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Mark Ruffalo, Hollywood filmmakers wrong about Canadian energy, RBC

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Hollywood actors Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Joaquin Phoenix are pressuring TIFF to remove RBC as a sponsor because of the bank’s support for Canadian oil and gas. Getty Images photos

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko
 

They say RBC is not a ‘worthy source of financing’ for Canadian film because of its ongoing support for Canadian oil and gas. They are wrong

A group of Hollywood filmmakers including Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix and Rachel McAdams is calling on the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to drop RBC as its main sponsor. 

They say RBC is not a “worthy source of financing” for Canadian film because of its ongoing support for Canadian oil and gas. They claim RBC is fueling climate change and disrespecting Indigenous rights.  

They are wrong.  

RBC is helping fund climate solutions while enabling Indigenous self-determination and prosperity. And Indigenous communities do not want Hollywood to speak for them.  

Here are the facts.  

Fact: RBC primarily funds Canadian oil and gas, and the world needs more Canadian oil and gas – not less 

The world’s growing population needs access to reliable, affordable, responsibly produced energy. And a lot more of it.  

According to the United Nations, last November the global population reached 8 billion people, just over a decade after hitting the landmark 7 billion in 2011. Driven by India and China, the world’s population is projected to reach 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion 2050.  

All those people need energy. Many don’t even have it today, with about 775 million without access to electricity last year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).  

Even with accelerating investment in low carbon energy resources, the world’s consumption of oil, gas and coal is as high or higher than it has ever been, with both oil and coal demand reaching new records this year, the IEA reports.  

The agency projects the world’s total energy consumption – which increased by 15 per cent over the last decade – will increase by a further 24 per cent by 2050.  

On the world’s current trajectory, the IEA says oil, gas and coal will account for 62 per cent of world energy supply in 2050, compared to 78 per cent in 2021.  

As IEA executive director Fatih Birol said last year, “We will still need oil and gas for years to come… I prefer that oil is produced by countries like Canada who want to reduce the emissions of oil and gas.” 

Canada has been a cornerstone of global energy markets and a reliable partner for years, he said. 

Fact: Coastal GasLink will help reduce emissions  

The Hollywood activists take issue with RBC’s funding of the Coastal GasLink pipeline. This is nonsensical because the project can help reduce emissions in Asia. It also has the support of and is benefiting Indigenous communities.  

One of the fastest and most effective ways to reduce emissions is to switch from coal-fired power to power generated from natural gas, traded globally as LNG.  

Consider that between 2005 and 2019, emissions from the U.S power sector dropped by 32 per cent because of coal-to-gas switching, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  

The LNG Canada project – supplied with Canadian natural gas via Coastal GasLink – will have among the world’s lowest emissions intensity, at 0.15 per cent CO2 per tonne compared to the global average of 0.35 per cent CO2 per tonne, according to Oxford Energy Institute.  

Natural gas from LNG Canada alone could reduce emissions in Asia by up to 90 million tonnes annually, or the equivalent of shutting down up to 60 Asian coal plants, the project says. That’s also a reduction of more than the entire emissions of the province of British Columbia, which were 64 million tonnes in 2022.   

Expanding Canada’s LNG exports to Asia could reduce emissions by 188 million tonnes per year, or the annual equivalent of taking all internal combustion engine vehicles off Canadian roads, according to a 2022 study by Wood Mackenzie.  

“It is a disservice to take the choice of Canadian LNG away from those that need it,” Billy Morin, former chief of the Enoch Cree Nation, said earlier this year. 

Fact: Coastal GasLink benefits Indigenous communities 

The Coastal GasLink pipeline is enabling shared prosperity between Indigenous communities and Canada’s energy industry.  

Not only will it connect to the LNG Canada terminal on the traditional lands of the Haisla Nation – where the project has been transformational for the community, according to Chief Councillor Crystal Smith – but it will also provide natural gas for the proposed Cedar LNG project, in which the Haisla Nation is 50 per cent owner. 

“Cedar is not only important from a Haisla perspective, [but from] a global perspective,” Smith says 

“Our territory is not in a bubble and protected from what is happening in Asia and India with coal burning.” 

Sixteen First Nations will become 10 per cent owners of the Coastal GasLink pipeline itself once it is completed.  

And so far, LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink together have spent more than $5.7 billion with Indigenous-owned and local businesses.    

“When there is foreign interference, especially from high-profile celebrities like Ruffalo, it sets us back. He does not think beyond the pipeline. He does not think beyond the cause of the day,” Indigenous policy analyst Melissa Mbarki wrote following a previous attack on Coastal GasLink by the actor.   

“Over the long term, such actions serve to drive away investment and keep Indigenous communities in poverty. We are dealing with so many social issues, including high rates of suicide, incarceration and homelessness. Speaking on our behalf is not the answer if you fail to acknowledge the entire story.”    

Fact: Indigenous communities speak with their own voices 

Ruffalo is a prominent activist against the Coastal GasLink pipeline, often spreading misinformation about the project’s relationship with Indigenous communities. But they are fighting back.  

“Hollywood celebrities from outside of Canada are actively campaigning against the Coastal GasLink project, claiming Indigenous People do not support it. However, 20 elected First Nations governments along the route do support it,” the Indigenous Resource Network said in a statement last year 

“Hollywood celebrities are standing in the way of us being able to make our own decisions. Their main goal is to push their agenda and use us as talking points; ultimately, communities are left to pick up the pieces. 

“Although their intentions may be to help Indigenous people in Canada, this can be best done by allowing our people to use their own voices. We are able to decide for ourselves what is best for ourselves and our communities.” 

Fact: The film industry has its own emissions to deal with 

Rather than campaign against Canadian energy projects that can help reduce emissions and foster prosperity for Indigenous communities, Hollywood film makers could be better served addressing the emissions in their own backyard.  

2020 study by the British Film Institute analyzing the emissions associated with producing movies in the U.S. and U.K. found that films with a budget of $70 million or over generate an average 2,840 tonnes of CO2 pollution. 

Air travel alone to support a movie production of this scale generates equivalent emissions of flying one way from London to New York 150 times, BFI said.  

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2025 Federal Election

Don’t double-down on net zero again

Published on

From the Fraser Institute

By Bjørn Lomborg

In the preamble to the Paris Agreement, world leaders loftily declared they would keep temperature rises “well below 2°C” and perhaps even under 1.5°C. That was never on the cards—it would have required the world’s economies to effectively come to a grinding halt.

The truth is that the “net zero” green agenda, based on massive subsidies and expensive legislation, will likely cost more than CAD$38 trillion per year across the century, making it utterly unattractive to voters in almost every nation on Earth.

When President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement for the first time in 2017, then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was quick to claim the moral high ground, declaring that “we will continue to work with our domestic and international partners to drive progress on one of the greatest challenges we face as a world.”

Trudeau has now been swept from the stage. On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order that again begins the formal, twelve-month-long process of withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement.

It will be tempting for Canada to step anew into the void left by the United States. But if the goal is to make effective climate policy, whoever is Canada’s prime minister needs to avoid empty virtue signaling. It would be easy for Canada to declare again that it’ll form a “coalition of the willing” with Europe. The truth is that, just like last time, that approach would do next to nothing for the planet.

Climate summits have generated vast amounts of attention and breathless reporting giving the impression that they are crucial to the planet’s survival. Scratch the surface, and the results are far less impressive. In 2021, the world promised to phase-down coal. Since then, global coal consumption has only gone up. Virtually every summit has promised to cut emissions but they’ve increased almost every single year, and 2024 reached a new high.

Way before the Paris Agreement was inked, the Kyoto Protocol was once sold as a key part of the solution to global warming. Yet studies show it achieved virtually nothing for climate change.

In the preamble to the Paris Agreement, world leaders loftily declared they would keep temperature rises “well below 2°C” and perhaps even under 1.5°C. That was never on the cards—it would have required the world’s economies to effectively come to a grinding halt.

The truth is that the “net zero” green agenda, based on massive subsidies and expensive legislation, will likely cost more than CAD$38 trillion per year across the century, making it utterly unattractive to voters in almost every nation on Earth.

The awkward reality is that emissions from Canada, the EU, and other countries pursuing climate policies matter little in the 21st century. Canada likely only makes up about 1.5 per cent of the world’s emissions. Add together Canada’s output with that of every single country of the rich-world OECD, and this only makes up about one-fifth of global emissions this century, using the United Nations’ ‘middle of the road’ forecast. The other four-fifths of emissions come mostly from China, India and Africa.

Even if wealthy countries like Canada impoverish themselves, the result is tiny — run the UN’s standard climate model with and without Canada going net-zero in 2050, and the difference is immeasurable even in 2100. Moreover, much of the production and emissions just move to the Global South—and even less is achieved.

One good example of this is the United Kingdom, which—like Prime Minister Trudeau once did—has leaned into climate policies, suggesting it would lead the efforts for strong climate agreements. British families are paying a heavy price for their government going farther than almost any other in pursuing the climate agenda: just the inflation-adjusted electricity price, weighted across households and industry, has tripled from 2003 to 2023, mostly because of climate policies. This need not have been so: the US electricity price has remained almost unchanged over the same period.

The effect on families is devastating. Had prices stayed at 2003 levels, an average family-of-four would now be spending CAD$3,380 on electricity—which includes indirect industry costs. Instead, it now pays $9,740 per year.

Rising electricity costs make investment less attractive: European businesses pay triple US electricity costs, and nearly two-thirds of European companies say energy prices are now a major impediment to investment.

The Paris Treaty approach is fundamentally flawed. Carbon emissions continue to grow because cheap, reliable power, mostly from fossil fuels, drives economic growth. Wealthy countries like Canada, the US, and European Union members have started to cut emissions—often by shifting production elsewhere—but the rest of the world remains focused on eradicating poverty.

Poor countries will rightly reject making carbon cuts unless there is a huge flow of “climate aid” from rich nations, and want trillions of US dollars per year. That won’t happen. The new US government will not pay, and the other rich countries cannot foot the bill alone.

Without these huge transfers of wealth, China, India and many other developing countries will disavow expensive climate policies, too. This potentially leaves a rag-tag group led by a few Western European progressive nations, which can scarcely afford their own policies and have no ability to pay off everyone else.

When the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2017, Canada’s doubling down on the Paris Treaty sent the signal that it would be worthwhile spending hundreds of trillions of dollars to make no real difference to temperatures. We fool ourselves if we pretend that doing so for a second time will help the planet.

We need to realize that fixing climate change isn’t about sanctimonious summits, lofty speeches, and bluster. In coming weeks I’ll outline the case for efficient policies like innovation, adaptation and prosperity.

Bjørn Lomborg

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2025 Federal Election

Poilievre Will Bring in ‘One and Done’ Resource Approvals, and Ten Specific Projects Including LNG Canada Phase II

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From Energy Now 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced that he will create a new ‘One and Done’ rule for resource projects: a one-stop shop, with one simple application and one environmental review. Poilievre also announced that he will rapidly approve 10 projects that have been stuck for years in the slow federal approval process. That will include Phase II of LNG Canada, a massive natural gas liquefaction project in Northern British Columbia. Many other projects will also be encouraged, all with an aim to bolster Canada’s economic independence against the Americans.

ONE-AND-DONE RULE will:

  1. Create a ‘One Stop Shop’ – A single office called the Rapid Resource Project Office will handle all regulatory approvals across all levels of government, so businesses don’t waste years navigating bureaucratic chaos and coordinating between multiple departments with different processes. We will cooperate with provincial governments to get all approvals into this single office.
  2. One application. End duplication – There will be one application and one environmental review per project, ensuring efficiency without sacrificing environmental standards. Instead of multiple overlapping studies that stall projects, governments will work together to deliver a single, effective review.
  3. One-year maximum wait times for approvals with a target of six months. There will be a target goal of decisions on applications in six months, with an upper time limit of one year, giving businesses certainty, cutting delays, and getting shovels in the ground faster.

“After the Lost Liberal decade, Canada is poorer, weaker, and more dependent on the United States than ever before, especially as a market for our natural resources,” said Poilievre. “My ‘One-and-Done’ rule will quickly and safely unleash Canada’s natural resources by rapidly approving the projects Canadians need more of now: mines, roads, LNG terminals, hydro projects, and nuclear power stations, so we can stand on our own two feet and stand up to the Americans.”

 

When completed, LNG Canada Phase II will double LNG output from 14 million to 28 million tonnes annually, creating hundreds of jobs in construction, operations and maintenance, and generating new revenues to fund the social programs that Canadians depend on. A new Conservative Government will also repeal C-69, the No Pipelines–No Development Law, and lift the cap on Canadian energy that would prevent LNG Canada Phase II from ever proceeding. Mark Carney has confirmed he will keep both C-69 and the cap in place.

Conservatives will also establish the Canadian Indigenous Opportunities Corporation (CIOC), to offer loan guarantees for local Indigenous-led resource projects.

A new Conservative government will also rapidly review nine other projects to find the hold-ups and accelerate federal decisions to get industry moving, workers working, and dollars flowing back to Canada. The full list of projects is at the end of this release.

Mark Carney and Steven Guilbeault’s “keep-it-in-the-ground” ideology–which maintains Bill C-69, the energy production cap, and the industrial carbon tax–will continue to stifle development in Canada, leading to job losses and increased reliance on foreign imports. Carney has said that “more than 80 per cent of current fossil fuel reserves … would need to stay in the ground.”

“The choice is clear: a fourth Liberal term that will keep our resources in the ground and keep us weak and vulnerable to Trump’s threats, or a strong new Conservative government that will approve projects, unleash our economy, bring jobs and dollars home, and put Canada First—For a Change.”

Some of the priority projects a Poilievre government will work with proponents and First Nations to approve:

  1. LNG Canada Phase II Expansion Project (BC): Aims to double LNG output but faces power supply challenges and output limitations related to the emissions cap.
  2. Suncor Base Mine Extension (Alberta): Expansion of an existing mine anticipated to produce 225,000 barrels per day of bitumen froth. Under assessment with the IAAC since 2020.
  3. Rook 1 Uranium Mine (Saskatchewan): A development-stage uranium project expected to be a major source of low-cost uranium. Approval process started in 2019 with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
  4. Springpole Lake Gold (Ontario): A proposed gold and silver mine with an on-site metal mill. Under assessment with the IAAC since 2018.
  5. Upper Beaver Gold Mine (Ontario): A proposed underground and gold and copper mine. Under assessment with the IAAC since 2021.
  6. Northern Road Link (Ontario): A proposed all-season, multi-use road in northern Ontario. Under assessment with the IAAC since 2023.
  7. Crawford Nickel Project (Ontario): A proposed nickel-cobalt mine with an on-site metal mill. Under assessment with the IAAC since 2022.
  8. Troilus Gold and Copper Mine (Quebec): A proposed gold and copper mine. Under assessment with the IAAC since 2022.
  9. Sorel-Tracy Port Terminal (Quebec): A proposed new port terminal in the industrial-port area of Sorel-Tracy. Under assessment with the IAAC since 2022.
  10. Cape Ray Gold and Silver Mine (Newfoundland): A proposed gold and silver mine with a milling complex. Under assessment with the IAAC since 2017.
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