a global energy superpower.

The Alberta-Ottawa Energy agreement is the first step in accomplishing all of these critical objectives.

Recent polling shows that a majority of Canadians are supportive of this agreement and the major economic opportunities it could unlock for the benefit of all Canadians.

As a nation we must embrace two important realities: First, global demand for oil is increasing and second, Canada needs to generate more revenue to address its fiscal challenges.

Nations around the world — including Korea, Japan, India, Taiwan and China in Asia as well as various European nations — continue to ask for Canadian energy. We are perfectly positioned to meet those needs and lead global energy security efforts.

Our heavy oil is not only abundant, it’s responsibly developed, geopolitically stable and backed by decades of proven supply.

If we want to pay down our debt, increase funding to social programs and meet our NATO defence spending commitments, then we need to generate more revenue. And the best way to do so is to leverage our vast natural resources.

At today’s prices, Alberta’s proven oil and gas reserves represent trillions in value.

It’s not just a number; it’s a generational opportunity for Alberta and Canada to secure prosperity and invest in the future of our communities. But to unlock the full potential of this resource, we need the infrastructure to match our ambition.

There is one nation-building project that stands above all others in its ability to deliver economic benefits to Canada — a new bitumen pipeline to Asian markets.

The energy agreement signed on Nov. 27 includes a clear path to the construction of a one-million-plus barrel-per-day bitumen pipeline, with Indigenous co-ownership, that can ensure our province and country are no longer dependent on just one customer to buy our most valuable resource.

Indigenous co-ownership also provide millions in revenue to communities along the route of the project to the northwest coast, contributing toward long-lasting prosperity for their people.

The agreement also recognizes that we can increase oil and gas production while reducing our emissions.

The removal of the oil and gas emissions cap will allow our energy producers to grow and thrive again and the suspension of the federal net-zero power regulations in Alberta will open to doors to major AI data-centre investment.

It also means that Alberta will be a world leader in the development and implementation of emissions-reduction infrastructure — particularly in carbon capture utilization and storage.

The agreement will see Alberta work together with our federal partners and the Pathways companies to commence and complete the world’s largest carbon capture, utilization and storage infrastructure project.

This would make Alberta heavy oil the lowest intensity barrel on the market and displace millions of barrels of heavier-emitting fuels around the globe.

We’re sending a clear message to investors across the world: Alberta and Canada are leaders, not just in oil and gas, but in the innovation and technologies that are cutting per barrel emissions even as we ramp up production.

Where we are going — and where we intend to go with more frequency — is east, west, north and south, across oceans and around the globe. We have the energy other countries need, and will continue to need, for decades to come.

However, this agreement is just the first step in this journey. There is much hard work ahead of us. Trust must be built and earned in this partnership as we move through the next steps of this process.

But it’s very encouraging that Prime Minister Mark Carney has made it clear he is willing to work with Alberta’s government to accomplish our shared goal of making Canada an energy superpower.

That is something we have not seen from a Canadian prime minister in more than a decade.

Together, in good faith, Alberta and Ottawa have taken the first step towards making Canada a global energy superpower for benefit of all Canadians.

Danielle Smith is the Premier of Alberta

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