Canada today should be a key player in supplying the world with desperately needed oil and natural gas.
After all, according to the federal government, Canada is the world’s fourth-largest producer and third-largest exporter of crude oil and fifth-largest producer and sixth-largest exporter of natural gas.
In light of global oil and natural gas shortages exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we should be major players right now in supplying Europe and Germany in particular with oil and natural gas.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been putting the screws to Russian energy exports to Europe in retaliation for its support of Ukraine in its fight against Putin’s invasion.
But the problem is Canada’s lack of oil and natural gas pipelines means we can’t get either resource to global markets, which in turn means we have to sell the vast majority of our oil and gas to the U.S. at discounted prices.
Estimates are this costs the Canadian economy $15 billion annually in discounted oil prices and $9 billion annually in discounted prices for natural gas.
It also prevents Canada from becoming a major player in helping to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, because the single most effective way of reducing them globally is to replace coal-fired electricity with electricity generated from natural gas, which burns at half the carbon intensity of coal.
Ideally, this would be combined with nuclear power to replace the generation of electricity from coal in developing countries such as China and India.
The problem is new oil and natural gas pipeline construction, with only rare exceptions, has ground to a virtual halt in Canada because of onerous government regulations and opposition by groups who oppose natural gas and nuclear power — a recipe in Canada for freezing in the dark.
By comparison, the U.S. is forging ahead with pipeline construction to the point where a few years from now it may not need Canadian energy imports, particularly of natural gas.
It would be best for the Trudeau government to be searching for new markets now for our oil and natural gas resources, and for cutting red tape that delays construction of pipelines, causing huge economic losses for Canadians.
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