Any time the Trudeau government acknowledges Canada’s oil and natural gas sectors are “fundamental” to our economy and will be for “years to come,” it should be encouraged.
Thus, we’re delighted to see Canada’s department of employment recognizing this reality in a staff report to the Senate’s finance committee.
“The world will continue to rely on oil and natural gas for years to come, even as we reduce our reliance on them and increasingly adopt lower and zero-emitting energy sources,” the report said.
“The petroleum sector is a fundamental underpinning of the Canadian labour market and is critical to restarting and rebuilding our economy.”
As noted by Blacklock’s Reporter, the remarks were in response to an inquiry by Sen. Jean-Guy Dagenais about oil’s future, given that it is a leading Canadian industry.
In fact, Canada is the fourth-largest producer and exporter of oil in the world, as well as the fourth-largest producer and sixth-largest exporter of natural gas.
That’s an important reality check given the constant political rhetoric by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet ministers that Canada is on track to meet its 2030 United Nations target of reducing Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, and to net zero by 2050.
In the real world, no credible body — including the federal government in its own studies — claims Canada is on track to meet these targets.
In addition, natural gas — of which Canada has a 300-year supply — is going to be crucial in lowering global emissions, since it is the cleanest of the fossil fuels, burning at half the carbon intensity of coal..
Ontario, for example, eliminated its reliance on coal for producing 25% of its electricity between 2003 and 2014, by replacing it with low-emitting natural gas and non-emitting nuclear power.
The previous Liberal government of Ontario claimed it did it through the use of wind and solar power.
But that was nonsense because wind and solar power cannot provide base-load power to the electricity grid on demand, and must be backed up by more reliable forms of energy, such as natural gas.
Keep that in mind whenever any politician claims the age of fossil fuels is over.
