Canada is an extremely resource-rich country, and its economic success is highly dependent on its natural-resource sector. Traditional energy sources make up nearly 10 percent of Canadian GDP by some measures, and employs hundreds of thousands of Canadians. And yet, amazingly, politicians across the political spectrum in that country are desperate to abolish what is essentially a lucky lotto ticket handed to them by Providence. We've written extensively about the Liberal Trudeau government over the years, and Justin's various activist lackeys over the years. But what's especially frustrating is when purportedly right-of-center politicians give them exactly what they want.
Here's one recent example -- Nova Scotia has spent years letting its once-thriving off-shore natural gas industry die through increased regulation and lackluster promotion. More than a year ago, the province's offshore regulator, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, put out a call for bids for exploration licenses, in the hopes that companies would come in and develop a few of the natural gas deposits under the ocean floor. This wasn't a major expansion -- it only resulted in two serious bids, only one of which was successful. Still, it was something.
Of course, when you're trying to steadily kill off anything, the last thing you want to see is growth of any kind. So the Federal Liberals sprang into action. Luckily for Nova Scotians, they're currently governed by a right-of-center party, the Progressive Conservatives. Surely, their immediate reaction to this would be to tell the Trudeaupians to stuff it, right? Unfortunately not. From a report in The Epoch Times:
Nova Scotia Minister of Natural Resources and Renewables Tory Rushton and Jonathan Wilkinson, federal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, issued a joint statement Dec. 4 overruling approval of the offshore regulator, Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board.
The statement is full of fluff and applesauce. It's hard to imagine a serious adult have written this section, for instance:
We recognize the expertise of the board and want to reiterate our confidence in the regulatory process that it undertook. However, we both agree that this decision must also account for broader policy considerations, including our shared commitments to advance clean energy and pursue economic opportunities in the clean energy sector, which are beyond the scope of the board’s regulatory purview. This decision will enable us to research and understand the interactions between the two industries as we transition to our clean energy future.
They're essentially saying: Far be it from us to question the expertise of the experts.... but they're wrong, and we're throwing out their decision in the hope that a magical form of clean energy will arrive one of these days.
It's worth noting, as the ET report does, that Nova Scotia, being one of Canada's smaller, poorer provinces, receives annual "equalization payments" from the Canadian federal government, a system whose object is to ensure that every province can offer "reasonably comparable" levels of public services. Alberta and Saskatchewan, however, the country's major oil and gas producing provinces, don't have access to those funds. Because of the wealth the natural resource sector generates, they pay into equalization instead.
Which is to say -- oil and gas from Western Canada is subsidizing this eastern province's bad decisions. The P.C.s would rather their province become a welfare queen than contribute to the well-being of the nation. Some conservatives!
Article tags: Canada, Justin Trudeau, Nova Scotia, Oil and Gas
Cut off all fossil Fuels to the World Leaders cut off all their luxuries make them live the type hard lie they would force upon us