From Conservative Party Communications

Poilievre will create the ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor to rapidly approve & build the infrastructure we need to end our energy dependence on America so we can stand up to Trump from a position of strength.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced today he will create a ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor to fast-track approvals for transmission lines, railways, pipelines, and other critical infrastructure across Canada in a pre-approved transport corridor entirely within Canada, transporting our resources within Canada and to the world while bypassing the United States. It will bring billions of dollars of new investment into Canada’s economy, create powerful paycheques for Canadian workers, and restore our economic independence.

“After the Lost Liberal decade, Canada is poorer, weaker, and more dependent on the United States than ever before,” said Poilievre. “My ‘Canada First National Energy Corridor’ will enable us to quickly build the infrastructure we need to strengthen our country so we can stand on our own two feet and stand up to the Americans.”

In the corridor, all levels of government will provide legally binding commitments to approve projects. This means investors will no longer face the endless regulatory limbo that has made Canadians poorer.  First Nations will be involved from the outset, ensuring that economic benefits flow directly to them and that their approval is secured before any money is spent.

Between 2015 and 2020, Canada cancelled 16 major energy projects, resulting in a $176 billion hit to our economy. The Liberals killed the Energy East pipeline and passed Bill C-69, the “No-New-Pipelines” law, which makes it all but impossible to build the pipelines and energy infrastructure we need to strengthen the Canadian economy. And now, the PBO projects that the ‘Carney cap’ on Canadian energy will reduce oil and gas production by nearly 5%, slash GDP by $20.5 billion annually, and eliminate 54,400 full-time jobs by 2032. An average mine opening lead time is now nearly 18 years—23% longer than Australia and 38% longer than the US. As a result of the Lost Liberal Decade, Canada now ranks 23rd in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index for 2024, a seven-place drop since 2015.

“In 2024, Canada exported 98% of its crude oil to the United States. This leaves us too dependent on the Americans,” said Poilievre. “Our Canada First National Energy Corridor will get us out from under America’s thumb and enable us to build the infrastructure we need to sell our natural resources to new markets, bring home jobs and dollars, and make us sovereign and self-reliant to stand up to Trump from a position of strength.”

Mark Carney’s economic advice to Justin Trudeau made Canada weaker while he and his rich friends made out like bandits. While he advised Trudeau to cancel Canadian energy projects, his own company spent billions on pipelines in South America and the Middle East. And unlike our competitors Australia and America, which work with builders to get projects approved, Mark Carney and Steven Guilbeault’s radical “keep-it-in-the-ground” ideology has blocked development, killed jobs, and left Canada dependent on foreign imports.

“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, build an economic fortress, bring jobs and dollars home, and put Canada First—For a Change.”

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

News broke last week that the Biden Department of Energy (DOE), led by former Secretary Jennifer Granholm, was so dedicated to the Biden White House’s efforts to damage the dynamic U.S. LNG export industry that it resorted to covering up a 2023 DOE study which found that growth in exports provide net benefits to the environment and economy.

“The Energy Department has learned that former Secretary Granholm and the Biden White House intentionally buried a lot of data and released a skewed study to discredit the benefits of American LNG,” one DOE source told Nick Pope of the Daily Caller News Foundation.. “[T]he administration intentionally deceived the American public to advance an agenda that harmed American energy security, the environment and American lives.”

And “deceived” is the best word to describe what happened here. When the White House issued an order signed by the administration’s very busy autopen to invoke what was supposed to be a temporary “pause” in permitting of LNG infrastructure, it was done at the behest of far-left climate czar John Podesta, with Granholm’s full buy-in. As I’ve cataloged here in past stories, this cynical “pause” was based on the flimsiest possible rationale, and the “science” supposedly underlying it was easily debunked and fell completely apart over time.

But the ploy moved ahead anyway, with Granholm and her DOE staff ordered to conduct their own study related to the advisability of allowing further growth of the domestic LNG industry. We know now that study already existed but hadn’t reached the hoped-for conclusions.

The two unfounded fears at hand were concerns that rising exports of U.S. LNG would a) cause domestic prices to rise for consumers, and b) would result in higher emissions than alternative energy sources. As the Wall Street Journal notes, a draft of that 2023 study “shows that increased U.S. LNG exports would have negligible effects on domestic prices while modestly reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The latter is largely because U.S. LNG exports would displace coal in power production and gas exports from other countries such as Russia.”

An energy secretary and climate advisor interested in seeking truth based on science would have made that 2023 study public, and the “pause” would have been a short-lived, temporary thing. Instead, the Biden officials decided to try to bury this inconvenient truth, causing the “pause” to endure right through the final day of the Biden regime with a clear intention of turning it into permanent policy had Kamala Harris and her “summer of joy” campaign managed to prevail on Nov. 5.

Fortunately for the country, voters chose more wisely, and President Trump included ending this deceitful “pause” exercise as part of his Day One agenda. No autopen was involved.

So, the thing is resolved in favor of truth and common sense now, but it is important to understand exactly what was at stake here, exactly how important an industry these Biden officials were trying to freeze in place.

In an interview on Fox News Monday, current Energy Secretary Chris Wright did just that, pointing out that, fifteen years ago, America was “the largest importer of natural gas in the world. Today, we’re the largest exporter.”

He went onto add that, “the Biden administration put a pause on LNG exports 14 months ago, January of 2024, sending a message to the world that maybe the US isn’t going to continue to grow our exports. Think of the extra leverage that gives Russia, the extra fear that gives the Europeans or the Asians that are dying for more American energy.”

Then, Wright supplied the kicker: “They did this in spite of their own study that showed increasing LNG exports would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and have a negligible impact on price.” It was an effort, Wright concludes, to kill what he says is “America’s greatest energy advantage.”

This incident is a stain on the Biden administration and its senior leaders. The stain becomes more indelible when we remember that, when asked by Speaker Mike Johnson why he had signed that order, Joe Biden himself had no memory of doing so, telling Johnson, “I didn’t do that.”

Sadly, we know now there’s a good chance Mr. Biden was telling the speaker the truth. But someone did it, and it’s a travesty.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.