With Pipeline MOU Federal Government Betrays Climate Survivors so U.S. Shareholders Can Profit

By scrapping the emissions cap the federal government has betrayed the climate survivors – of wildfires and floods in Canada – who travelled to Ottawa last year to call for an emissions cap on Canada’s biggest corporate polluters. And who will profit from this betrayal? U.S. shareholders.

As The Energy Mix covered this week the four companies that represent 80% of Canadian oil sands production are 73% foreign-owned, 60% American-owned. They are sending a large share of their profits to their shareholders in the United States, even as they lobby to weaken Canadian climate policy: “like a Trojan horse for Donald Trump’s pro-fossil, anti-climate politics.” They’ve cut jobs in Canada even when oil production has expanded, and scrapping climate policy will NOT help Alberta’s economic stability, nor make an imaginary pipeline happen. 

There was a lot of media coverage of Sierra Club Canada’s response to the Pipeline MOU announced on Thursday between Alberta and the Federal Government. We talked to CBC News and CityNews Edmonton on video and were covered by BNN Bloomberg, The Tyee, the Agence France-Presse and from there international outlets around the world from Bulgaria to Malaysia like France 24, as well as The Canadian Press and from there in many other outlets in Canada. We had one message:

This pipeline has no market, no private sector proponent, doesn’t benefit Albertans and has no business case – so why are we scrapping climate policies for it and why aren’t we investing this sort of effort into building up renewables?

The MOU does not seem to have done much to diminish separatist sentiments on the ground in Alberta as you can see in interviews by CityNews Edmonton, because lies cannot bring unity – only the truth can do that. Resulting carbon pricing is vague and prone to further subversion since the MOU may spark a race to the bottom on climate policy. Meanwhile the Federal Energy Minister, Tim Hodgeson, implied BC pipeline concerns are “naive” and “ideological,” said that concern about climate change is “nostalgic,” and insisted Indigenous leaders meet with him by zoom.

As well as standing with First Nations and our allies in British Columbia to oppose this ridiculous pipeline, we plan to continue advocating for a renewable path forward. We are already organizing events around renewable skills training for communities.

We’ll continue fighting disinformation on renewables because wind, solar, and battery storage ARE what the world is adopting, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – precisely because no one wants to rely on volatile oil and gas controlled by hostile countries or subject to international crises. Wind, solar and battery power are the real solutions for energy independence NOT the expensive, slow, and wasteful LNG and nuclear power this MOU is foolish enough to promote.

As our Executive Director, Gretchen Fitzgerald, put it, “where is the MOU for truly clean energy sharing?” Where are the renewable solutions provinces like Alberta really need? There are certainly wind and solar companies that would like to invest in Alberta but have been driven away by provincial policies.

The future of all our provinces, and our democracy, depends on Canada going renewable. Revenue losses provincial governments will face in the next decade as global oil and gas demand dries up amount to:

• 85% in Alberta, from $153 billion to $23 billion;
• 72% in British Columbia, from $47 billion to $13 billion;
• 78% in Saskatchewan, from $16 billion to $3.5 billion;
• Nearly 100% in Newfoundland and Labrador, from $4.4 billion to $300 million.

And you’re NOT alone. We’ve heard from you on what projects of national interest YOU’d like to see, like a national east-west electrical grid, wind and solar power, and high-speed passenger rail, and summarized them here.

72% of Albertans now wish to maintain or increase federal climate action and action to transition the country to clean energy.

As we pointed out in the last week’s edition of our Sovereignty Saturdays Podcast, and discuss in this week’s episode on winning over the middle ground without sacrificing the radical, the MOU on an imaginary west coast pipeline is actually cover to weaken Canada’s climate regulations. That weakening creates room for oil and gas corporations to ‘strengthen ties’ with the U.S., and slow the growth of renewable energy in Canada. Renewable energy is Canada’s best bet for continuing our sovereignty. Sierra Club Canada was also recently featured in the news by The Energy Mix, The Narwhal, and The National Observer, on the Government of Canada’s erosion of climate policies and endorsement of a West Coast oil pipeline.

All this comes after the Canadian Government also added the American-owned, Ksi Lisims LNG project, funded by U.S. private equity firms with ties to the U.S. Administration, to it’s list of major projects.

Thank you for you continuing support – we can’t do this without you!

Because, as we discuss in this week’s NEW Sovereignty Saturdays podcast out yesterday…

We’re stronger together.