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Ottawa’s Regulatory Assault on the Extraction Sector and Its Impact on Investment

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9 minute read

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

Business investment is a foundational requirement for a prosperous economy. It provides the resources to establish new companies, expand existing ones, and invest in new factories, machinery, and technologies. Business investment in Canada has declined markedly for over a decade. It is a major reason why Canadian living standards are stagnating in absolute terms and declining relative to many peer countries, particularly the United States.1

One factor behind declining business investment is the heavy regulatory burden imposed by the current federal government on the extraction sector, which includes: mining, quarrying, and oil and gas. Since 1990, this sector averaged 17.3 percent of total non-residential business investment, and reached as high as 28.7 percent of the total in 2013.2

The federal government has been particularly critical of the oil and gas sector. As an example of such sentiment, in a 2017 speech Prime Minister Trudeau said it would take time to “phase out” the oil sands, indicating the long-term goal of the federal government to eliminate the fossil fuel industry (Muzyka, 2017). The prime minister’s comments were followed by a number of new regulations that directly or indirectly targeted the oil and gas sector:

• In 2019, Bill C-69 amended and introduced federal acts to overhaul the governmental review process for approving major infrastructure projects (Parliament of Canada, 2018). The changes were heavily criticized for prolonging the already lengthy approval process, increasing uncertainty, and further politicizing the process (Green, 2019).

• In 2019, Bill C-48 changed regulations for vessels transporting oil to and from ports on British Columbia’s northern coast, effectively banning such shipments and thus limiting the ability of Canadian firms to export (Parliament of Canada, 2019).

• Indications from the federal government that a mandatory hard cap on GHG emissions would eventually be introduced for the oil and gas sector. In 2023, such a cap was introduced (Kane and Orland, 2023), excluding other GHG emitting sectors of the economy (Watson, 2022).

• In early 2023, the government announced new fuel regulations, which will further increase the cost of fuels beyond the carbon tax (ECCC, 2023).

• In late 2023, with limited consultation with industry or the provinces, the Trudeau government announced major new regulations for methane emissions in the oil and gas sector, which will almost inevitably raise costs and curtail production (Tasker, 2016).

The growing regulatory burden has a number of implications that impede or even prohibit oil and gas investment, by increasing costs and uncertainty, making it less attractive to invest in Canada. Both a 2022 survey of mining companies and a 2023 survey of petroleum companies identified the same three risks as inhibiting investment in Canadian provinces—uncertainty over disputed land claims, protected areas, and environmental regulations.3

It is also important to recognize that the Trudeau government introduced a carbon tax in 2016, which conceptually should replace regulations related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as those listed previously rather than be an additional policy lever used to manage GHG emissions.4

The regulations discussed above, as well as direct decisions by the federal government had tangible effects on the oil and gas sector:

• In late 2016, the Northern Gateway pipeline running from northern Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia was cancelled by the Trudeau government, further limiting the ability of firms in Alberta to get their products to export markets (Tasker, 2016).

• In 2017, TransCanada Corp. cancelled its $15.7 billion Energy East pipeline, which would have transported oil from Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick. The project was cancelled in large measure due to changes in national policy regarding the approval of large infrastructure projects (Canadian Press, 2017).

• While the Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby, BC was approved, Kinder Morgan exited the project in 2018 due to uncertainties and questions about the economics of the project, forcing the Trudeau government to take the ownership. The cost of the project has since increased by more than four times the original estimate to $30.9 billion (Globe and Mail Editorial Board, 2023).

• In 2019, US-based Devon Energy announced plans to exit Canada’s oilsands to pursue more profitable opportunities in the United States (Healing, 2019).

• In 2020, Teck Resources abandoned its $20 billion Frontier oilsands mine in Alberta because of increasing regulatory uncertainty (Connolly, 2020).

• In 2020, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway decided not to invest $4 billion in Saguenay LNG, a liquified natural gas plant and pipeline, due to political and regulatory risks (CBC News, 2020).

The divestitures above are not an exhaustive list. Other companies including Norwegian Equinor (formerly Statoil), France’s TotalEnergies SE (formerly Total SA), US-based Murphy Oil, and ConocoPhillips have all reduced their investments in Canada’s oil and gas sector.

The government’s mounting regulations and hostilities towards the oil and gas sector did not go unnoticed outside of Canada. A 2018 article in The Economist listed the many failures to develop pipeline infrastructure in Canada to bring much-demanded oil and gas to market. Indeed, the piece called it a “three-ring circus” that risked “alienating foreign investors who are already pulling back from Canada” (Economist, 2018).

It is first important to acknowledge the overall decline in business investment in Canada since 2014. Overall, total non-residential business investment (inflation-adjusted) declined by 7.3 percent between 2014 and 2022.5, 6

The decline in business investment in the extractive sector (mining, quarrying, and oil and gas) is even more pronounced. Since 2014, business investment excluding residential structures and adjusted for inflation has declined from $101.9 billion to $49.7 billion in 2022, a reduction of 51.2 percent (figure 1).7


A similar decline in business investment of 52.1 percent is observed for conventional oil and gas, falling from $46.6 billion in 2014 to $22.3 billion in 2022 (inflation-adjusted) (figure 1). In percentage terms the decline in non-conventional oil extraction was even larger at 71.2 percent, falling from $37.3 billion in 2014 to $10.7 billion in 2022.8

Simply put, the declines in the extraction sector are larger than the total decline in overall non-residential business
investment between 2014 and 2022, indicating the magnitude of the overall effect of the decline in business investment in this sector.

The importance of business investment to the health of an economy and the rising living standards of citizens cannot be overstated. One of the major challenges facing Canadian prosperity are regulatory barriers, particularly in the oil and gas sector.

In that light, much of the regulatory burden added over the last eight years to the oil and gas sector should simply be eliminated. In some ways this is already being forced on the federal government through court decisions. For instance, in October of 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that parts of Bill C-69 were unconstitutional as they infringed on areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction, requiring revisions to the Act (Dryden, 2023).

A careful and clear analysis is needed of the costs and benefits of the regulatory measures imposed on the oil and gas sector, including Bill C-48, the recent methane regulations, and the emissions cap. Based on this analysis, the regulatory measures should be adjusted to help improve the ability of Canada’s energy sector to attract and retain investment.

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Business

Will Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs End In Disaster Or Prosperity?

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By J.D. Foster

“Liberation Day” has come. So what does it mean? Beats the hell out of me.

What we know is that President Trump’s avalanche of tariffs was to hit a peak on April 2; not end, mind you; not necessarily “the” peak, as more could be on the way; but a peak.

No Trump policy more completely breaks with America’s past than his “beautiful” tariffs on just about everything coming into the United States from just about anywhere.

Will this new policy liberate American manufacturing from foreign shackles? Will it usher in a new era of prosperity, keeping in mind the United States had for many years the consistently best-performing economy in the industrialized world, even overcoming the many inane obstacles erected by the Biden-Harris Administration?

Or will it leave the United States isolated, friendless, and weakened?

The correct answer at this point is no one knows, not even the bloviating talking heads on TV confidently predicting demise or Shangri-la.

Think of it this way. Suppose you’re a restaurant chef and a woman hands you a new recipe. Her father turns 75 soon and they want to have a party at the restaurant. The recipe is for the father’s favorite dish, one her mother made for years.

The recipe looks old, with odd ingredients and processes you’ve not seen before. Now judge it as a chef.

You can’t. Even as you start chopping and dicing, mixing ingredients as instructed, you’re not too sure how this is going to turn out. You have to wait until the dish is on the plate and taste it.

That’s the case with Trump’s tariffs. How will this all turn out? It’s too soon to tell.

The stock market sure doesn’t like it, but why should it? The investor class doesn’t understand this any better than you do. What they do understand is this new policy has upended assumptions and created enormous new uncertainties. We know that dish as those ingredients are always good for a big pullback.

Much of the confusion arises because we don’t know the underlying policy and likely this uncertainty is intentional. Trump likes keeping his counterparts, in this case our trading partners, guessing. If it means Americans are confused for a bit, Trump’s cool with that. Breaking eggs to make an omelette. It will pass and America will be great again afterward. Bon appetite.

If the core policy is to erect massive and mostly permanent tariff walls behind which American firms can hide, then we know how this will turn out: America, meet the dustbin of history.

If the core policy is to force our trading partners to deal with America fairly by reducing their trade barriers after which Trump will remove his tariffs, then this could turn out very well. Tariffs (and non-tariff barriers) in the U.S. and those of our trading partners would fall, reinvigorating the free trade that has energized prosperity for decades.

Which is it? Walls and doom or freedom and prosperity? Again, too early to tell.

Whatever else Trump does in his second term, these tariffs will define his presidency, akin in consequence to Ronald Reagan’s pro-growth tax cuts and Joe Biden’s inflation.

Trump in his second term clearly lives by the saying, “go bold or go home.” He’s got “bold” down pat. We will see over the next year or so whether he and the Republicans go home. Has he liberated Democrats from any fear of Republicans in the mid-terms or in 2028, or he’s liberated America from any fear of Democratic socialism and wokism returning in our lifetimes. The chips are all-in. Soon we will see the cards. Uncertainty, indeed.

JD Foster is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.

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2025 Federal Election

Mark Carney is trying to market globalism as a ‘Canadian value.’ Will it work?

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From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

A campaign to appeal to national sentiment is a strange gambit for Liberals – committed as they are to the replacement of the nation with globalist policies.

The storm over Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs over the Canadian border crisis has been baked into a vote-winning meme by Canada’s Liberal Party. Yet with an election only weeks away on April 28, can a sentimental appeal to a vanished Canada secure a win for Mark Carney?  

Trump’s tariffs were expected to hit Canada on Wednesday’s “Liberation Day,” refueling a furor over Canadian sovereignty which has led some to say this is “shaping up to be the trade war election.”

Responding to the tariffs, which ultimately never came to fruition in the way the Liberals were warning, a meme war broke out with Carney responding to harsh reality with a feelgood slogan.  

“Elbows up!” is the new Current Thing in Canada, a media craze designed to stir nationalist indignation in elderly voters who may even remember the 1950s origin of the phrase.  

The elbows refer to those of Gordie Howe – a 1950s hockey legend from Saskatchewan – a conservative province – and from a time when Canada was populated by Canadians.  

It bears all the hallmarks of an “astroturf” campaign – intended to look authentic, but in reality a manufactured mass belief for marketing purposes. 

“Elbows up” seeks to inspire a fighting mood against the threat – or promise – of tariffs on Canadian trade with the U.S.  

Carney will ‘cave’

It is a classic example of the manipulation of popular feeling into political allegiance. How will the feelings of aging voters affect the imposition of tariffs? Not at all. Nor will the Canadian Prime Minister be able to stop them.  

Silence over ‘devastating’ Chinese tariffs caused by Trudeau

Why? Carney has no alternative. He has already “caved” – to China – over the same issue. “Devastating” Chinese tariffs took effect over a week ago in Canada, as Global News reported:  

Canadian agricultural producers are warning of devastating impacts from new Chinese tariffs that began Thursday (March 20th), which they say will compound the economic strain from the U.S. trade war.

The tariffs are severe, and will have a dramatic impact – as China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner behind the United States. 

“China has imposed a 100 per cent levy on Canadian canola oil and meal, as well as peas, plus a 25 per cent duty on seafood and pork,” the outlet reported.  

These tariffs cannot be corrected by hockey memes, and are a response to tariffs placed on Chinese goods by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Liberal Party – seeking election over outrage on tariffs – has created a tariff crisis, whose costs will be borne by the people who vote for them.  

There are no “elbows up” against China. In fact, their tariffs have been greeted with silence from Carney, who has said U.S.-Canada relations are at an end. 

Corruption, drug cartels in Canada

Anger at Donald Trump obscures the serious problems which prompted his suggestion that Canada could be absorbed into the United States. “Elbows Up” is a cool way of making Canadians look past the fact that the crisis they inhabit has been created by the Liberals and their globalist agenda. 

On February 1, Trump issued an executive order “Imposing duties to address the flow of illicit drugs across our northern border.”

Terry Glavin, writing in January for Canada’s National Post, dismissed Trump’s earlier claims of a crisis over Canadian “border security and drug trafficking” as a “pretext” for his “…declared objective of exerting ‘economic force’ to annex Canada as the 51st American state.” 

Yet this too appears to be a fantasy inspired by national sentiment – which simply ignores reality. 

As LifeSiteNews reported, Canada’s second bank has laundered over 18 trillion dollars in the U.S. and Canada for Mexican and Chinese drug cartels. The world’s largest fentanyl factory was discovered in Vancouver in February.    

Canada a ‘failed state’?

The serious issue of corruption by Chinese Triads combines with a picture of impotent Canadian law and border enforcement to suggest that Canada may be, as Glavin warned, “approaching failed-state status.” When the memes wear off, this is the reality faced by Canadian voters.  

Canadians have complained since 2017 that life is too expensive to have a family. 

Now “a generation” cannot afford a home, and many struggle to pay for groceries. Help is at hand, however.  

Their Liberal government supports Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) – killing the elderly, poor and ill as healthcare – whilst promoting radical “gender” ideology to help sterilize children. 

Will Carney come to the rescue?  

Carney is a committed “Net Zero” fanatic, and is the kind of “Catholic” who fervently supports abortion.  

His moral integrity is demonstrated further by the fact that his $25 billion “green” investment fund was located in Bermuda to dodge Canadian taxes. 

As the Canadian Catholic Register cautions, “[Carney] is a well-connected globalist with deep ties to institutions such as the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, Bank for International Settlements, and the Financial Stability Board.” 

Globalist ‘Canadian’ values

National identity is a strange appeal to make on behalf of a party which appears to be working hard to replace Canadians with immigrants, and which is now lead by a globalist technocrat.  

It is the values of globalism, of course, which are presented to voters as “Canadian values”: open borders, LGBTQ “rights,” “gender” surgery and hormones for children, and the Net Zero deindustrialization program strongly supported by the Liberal leader Mark Carney.  

How long can this appeal to save the nation of Canada from foreign influence convince Canadians to vote for more of the same? The Liberal Party has led Canada into crisis, presiding over corruption so severe that its police, judicial and border authorities are deemed incapable of being trusted by the USA.   

This is not a charge made solely by the Trump administration, but also under Biden – with Antony Blinken pressing the matter of the insecurity of the Canadian border as far back as 2022. In the coming weeks, the real issues which have consigned Canada to a fond memory may well shrink the Liberal lead reported by the polls. 

What do the polls say?

With some headlines trumpeting an “eight point lead” for the Liberals, others show a narrower advantage for the globalist Carney – and one leading firm has them tied with the Conservatives. 

Abacus Data’s March 30 poll had both parties neck and neck at 39%. Abacus, who describe themselves as “Canada’s most sought-after, influential, and impactful polling firm,” “…were one of the most accurate pollsters conducting research during the 2021 Canadian election.”

A second poll shows a narrower lead, and a clear bonus for Carney for simply not being Justin Trudeau.  

338 Canada showed a four point lead for the Liberals on March 31, and its graph clearly illustrates that their lead relies on disaffected NDP voters – and the collapse of the Bloc Quebecois vote. 

Reality enters the chat 

With the issues at home now overtaking Trump and his tariffs, the cost of living and those allied to mass migration such as housing are returning to the forefront of voters’ minds. The issue of reality – and who is the real Mark Carney – may well overtake the fake nationalism of “Elbows up.”

A campaign to appeal to national sentiment is a strange gambit for Liberals – committed as they are to the replacement of the nation with globalist policies – and of its people through mass immigration. Carney has been powerless to halt Chinese tariffs. He is powerless to halt those of Donald Trump.  

If Canadians can see beyond cringe hockey memes these two issues are clearly a reaction to the actions and inaction of a Liberal-led Canada. This is the reason that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is campaigning on the harm done to Canadians by the “lost Liberal decade.” If Canadians can be persuaded by the argument presented by reality, it seems unlikely they will vote for another – whatever the polls may say.

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