Economy
Wrapping Up Canadian Energy 2023 – Prosperity, Power Struggles, Pipelines, EV Promises and “Pie in the Sky” Politics
From EnergyNow Media
By Deidra Garyk
2023 was an optimistic year in the Canadian oil patch. The +15 walkway system in downtown Calgary has been buzzing with the energy of people hurrying to business meetings and networking events.
Some of those scurrying about were headed to talk multi-billion-dollar merger and acquisition (M&A) deals that the patch continued to experience throughout the year. Traditional oil companies also bought alternative energy and carbon tech companies. Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) was the investment decision of the year.
Oil and gas prices remained relatively high. Not great, but not in the toilet like the dark years of 2015 to 2021. That meant government coffers filled, easing some of the debt burden accumulated during COVID. Oil and gas companies, producers and the many service providers who support the production, were able to continue paying down debt and providing returns to patient shareholders.
Canadian majors Suncor, Cenovus, and Enbridge went through leadership changes at the top. I wish these men success and courage. They are going to need it to embolden pragmatism at all levels of government.
The Canadian federal government continues to be all-in on climate and green energy, seemingly to the exclusion of traditional, reliable energy sources. Although, since climate change has taken a backseat to affordability and energy security for the voting public – the only people politicians really care about – the Liberals have had to rebrand some programs to get buy-in.
One example is renaming the “Just Transition” the Sustainable Jobs Plan. Other than the name, not much has changed. There is still a push for unionized, non-oil and gas jobs.
The feds “invested” (their word, not mine) billions of dollars in EV battery plants, continuing to go all-in on 100 percent EV car sales in twelve years. Senior bureaucrats at Transport Canada even touted the nearness of EV heavy-duty commercial transportation and equipment. (Someone should tell them it will not work well in remote locations with no charging infrastructure.) Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson lauded the day when agricultural equipment goes all electric, fantasizing about the economic boon that will bring. (Someone else should tell him it will not be experienced by farmers who have to spend their hard-earned dollars on equipment replacements.)
Joe Biden visited Ottawa in March. I happened to be there for a conference, so I got to experience the pomp and circumstance first-hand. I have never seen so much security, and I have travelled to places under military control and lived in a country that remains perpetually under the threat of foreign invasion.
Biden’s motorcade is a long, emissions-belching row of vehicles. I did not see any EVs. It includes two “Beasts” (one used as a decoy while the other transports the President), an ambulance, and several tricked-out SUVs. It is quite a spectacle.
As expected, topping the list of topics on the visit’s agenda, President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau talked about energy and climate, as outlined in their joint statement.
Global sustainability reporting standards were released in June and come into effect January 1, 2024. Publicly traded companies are waiting for Canada to release jurisdiction-specific regulations to understand the magnitude of what will be required. In the Fall Economic Update, released November 22, the feds said rules will be put in place to extend mandatory climate reporting to private companies. That is a big hint at what all companies should expect, at a minimum.
You can listen to my podcast on the subject with energy analyst Dr. Tammy Nemeth here.
On the topic of climate, Bill S-243, An Act to enact the Climate-Aligned Finance Act and to make related amendments to other Acts passed second reading in the Senate in June. You may think this is just some boring Senate bill, but oil and gas boards and employees need to be aware of it.
The bill aims to restrict investment in hydrocarbons, forces companies to set climate commitments, and dictates who has to be part of a company’s board of directors. Worse, section 13(1) Appointment – restriction outlines who cannot be a board member – anyone who works in or owns shares in a fossil fuel company.
It goes as far as to include: “And whereas investment in energy efficiency, clean energy and clean technologies and the incentivization of innovation and behavioural change must replace investments in greenhouse-gas-emission-intensive activities for effective action against climate change.” It targets “fossil fuel activity” in the definition of “emissions-intensive activities”.
Alignment with climate commitments requires that companies:
- take into consideration vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems, including the biodiversity of those ecosystems,
- make decisions based on equity and the best available science and
- do not promote, foster or exacerbate food insecurity or inequalities in society; and
- do not cause significant harm to social and environmental obligations recognized by Canada.
This bill should trouble any rational person, and it is not getting enough attention. It ramps up climate hysteria and enshrines it into all financial decision making. It is ideological to its core.
I encourage you to read the bill here.
Fortunately, two major, necessary egress projects – Coastal GasLink and Trans Mountain – are well underway before Bill S-243 can stop them. Coastal GasLink reached major milestones of 100 percent pipeline installation and mechanical completion, ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, the federally owned Trans Mountain pipeline has continued to experience delays and a cost increase to $30.9 billion. Although, it was about 80 percent complete in March and expected to be in service in the first quarter of 2024, the project has been delayed due to issues over the route and may not be completed until the end of 2024.
Canada’s summer wildfire season had environmental activists hot and bothered, blaming one thing, and one thing only – climate change!
Calgary hosted the 24th World Petroleum Congress and world energy leaders in September. The torch was passed on to Saudi Arabia to host next. Based on their booth, it will be an extravaganza that will undoubtedly proudly display their oil and gas development. Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson dutifully kept to the Liberal’s script and was challenged to mention the words “oil” and “gas” during his speech at the World Petroleum Congress. This caused the ire of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who has had it with the feds’ attitude towards oil and gas.
She has now invoked the Alberta Sovereignty Act in an attempt to prevent the federal government from being able to enact the Clean Electricity Standard by 2035. She has taken a lot of heat for it, but Saskatchewan’s Premier Scott Moe did it first with the colloquially named Saskatchewan First Act. When adversarial Environment and Climate Change Canada Minister Steven Guilbeault threatened to criminalize the use of coal-fired power generation past 2030, Moe puffed out his chest and said, “come get me!”
For all the partisan naysayers attacking the Premiers, I recommend reading Electricity Canada’s response to the Clean Electricity Regulations. It is emotionless and objective, and it sides with the Premiers.
Good thing there is serious discussion about the electricity grid and reliability happening in the Edmonton Legislature because Alberta’s grid operator AESO has issued several warnings in the last year, on both hot and cold days. This has me impatiently waiting for the 2,700 megawatts of new natural gas-powered generation to come on in 2024.
November was all about the carbon tax fight. The feds doubled down on the importance of carbon taxes in the fight against global warming, but not in regions where their sitting MPs risk losing their seats (i.e. their jobs) in the next election. If you think it was not political, you are fooling yourself. They are still fighting over the applicability of a tax on farmers. As someone who eats, I would like it removed to keep the cost of food down.
Premier Moe will not charge Saskatchewan residents carbon tax on natural gas and electricity used to heat homes. This seems reasonable considering that it gets really, really, really cold in Saskatchewan for many days in the winter and reliable energy is a must.
In a hotter region of the world, Dubai, United Arab Emirates hosted COP28 in December. It is the twenty eighth UN climate conference, and yet we appear no closer to solving the thing they say is a crisis – rising emissions. The globe reached the height of emissions in 2023, even though coal use is down and renewable energy capacity and investment is up, up, up, according to the International Energy Agency.
As expected, Canada made various expensive pledges. Minister Guilbeault bounces to the podium for a photo op, drops a climate pledge or two, and the rest of us are left trying to figure out how to meet the commitment. The most contentious for Alberta and Saskatchewan was the oil and gas emissions cap that has been called a de facto production cap.
GEOPOLITICS
With energy security remaining a priority for citizens, nuclear is no longer a bad word. Countries and regions are expanding existing nuclear infrastructure and there is increasing public acceptance for small modular reactors. The false fear tactics used by the anti-nuclear activists have finally been shown for what they are – exaggerated and untrue.
The BRICS alliance expanded with the addition of six new members: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates.
Not only are the BRICS nations population and economic power players, they hold the keys to unlocking vast reserves of reliable energy. Total oil production from BRICS nations will be between 40-45 percent of global oil production, more than OPEC’s 35-40 percent. In addition, the members hold vast reserves of the minerals needed for any future energy transformation.
Forty other countries applied to join, demonstrating an interest in the group. Western leaders and NGOs would be wise to pay attention to the growing influence of the BRICS, even if they dislike some of the members.
BRICS is my geopolitical story of the year as it continues to disrupt global energy markets. In 2022, India increased purchases of discounted Russian oil by forty percent. This year, India purchased oil from the United Arab Emirates in rupees, their local currency. These are two examples of the shifts that are happening but are seemingly ignored by the West.
Overall, it appears that pragmatism and realism are influencing political energy decisions, and 2024 is expected to be another positive year for the Canadian oil patch.
All the best for the new year. May you enjoy peace and prosperity.
About Deidra Garyk
Deidra Garyk has been working in the Canadian energy industry for almost 20 years. She is currently the Manager, ESG & Sustainability at an oilfield service company. Prior to that, she worked in roles of varying seniority at exploration and production companies in joint venture contracts where she was responsible for working collaboratively with stakeholders to negotiate access to pipelines, compressors, plants, and batteries.
Outside of her professional commitments, Deidra is an energy advocate and thought leader who researches, writes, and speaks about energy policy and advocacy to promote balanced, honest, fact-based conversations.
““He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.” George Bernard Shaw
In the days immediately following Donald Trump’s rude intervention into the 2025 Canadian federal election— suggesting Canada might best choose American statehood— two schools of thought emerged.
The first and most impactful school in the short term was the fainting-goat response of Canadian’s elites. Sensing an opening in which to erode Pierre Poilievre’s massive lead in the 2024 polls over Justin Trudeau, the Laurentian elite concocted Elbows Up, a self-pity response long on hurt feelings and short on addressing the issues Trump had cited in his trashing of the Canadian nation state.
In short order they fired Trudeau into oblivion, imported career banker Mark Carney as their new leader in a sham convention and convinced Canada’s Boomers that Trump had the tanks ready to go into Saskatchewan at a moment’s notice. The Elbows Up meme— citing Gordie Howe— clinched the group pout.
(In fact, Trump has said that America is the world’s greatest market, and if those who’ve used it for free in the past [Canada] want to keep special access they need to pay tariffs to the U.S. or drop protectionist charges on dairy and more against the U.S.)
The ruse worked out better than they could have ever imagined with Trump even saying he preferred to negotiate with Carney over Poilievre. In short order the Tories were shoved aside, the NDP kneecapped and the pet media anointed Carney the genius skewing Canada away from its largest trade partner to the Eurosphere. We remain in that bubble, although the fulsome promises of Carney’s first days are now coming due.
Which brings us to the second reaction. That was Alberta premier Danielle Smith bolting to Mar A Lago in the days following Trump’s comments. Her goal was to put pride aside and accept that a new world order was in play for Canada. She met with U.S. officials and, briefly, with Trump to remind them that Canada’s energy industry was integral to American prosperity and Canadian stability.
Needless to say, the fainting goats pitched a fit that not everyone was clutching pearls and rending garments in the wake of Trump’s dismissive assessment of his northern neighbours. Their solution to Trump was to join China in retaliatory tariffs— the only two nations to do so— and to boycott American products and travel. Like the ascetic monks they cut themselves off from real life. Trump has yet to get back to Carney the Magnificent
And Smith? She was a “traitor” or a “subversive” who should be keel hauled in the North Saskatchewan. For much of the intervening months she has been attacked at home in Alberta by the N-Deeps and in Ottawa by just about everyone on CBC, CTV, Global and the Globe & Mail. “How could she meet with the Cheeto?”
Nonetheless conservatives in the province moved toward a more independence within Canada. Smith articulated her demands for Alberta to prevent a referendum on whether to remain within Confederation. At the top of her list were pipelines and access to tidewater. Ergo, a no-go for BC’s squish premier David Eby who is the process of handing over his province to First Nations.
It became obvious that for all of Carney’s alleged diplomacy in Europe and Asia (is the man ever home?) he had a brewing disaster in the West with Alberta and Saskatchewan growing restless. In a striking move against the status quo, Nutrien announced it would ship its potash to tidewater via the U.S., thereby bypassing Vancouver’s strike-prone, outdated port and denying them billions.
Suddenly, Smith’s business approach began making eminent good sense if the goal is to keep Canada as one. So we saw last week’s “memorandum of understanding” between Alberta and Ottawa trading off carbon capture and carbon taxes for potential pipelines to tidewater on the B.C. coast. A little bit of something for everyone and a surrender on other things.
The most amazing feature of the Mark Carney/Danielle Smith MOU is that both politicians probably need the deal to fail. Carney can tell fossil-fuel enemy Quebec that he tried to reason with Smith, and Smith can say she tried to meet the federalists halfway. Failure suits their larger purposes. Which is for Carney to fold Canada into Euro climate insanity and Smith into a strong leverage against the pro-Canada petitioners in her province.
Soon enough, at the AFN Special Chiefs Assembly, FN Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told Carney that “Turtle Island” (the FN term for North America popularized by white hippy poet Gary Snyder) belongs to the FN people “from coast to coast to coast.” The pusillanimous Eby quickly piped up about tanker bans and the sanctity of B.C. waters etc.
Others pointed out the massive flaw in a plan to attract private interests to build a vital bitumen pipeline if the tankers it fills are not allowed to sail through the Dixon Entrance to get to Asia.
But then Eby got Nutrien’s message that his power-sharing with the indigenous might cause other provinces to bypass B.C. (imagine California telling Texas it can’t ship through its ports over moral objections to a product). He’s now saying he’s open to pipelines but not to lift the tanker ban along the coast. Whatever.
Meanwhile the kookaburras of isolation back east continue with virtue signalling on American booze— N.S. to sell off its remains stocks — while dreaming that Trump’s departure will lead to the good-old days of reliance on America’s generosity.
But Smith looks to be wining the race. B.C.’s population shrank 0.04 percent in the second quarter of 2025, the only jurisdiction in Canada to do so. Meanwhile, Alberta is heading toward five million people, with interprovincial migrants making up 21 percent of its growth.
But what did you expect from the Carney/ Eby Tantrum Tandem? They keep selling fear in place of GDP. As GBS observed, “You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.”
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
This article supplied by Troy Media.
By Gwyn Morgan
Canada is paying a steep economic price for climate policies that have delivered little real environmental progress
In 2015, the newly elected Trudeau government signed the Paris Agreement. The following year saw the imposition of the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which included more than 50 measures aimed at “reducing carbon emissions and fostering clean technology solutions.” Key among them was economy-wide carbon “pricing,” Liberal-speak for taxes.
Other measures followed, culminating last December in the 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, targeting emissions of 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. It included $9.1 billion for retrofitting structures, subsidizing zero-emission vehicles, building charging stations and subsidizing solar panels and windmills. It also mandated the phaseout of coal-fired power generation and proposed stringent emission standards for vehicles and buildings.
Other “green initiatives” included the “on-farm climate action fund,” a nationwide reforestation initiative to plant two billion trees, the “Green and Inclusive Community Buildings Program” to promote net-zero standards in new construction, and a “Green Municipal Fund” to support municipal decarbonization. That’s a staggering list of nation-impoverishing subsidies, taxes and restrictions.
Those climate measures come at a real cost to the industry that drives the nation’s economy.
The Trudeau government cancelled the Northern Gateway oil pipeline to the northwest coast, which had been approved by the Harper government, costing sponsors hundreds of millions of dollars in preconstruction expenditures. The political and regulatory morass the Liberals created eventually led to the cancellation of all but one of the 12 LNG export proposals.
Have all those taxes and regulatory measures reduced Canada’s fossil-fuel consumption? No. As Bjorn Lomborg has reported, between the election of the Trudeau government in 2015 through 2023, fossil fuels’ share of Canada’s energy supply increased from 75 to 77 per cent.
That dismal result wasn’t for lack of trying. The Fraser Institute has found that Ottawa and the four biggest provinces have either spent or forgone a mind-numbing $158 billion to create just 68,000 “clean” jobs, increasing the “green economy” by a minuscule 0.3 percentage points to 3.6 per cent of GDP at an eye-watering cost of more than $2.3 million per job.
That’s Canada’s emissions reduction debacle. What’s the global picture? A decade after Paris, 80 per cent of the world’s energy still comes from fossil fuels. World energy demand is up 150 per cent. Canada, which produces roughly 1.5 per cent of global emissions, cannot influence that trajectory. And, as Lomborg writes: “achieving net zero emissions by 2050 would require the removal of the equivalent of the combined emissions of China and the United States in each of the next five years. This puts us in the realm of science fiction.”
Does this mean our planet will become unlivable? A U.S. Department of Energy report issued in July is grounds for optimism. It finds that “claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts are not supported by U.S. historical data.” And it goes on: “CO2-induced warming appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed and aggressive mitigation policies could be more detrimental than beneficial.”
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright responded to the report by saying: “Climate change is real … but it is not the greatest threat facing humanity … (I)mproving the human condition depends on access to reliable, affordable energy.”
That leaves no doubt as to where our largest trading partner stands on carbon emissions. But don’t expect Prime Minister Mark Carney, who helped launch the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) at COP 26 in that city in 2021 and co-chaired it until this January, to soften his stand on carbon taxes. His just-released budget imposes carbon tax increases of $80 to $170 per ton by 2030 on our already struggling industries.
Doing so increases Canadian businesses’ competitive disadvantage with our most important trading partner while doing essentially nothing to help the environment.
Gwyn Morgan is a retired business leader who has been a director of five global corporations.
Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.
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