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By Jim Warren
Call me a cockeyed optimist but before giving up entirely on the country or selling our energy shares we might want to wait a while to see what a Carney led government actually does.
That being said, lowering the collective blood pressure on the prairies will require answers to some key questions.
Is Mark Carney serious about getting more oil and gas to Canadian tidewater? Does Carney really think this can be done without altering Bill C-69 and ditching the tanker ban, Bill C-48? Is he actually going to leave the emissions cap on oil production, the industrial carbon tax and the clean electricity standard in place, or is he planning to pleasantly surprise us?
Notwithstanding Carney’s penchant for resumé inflation he appears to be a reasonably intelligent guy and a shrewd investor, who understands how national economies work. Assuming this is the case, Carney’s pledge to get more oil and gas exported to customers besides the US may not have been an insincere sop to voters in the West. If so, is he still naïve enough to think pipelines can be built without dismantling the barriers put up by the Trudeau Liberals to block development and stifle growth in the oil and gas sector?
Were his platitudes about zealously protecting the environment and drastically cutting emissions simply an effort to appease the left wing of the Liberals’ electoral base? Will he accept that the radical green agenda outlined in his 600 hundred page door stopper book needs to be put on the back burner during these economically challenging times?
It seems reasonable to imagine Carney was loathe to make too nice with the oil and gas industry prior to the election lest he alienate the Liberal caucus members whose support he needed to win the party’s leadership. Similarly, keeping some of the Liberals’ most radical environmentalists such as Steven Guilbeault out of cabinet could have caused unnecessary embarrassment and friction within the party during the actual election campaign.
Now that he has produced an election win that was nowhere in sight before he became the front runner for the Liberal leadership, Carney is relatively unassailable. True, he can’t be so exceedingly arrogant and dictatorial that he inspires caucus members to cross the floor of the Commons. What is more likely is that those members of the Liberal caucus with the capacity to face reality understand they were headed for political oblivion before Carney came to the rescue. It was he, not them, who secured the victory. They owe him their political lives. This provides Carney with considerable freedom of action when it comes to setting the policy agenda.
He can do some of the things he said he wouldn’t do and refrain from doing others he said he would do. For the Liberals’ communications professionals, explaining why Carney changed his positions from the wrong side of the oil, gas and pipeline debates to the right side should be nowhere near as challenging as the 24/7 turd polishing they had to do for Justin Trudeau.
Yes, the Carney government is currently enjoying its honeymoon period. For a brief while the Liberals get to feel like they are ten feet tall and politically bullet-proof. While his caucus is guzzling champagne and dividing the spoils Carney has the opportunity to plot the policy trajectory of his government.
If Mark Carney really is even half as smart as advertised he knows how important a thriving oil and gas sector (provided with new export pipelines) is to Canada during this time of geopolitical uncertainty and international economic turmoil. Our new prime minister might also appreciate now is not the time to impose inflationary environmental protection and green transition initiatives on the country.
This is not to say Carney ‘deserves a chance’ to show us what he can do. He’s not some sad little fellow whose been warming the bench on a kiddies soccer team hoping for a chance to play. When Mr. Carney entered the game his campaign assured us he is an internationally acclaimed economic wizard capable of running large and important organizations. Now he needs to walk the talk—it’s his job after all.
The point is, there needs to be a long enough pause in East-West political hostilities to see if meaningful cooperation is possible. Should they choose to do so, the producing provinces have the ability to make governing the country much more challenging than it is already. But the prudent approach at the moment is to see what the new prime mister is prepared to negotiate before sending the convoys East. We can still hold the prime minister’s feet to the fire without torching the bargaining table.
This doesn’t mean the country can spend a lot of time making key decisions. The producing provinces and their conventional energy industries have endured a nine year Liberal assault on their ability to generate economic growth. The Trudeau government trampled the rights of the provinces to develop and market their resources. Much has been made of the investment stifling effects of the uncertainty created by the Trump administration’s tariff policies. Nine plus years of uncertainty about the future of Canada’s conventional energy sector has similarly discouraged investment.
There is a wide open policy window available to Canada’s oil, gas and pipeline industries just now. The stars are aligned as well as they’ll ever be for repairing the damage done by the Trudeau Liberals. The strategic importance of being able to market our gas and oil into countries besides the US has never been clearer to Canadians. A majority of people from across the country (74%), including 60% of Quebecers currently favour the building of new oil and gas pipelines extending from the prairies to the east and west coasts.
Yes, at this point in time, the glass is actually more than half full when it comes to making public policy beneficial to the conventional energy sector and the producing provinces. Admittedly, it took a couple of days cooling off after the election results came in for me to say this.
Unfortunately, policy windows don’t stay open forever and the West is urgently seeking change. Federal-provincial negotiations on the conventional energy and pipeline files need to start now. And if the parties are truly concerned about optimizing Canada’s economic prospects and fostering national unity we have every right to expect positive results by mid-summer.
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NOTE: The opinions expressed in this commentary are those expressed the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of Enerpoint iMedia Corp. o/a EnergyNow.
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