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A Syncrude oil sands mining facility near Fort McKay, Alta. ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images Taylor C. Noakes is an independent journalist and public historian.
Don’t believe the hype: there is no untapped export market just waiting for Canadian fossil fuels. Canadians can be forgiven for thinking all it might take to become an energy superpower and end an abusive economic relationship with the United States is to reorient the direction of pipelines, as this is precisely the narrative that has been pushed by politicians, pundits, and the industry for weeks on end. Canada’s major oil and gas companies recently published an open letter calling on whoever wins the election to eliminate regulations, carbon levies and the emissions cap.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was the first to capitulate by endorsing and adopting all of Big Oil’s demands, though this isn’t surprising given – as recently reported by environmental news publication DeSmog – the Conservatives’ National Council is stacked with fossil fuel lobbyists and his campaign has ties to Koch Industries, Enbridge, Pathways Alliance, and the Canadian Gas Association. Big Oil’s demands may appear to be a reaction to Donald Trump’s trade war, but they are in fact beating the same drum they have for years. Their insinuation that regulation or politics have prevented infrastructure development is preposterous: Justin Trudeau bought them a $34-billion pipeline.
And practically every politician in the country has endorsed the idea Canada should start building pipelines to sell fossil fuels to supposedly thirsty foreign markets. Big Oil is in fact one of the better-fed animals at the public trough, guzzling up as many tax dollars as they can. According to Environmental Defence’s latest annual assessment of federal subsidies to the oil and gas sector, the Liberals doled out nearly $30-billion last year, and nearly $80 billion over the past five years.
The subsidies paid out by government in 2024 are roughly the same as the profits reported by Canada’s four largest oil and gas companies. Spending tens of billions to prop up the oil and gas sector isn’t innovation, it’s the status quo. And resurrecting moribund pipeline projects that can’t stand on their own legs is in no one’s best interest: it’s throwing good money after bad.
That Big Oil would exploit our present existential crisis is hardly surprising. Canada’s oil and gas sector is largely American-owned, and, though it has always been most profitable to sell Canadian crude to the United States, the fossil fuel sector won’t stand in the way of even more federal subsidies promoted by ignorant politicians. The key problem is that those much-ballyhooed foreign markets don’t exist and won’t materialize simply because we’ve built more pipelines.
The latest research from the world’s leading energy experts pours cold water on any hopes of Canada becoming an energy export superpower. Reports from the International Energy Agency consistently demonstrate both that oil demand has peaked and that we’re on track for a global oil glut. Recent research from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis confirms major Asian markets – like China and India – are skipping over LNG and transitioning from coal directly to renewables.
Germany recently told Canada their interest in Canadian LNG has evaporated. And though Europe did turn to gas in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine , they also sped up their energy transition by investing in renewables. This transition is now happening faster than experts had anticipated.
Nearly 50 per cent of the EU’s electricity came from renewables last year, solar displaced coal for the first time, gas use fell for the fifth straight year, and the EU was estimated to have saved €59-billion ($92-billion) because they’re using solar and wind instead of importing fossil fuels. Canada should eliminate economic vulnerabilities, but this doesn’t mean spending more public money on pipeline projects to mythical foreign markets and eliminating the regulations that could prevent costly environmental disasters. Energy security equals economic security equals political sovereignty, and this equation is no different than it was when Pierre Trudeau created Petro-Canada and the National Energy Program in response to the oil crises of the 1970s.
What is different today is the extraordinary evolution of renewable energy technology in the last half century. Unlike fossil fuels – which have to be transported across vast distances, even within Canada – solar and wind power systems create electricity wherever there’s sun or wind, which is effectively everywhere. Renewables produce the cheapest electricity on the market and, because fuel doesn’t have to be imported, are the most efficient solution to ensuring Canada’s future energy security and political sovereignty.
In the same way that you can’t spend your way out of debt, Canada can’t lessen its economic dependence on energy exports by building new pipelines..
