Canada Strong Fund or Sovereign Wealth Fund, Spring Economic Update, & Asset Recycling

The Environment in Canada Podcast video episode 108 on the sovereign wealth fund or Canada strong fund and Spring Economic Update 2026 from the Federal Government.  You can watch / listen to the episode on The Harbinger Media Network, IHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify (video), YouTube (video), or watch it on our website below: 

It’s NOT a Norwegian-style wealth fund – and it might be a taxpayer money-funnel to risky oil and gas projects that puts public assets at risk. Climate action is the canary in the coal mine – not a secondary issue: if governments can’t commit to climate action and take affordability measures that confront oil and gas corporate profits, we can’t rely on them to do a lot of other things either.

The new “sovereign wealth fund” is really the OPPOSITE of Norway’s: the Norwegian fund takes from oil and gas revenues and invests broadly – in part to serve as a backup given the volatility of oil and gas prices. The “Sovereign Wealth Fund” announced by Canada takes from public money and then invests it in projects that would likely include high risk oil, gas and LNG projects (especially since transferring risk off of corporations is a key goal).

Again new oil, gas and LNG projects will not have a market by the time they are built and are therefore economic dead-ends (and terrible public investments). The Iran war has accelerated the global transition to renewables by pushing countries to get off oil and gas – further hurting the economic viability of oil and gas expansion.

Sierra Club Canada’s concerns were quoted alongside others in The Energy Mix, Global News, and the National Observer.

As Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood puts it: “what’s interesting is that we don’t have a solar and wind to battery strategy when every other part of the world has decided that it is so much cheaper and so much more efficient and so much quicker to mobilize solar and wind than any other kind of power.” Indeed, “Canada, the Global Electricity Review found, is an outlier to the market trend. Renewable energy plant construction has dropped over the past two years, leaving wind and solar power accounting for just nine per cent of the country’s electricity mix, less than half the average among the G7.”

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Canada Strong Fund Sovereign Wealth The Environment in Canada Podcast logo over a photo of demonstration against federal government cuts on April 18, 2026

Photo of demonstration against federal government cuts on April 18, 2026 that drew hundreds of people into the streets.