Western Standard - January 17, 2024


Ottawa’s Oil & Gas Cap Exposed

Topics
production cap policy flaws
Mentioned
Steven Guilbeault Gilbo Justin Trudeau Trevor Toome
Building stronger Alberta communities. CMS： Let the Western Bastards Freeze

Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

162.32

Word count

1,028

Sentence count

56

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On December 7th, Justin Trudeau's Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Stephen Gilbeau, announced what they call an Oil and Gas Emissions Cap. This is the single biggest existential threat Alberta has faced as a province since the National Energy Program.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 On December 7th, Stephen Gilbeau, Justin Trudeau's Minister of Environment and Climate Change,
00:00:06.000 announced what they call an oil and gas emissions cap.
00:00:09.000 You are going to hear the federal government claim over and over again that this is a cap on emissions.
00:00:17.000 Now, that is a bald-faced lie, and I'm here to tell you not to be fooled by this federal government.
00:00:24.000 This cap doesn't just cut emissions, it will cut production,
00:00:28.000 and it is part of a long-term plan that Stephen Gilbeau has been pursuing for years
00:00:32.000 to shut down and shut in oil and gas production.
00:00:35.000 This production cap will put thousands of Albertans out of work.
00:00:39.000 It is the single biggest existential threat that we have faced as a province since the National Energy Program,
00:00:46.000 and it is time to call a spade a spade.
00:00:49.000 Gilbeau, a former Greenpeace activist most well-known for being arrested, scaling the CN Tower to hang a banner.
00:00:56.000 Greenpeace is climbing the world's tallest building today to tell the world not to be fooled by the Liberal government.
00:01:01.000 He has his sights set right squarely on Alberta.
00:01:05.000 Now, the production cap is unconstitutional. We know this.
00:01:09.000 Alberta has exclusive constitutional jurisdiction to develop our natural resources.
00:01:14.000 But let's set that aside for a minute and take a deeper look at some of the flaws in what Gilbeau is proposing.
00:01:21.000 First of all, and most importantly, the cap is based on 2019 production levels and makes the assumption that those levels will hold steady.
00:01:28.000 In reality, production in Alberta is already up from the 2019 levels.
00:01:33.000 In 2022, Alberta's total oil production is 6% higher and natural gas production is 4% higher than 2019.
00:01:42.000 Our forecasts project oil sands production to increase by 22% and for natural gas production to increase by 7% by 2030.
00:01:50.000 Alberta's forecasts are aligned with other major national and international reports.
00:01:55.000 For example, the CER Energy Futures Report and the OPEC World Oil Outlook all forecast continued growth in global oil demand.
00:02:03.000 This means the federal government's assumed production forecasts, which form the basis of their cap, are too low
00:02:09.000 and that Gilbeau's claim that this is an emissions cap and not a production cap is false.
00:02:15.000 Secondly, the cap makes all sorts of assumptions that they describe as technically achievable.
00:02:21.000 They say technically because they know that the technology to abate emissions in the oil and gas sector either don't exist or isn't being developed as fast as they have built into their modelling.
00:02:32.000 The cap accounts for reductions realized through carbon capture, methane reduction and other technologies all occurring by 2030.
00:02:40.000 These assumptions are baked into their cap.
00:02:43.000 Many of these technologies are supported by Alberta and will eventually deliver real and sustained reductions, but not by 2030.
00:02:51.000 So why would the federal government make assumptions that are unrealistic?
00:02:56.000 Well, because the real goal isn't to reduce emissions.
00:03:00.000 It is to cap production.
00:03:02.000 And when these technologies fail to be in place by 2030, they are banking on being able to shut down and shut in production as an alternative.
00:03:10.000 Finally, Gilbeau's cap and trade cap is simply bad policy.
00:03:14.000 Trevor Toome, an economist and economics professor at the University of Calgary, has described it as, quote,
00:03:20.000 a wedge issue, not an efficient means of lowering greenhouse gas emissions and a complex way to levy a higher price on one single sector.
00:03:28.000 He's right. In fact, based on 2019 emissions levels, Alberta accounts for 83% of the upper legal limit imposed by the federal government.
00:03:36.000 That means this entire policy, although being presented as a national cap, is once again an attack targeting mostly Alberta.
00:03:46.000 And just as they conveniently excluded home heating oil from the carbon tax, a decision that will benefit Canadians in Atlantic Canada,
00:03:53.000 while hurting Albertans who use cleaner burning natural gas to heat their homes.
00:03:58.000 The federal government is carving out an exemption for refineries, many of which are located where?
00:04:05.000 You guessed it, Ontario and Quebec.
00:04:08.000 So why would the federal government implement bad policy that will fail to reduce emissions?
00:04:13.000 Easy, because again, it's never been about reducing emissions.
00:04:18.000 S&P Global Commodity Insights noted that if the cap, quote, sets expectations that are too stringent or too inflexible,
00:04:25.000 then it has the potential to negatively impact capital flows.
00:04:29.000 And that is exactly what Gilbo is trying to do.
00:04:32.000 The oil and gas production cap may not be achievable.
00:04:36.000 And this federal government may even lose the next election before it can be implemented.
00:04:40.000 But by then, the damage will already be done.
00:04:44.000 Investors will look at Canada and decide to take their money and their investments elsewhere, leading to what Gilbo has always wanted to do.
00:04:52.000 Shut down and shut in oil and gas production in Alberta.
00:04:56.000 So what will Alberta do about it? 0.63
00:04:58.000 Well, over the coming months, our cabinet and caucus will develop a constitutional shield in response to this and other recent attacks on our province,
00:05:06.000 by what is fast becoming one of the most damaging federal governments in Canadian history.
00:05:13.000 Albertans own these resources.
00:05:15.000 And under the Constitution, only we have the exclusive jurisdiction to develop and manage them.
00:05:21.000 Gilbo has already lost in court twice.
00:05:23.000 He will lose again.
00:05:25.000 There is simply no other option available to us.
00:05:28.000 And Albertans don't support it.
00:05:31.000 If you ask Albertans or even Canadians if it makes sense to put in an emissions or a production cap that risks hundreds of billions of dollars of investments,
00:05:40.000 the answer is no.
00:05:42.000 If you ask Albertans if they want an emissions cap that means less tax revenues that would otherwise fund health care, education and social programs our families and seniors depend on,
00:05:52.000 the answer is no.
00:05:54.000 No.
00:05:55.000 If you ask Albertans if they want an emissions cap that threatens the livelihoods and viability of dozens of First Nations communities and municipalities,
00:06:03.000 no.
00:06:04.000 If you ask Albertans if they want an emissions cap that threatens the jobs of hundreds of thousands of hardworking women and men across our province,
00:06:12.000 the answer, again, is no.
00:06:15.000 That's why we cannot and will not let this happen in Alberta.