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Red Deer Chamber Hears Energy Industry Update

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img_2964 (Chris Montgomery – Manager, E & P, Communications and Outreach – Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers)

By Sheldon Spackman

With many in Central Alberta wondering when things are going to turn around in the Oilpatch, the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce received an update on the current state of the industry during their monthly luncheon on Tuesday.

The Chamber’s Guest speaker was Chris Montgomery, President of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers or CAPP. Montgomery says the bottom line is they’re not sure just yet when things are going to turn around. Montgomery says certain conditions need to be in place for that to happen, with many factors involved.

He says the first being prices and cost structures to be right, making sure government has the right policy environment and most importantly, making sure the industry can move it’s product to other markets, aside from the U.S., which is not only the Canadian Energy Industry’s biggest customer but also it’s biggest competitor.

Montgomery says it’s extremely important for Canada to get it’s products to other foreign markets like Asia for example and shipped from the shores of our country. Right now, Canadian energy products have to go through the U.S. before getting shipped elsewhere. However, with the U.S. increasing it’s supply of Oil and Natural Gas, Montgomery says it now makes even less sense for us to rely on the States to ship our products.

Montgomery says there are three pipeline projects that could address this issue. The Northern Gateway Pipeline that would ship Alberta oil to Kitimat, B.C., the existing Kinder Morgan Pipeline that goes through Burnaby, B.C. and the Energy East Pipeline that would ship Alberta crude to St. John, New Brunswick. He says the fates of those projects could be determined by the Federal government over the course of the next few months.

Over the last three years, Montgomery says there has been a 62 percent reduction in Capital Investment in Canada’s Oil and Natural Gas Industry, a roughly $50 billion dollar drop to $31 billion dollars.

As for drilling activity, the industry forecast anticipates 3,562 wells to be drilled in Western Canada this year, roughly a third of what was drilled two years ago.

Alberta’s provincial government also has a carbon levy planned for the new year as part of it’s efforts to help fight climate change. Montgomery says he would like to see that get done the right way as well, particularily when it comes to methane emissions. He says the government’s policies in that regard can’t impact a company’s ability to operate.

Montgomery says there is some positive news though, saying there is roughly $30 billion dollars in private capital ready to be invested into Canada’s Oil and Natural Gas Industry, once we can get those products to other foreign markets from our shores.

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Banks

Wall Street Clings To Green Coercion As Trump Unleashes American Energy

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From theĀ Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Isaac

The Trump administrationā€™s recent move to revoke Biden-era restrictions on energy development inĀ Alaskaā€™s North Slopeā€”especially in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)ā€”is a long-overdue correction that prioritizes American prosperity and energy security. This regulatory reset rightly acknowledges what Alaskaā€™s Native communities have long known: responsible energy development offers a path to economic empowerment and self-determination.

But while Washingtonā€™s red tape may be unraveling, a more insidious blockade remains firmly in place: Wall Street.

Despite the Trump administrationā€™s restoration of rational permitting processes, major banks and insurance companies continue to collude in starving projects of the capital and risk management services they need. The leftā€™s ā€œdebankingā€ strategyā€”originally a tactic to pressure gun makers and disfavored industriesā€”is now being weaponized against American energy companies operating in ANWR and similar regions.

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This quiet embargo began years ago, when JPMorgan Chase, Americaā€™s largest bank,Ā declaredĀ in 2020 that it would no longer fund oil and gas development in the Arctic, including ANWR. Others quickly followed: Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup now all reject Arctic energy projectsā€”effectively shutting down access to capital for an entire region.

Insurers have joined the pile-on. Swiss Re, AIG, and AXIS Capital all publicly stated theyĀ wouldĀ no longerĀ insureĀ drilling in ANWR. In 2023,Ā ChubbĀ became the first U.S.-based insurer to formalize its Arctic ban.

These policies are not merely misguidedā€”they are dangerous. They hand Americaā€™s energy future over to OPEC, China, and hostile regimes. They reduce competition, drive up prices, and kneecap the very domestic production that once made the U.S. energy independent.

This isnā€™t just a theoretical concern. Iā€™ve experienced this discrimination firsthand.

In February 2025, The Hartford notified the American Energy Instituteā€”an educational nonprofit I leadā€”that it would not renew our insurance policy. The reason? Not risk. Not claims. Not underwriting. The Hartford cited our Facebook page.

ā€œThe reason for nonrenewal is we have learned from your Facebook page that your operations include Trade association involved in promoting social/political causes related to energy production. This is not an acceptable exposure under The Hartfordā€™s Small Commercial business segmentā€™s guidelines.ā€

Thatā€™s a direct quote from theirĀ nonrenewal notice.

Letā€™s be clear: The Hartford didnā€™t drop us for anything we didā€”they dropped us for what we believe. Our unacceptable ā€œexposureā€ is telling the truth about the importance of affordable and reliable energy to modern life, and standing up toĀ ESGĀ orthodoxy. We are being punished not for risk, but for advocacy.

This is financial discrimination, pure and simple. What weā€™re seeing is the private-sector enforcement of political ideology through the strategic denial of access to financial services. Itā€™s ESGā€”Environmental, Social, and Governanceā€”gone full Orwell.

Banks, insurers, and asset managers may claim these decisions are about ā€œclimate risk,ā€ but they rarely apply the same scrutiny to regimes likeĀ VenezuelaĀ orĀ China, where environmental and human rights abusesĀ are rampant. The issue is not risk. The issue is control.

By shutting out projects in ANWR, Wall Street ensures that even if federal regulators step back, their ESG-aligned agenda still moves forwardā€”through corporate pressure, shareholder resolutions, and selective financial access. This is how ideology replaces democracy.

While the Trump administration deserves praise for removing federal barriers, the fight for energy freedom continues. Policymakers must hold financial institutions accountable for ideological discrimination and protect access to banking and insurance services for all lawful businesses.

Texas has already taken steps byĀ divestingĀ from anti-energy financial firms. Other states should follow, enforcing anti-discrimination laws and leveraging state contracts to ensure fair treatment.

But public pressure matters too. Americans need to know whatā€™s happening behind the curtain of ESG. The green financial complex is not just virtue-signalingā€”itā€™s a form of economic coercion designed to override public policy and undermine U.S. sovereignty.

The regulatory shackles may be coming off, but the private-sector blockade remains. As long as banks and insurers collude to deny access to capital and risk protection for projects in ANWR and beyond, Americaā€™s energy independence will remain under threat.

We need to call out this hypocrisy. We need to expose it. And we need to fight itā€”before we lose not just our energy freedom, but our economic prosperity.

The Honorable Jason Isaac is the Founder and CEO of theĀ American Energy Institute. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

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2025 Federal Election

Donā€™t let the Liberals fool you on electric cars

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CAE LogoĀ Dan McTeague

ā€œThe Liberals, hoodwinked by the ideological (and false) narrative that EVs are better for the environment, want to force you to replace the car or truck you love with one you canā€™t afford which doesnā€™t do what you need it to do.”

The Liberalsā€™ carbon tax ploy is utterly shameless. For years theyā€™ve been telling us that the Carbon Tax was a hallmark of Canadian patriotism, that it was the best way to save the planet, that it was really a ā€œprice on pollution,ā€ which would ultimately benefit the little guy, in the form of a rebate in which Canadians would get back all the money they paid in, and more!

Meanwhile big, facelessĀ Captain PlanetĀ villainĀ corporations ā€” who are out there wrecking the planet for the sheer fun of it! ā€” will shoulder the whole burden.

But then, as people started to feel the hit to their wallets and polling on the topic fell off a cliff, the Liberalsā€™ newly anointed leader ā€” theĀ  environmentalistĀ fanaticĀ Mark Carney ā€” threw himself a Trumpian signing ceremony, at which he and the party (at least rhetorically) kicked the carbon tax to the curb and started patting themselves on the back for saving Canada from the foul beast. ā€œDonā€™t ask where it came from,ā€ they seem to be saying. ā€œThe point is, itā€™s gone.ā€

Of course,Ā itā€™s not. The Consumer Carbon Tax has been zeroed out, at least for the moment, not repealed. Meanwhile, the Industrial Carbon Tax, on business and industry, is not only being left in place, itā€™s being talked up in exactly the same terms as the Consumer Tax was.

No matter that it will continue to go up at the same rate as the Consumer Tax would have, such that it will be indistinguishable from the Consumer Tax by 2030. And no matter that the burden of that tax will ultimately be passed down to working Canadians in the form of higher prices.

Of course, when that happens, Carney & Co will probably blame Donald Trump, rather than their own crooked tax regime.

Yes, it is shameless. But it also puts Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives in a bind. Theyā€™ve been proclaiming their intention to ā€œAxe the Taxā€ for quite some time now. On the energy file, it was pretty much all you could get them to talk about. So much so thatĀ I was worriedĀ that upon entering government, they might just go after the low hanging fruit, repeal the Carbon Tax, and move on to other things, leaving the rest of the rotten Net-Zero superstructure in place.

But now, since the Liberals beat them to it (or claim they did,) the Conservatives are left grasping for a straightforward, signature policy which they can use to differentiate themselves from their opponents.

Poilievreā€™s recently announcedĀ intentionĀ to kill the Industrial Carbon Tax is welcome, especially at a time when Canadian business is under a tariff threat from both the U.S. and China. But that requires some explanation, and as the old political saying goes, ā€œIf youā€™re explaining, youā€™re losing.ā€

There is one policy change however, which comes to mind as a potential replacement. Itā€™s bold, it would make the lives of Canadians materially better, and itā€™s so deeply interwoven with the ā€œGreenā€ grift of the environmentalist movement of which Mark Carney is so much a part that his party couldnā€™t possibly bring themselves to steal it.

Pierre Poilievre should pledge to repeal the Liberalsā€™ Electric Vehicle mandate.

The EV mandate isĀ bad policy. It forces Canadians to buy an expensive product ā€” EVs cost more than Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles even when the federal government was subsidizing their purchase with a taxpayer-funded rebate of $5,000 per vehicle, but that program ran out of money in January and wasĀ discontinued. Without that rebate, EVs havenā€™t a prayer of competing with ICE vehicles.

EVs are particularly ill-suited for Canada. Their batteries areĀ bad at holding a chargeĀ in the cold. Even in mild weather, EVsĀ arenā€™tĀ known for their reliability, a major downside in a country as spread out as ours. Maybe itā€™ll work out if you live in a big city, but what if youā€™re in the country? Heaven help you if your EV battery dies when youā€™re an hour away from everywhere.

Moreover, Canada doesnā€™t have the infrastructure to support a total replacement of gas-and-diesel driven vehicles with EVs. Our already-strained electrical grid just doesnā€™t have the capacity to support millions of EVs being plugged in every night. Natural Resources CanadaĀ estimatesĀ that we will need somewhere in the neighborhood of 450,000 public charging stations to support an entirely electric fleet. At the moment, we have roughly 30,000. Thatā€™s a pretty big gap to fill in ten years.

And thatā€™s another fact which doesnā€™t get nearly as much attention as it should. The law mandates that every new vehicle sold in Canada must be electric by 2035. Maybe that sounded incredibly far in the future when it was passed, but now itā€™s only ten years away! Thatā€™s not a lot of time for these technological problems or cost issues to be resolved.

So the pitch from Poilievre here is simple.

ā€œThe Liberals, hoodwinked by the ideological (and false) narrative that EVs are better for the environment, want to force you to replace the car or truck you love with one you canā€™t afford which doesnā€™t do what you need it to do. If you vote Conservative, we will fix that, so you will be free to buy the vehicle that meets your needs, whether itā€™s battery or gas powered, because we trust you to make decisions for yourself. Mark Carney, on the other hand, does not. We wonā€™t just Axe the Tax, we will End the EV Mandate!ā€

A decade (and counting) of Liberal misrule has saddled this country with a raft of onerous and expensive Net-Zero legislation Iā€™d like to see the Conservative Party campaign against.

These include so-called ā€œClean Fuelā€ Regulations, Emissions Caps, their war on pipelines and Natural Gas terminals, not to mentionĀ Bill C-59, which bans businesses from touting the environmental benefits of their work if it doesnā€™t meet a government-approved standard.

But the EV mandate is bad for Canada, and terrible for Canadians. A pledge to repeal it would be an excellent start.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

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