Has Canada reached a breaking point or turning point?
Even if it’s a good punchline for late-night comedians, there is nothing inconsistent about building pipelines while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Stranding Canadian oil by blocking pipelines is damaging to both the energy industry and the Canadian economy as a whole. Moreover, it is an ineffective way to reduce our carbon emissions—a price on carbon […]
Canada should be a world leader in breaking China’s hold on rare earth element mining
Three decades ago, China embarked on an ambitious plan to become a global leader in the production and processing of rare earth elements (REE). As former Chinese president Deng Xiaoping famously quipped in 1992: “There is oil in the Middle East; there is rare earth in China.” Today, China’s objective has been essentially achieved—and the […]
Pencils down: political lessons hard won in the 2010s
OTTAWA—As the end of the decade approaches, it’s hard not to see the sentimentality of everyone on social media reflecting on what they’ve accomplished over the past 10 years of their lives, lamenting the aging of their bodies and faces, saying how they wished they’d done and seen more. I’m no different, but as someone […]
Senators should dig in to a soil-health study
In 1984, the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry published a report, entitled “Soil at Risk: Canada’s Eroding Future.” The study, under the chairmanship of Senator Herbert Sparrow, who later went on to form the Soil Conservation Council of Canada in 1987, provided the government with several recommendations in an attempt to reverse […]
Canadian oil and gas: where in the world are we going?
One of the most contentious issues in Canadian politics is squaring oil and gas development with the country’s climate commitments. Can the two be aligned? It’s a very open question. A sober look at global energy demand offers a way to think through the challenge. The International Energy Agency published its 2019 World Energy Outlook […]
Lessons for Canada to be learned from Australian liquefied natural gas development
In 1964, liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo was delivered for the first time from Algeria to the United Kingdom. Today, there are more than 400 trade routes and upwards of 50 countries participating in the global LNG trade. For a time in 2018, Australia overtook Qatar as the world’s largest exporter of LNG. Alberta and […]
Natural Resources
Who will do the heavy lifting on trade policy and strategy? Is that Ng’s job or Freeland’s?
TORONTO—What is Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade Mary Ng’s real cabinet job? To diversify Canada’s exports to make us less reliant on the U.S. market? To be the government’s big thinker on the future of trade policy? To focus mainly on her previous job as cheerleader for Canada’s small businesses? This […]
Quadruple carbon tax to meet 2030 targets or pay more to hide costs, Ecofiscal Commission report says
Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, an independent group of economists focused on aligning government policy with Canada’s emissions reduction goals, released its final report on Nov. 27, and is calling for dramatically increasing the carbon tax by 2030 to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets under the Paris Agreement. The report also said that, compared to regulations and […]
Indigenous participation in energy sector an exercise in Indigenous self-determination, economic development
Now that the dust has settled from the election, the newly re-elected Liberal government will have to take stock of this election campaign and what issues were missed. For Indigenous communities, much was lost or distorted. When a group called Climate Justice Edmonton attempted to hold a “climate strike” in Edmonton on the Friday before […]
