Man overboard as HMCS Carney lists to the right
Steven Guilbeault's resignation will help end a decade of stagnation and lost investment.
Steven Guilbeault’s resignation will come as no surprise to Mark Carney - save, perhaps, for the fact that it took so long.
The former environment minister quit on Thursday evening, after the prime minister unveiled his memorandum of understanding with Alberta premier, Danielle Smith. That deal is aimed at creating the conditions to build an oil pipeline to the West Coast and encouraging new investment in the province’s natural gas electricity generation sector. In doing so, Carney cancelled the oil and gas emissions cap and the clean electricity regulations that Guilbeault had been instrumental in constructing and imposing.
The former environmental activist couldn’t accept the continued expansion of fossil fuel production and so walked away after six years in cabinet.
In his resignation statement, he said he strongly opposes the MOU with Alberta because it was signed without consultation with the province of British Columbia and First Nations.
He said removing the moratorium on oil tankers off the West Coast would increase the risk of accidents and suspending clean electricity regulations, which blocked new gas generation, will result in an “upwards emissions trajectory”.
In particular, he was upset about the expansion of federal tax credits to encourage enhanced oil recover, a carbon storage technology that captures carbon dioxide from industrial emitters and injects it back underground. Guilbeault considered this a direct subsidy for oil production - a business he said he hoped the government was exiting.
In a Twitter post, I called Guilbeault “anti-Pathways” - that is, opposed to the giant carbon capture and storage development that Carney views as crucial to offsetting the building of a new pipeline.
One of Guilbeault’s defenders said he is not anti-Pathways, and that, in fact, he was part of the trifecta, along with Chrystia Freeland and Jonathan Wilkinson, who negotiated the details on the investment tax credit “that will pay 50 percent of the cost of construction to a bunch of rich oil companies”. To me, that showed Guilbeault’s (and his supporters) true colours. If he wasn’t anti-Pathways, he certainly wasn’t pro.
When he said he would back Carney’s leadership bid in January, I wrote that it was an endorsement the aspiring Liberal leader could do without.
The now-prime minister always had in his mind a plan to build, including fossil fuel production, offset by technology adoption and a stronger industrial carbon price in Alberta. Even then, he made clear he was prepared to be pragmatic in a time of crisis.
Guilbeault’s plan was to regulate the industry to death.
It was always going to end badly but, as Carney told me last winter, Guilbeault provided crucial support on the ground in Quebec and any politician’s first responsibility is to win.
Guilbeault should be respected for his deep convictions on climate change and his commitment to leaving a better world to our children.
But he should never have been allowed to dictate environmental policy in this country. He refused to view natural gas as a bridging fuel in the energy transition in a country that has reserves of a resource that will, at current production levels, last 300 years.
He made clear his lack of enthusiasm for small modular nuclear reactors and new road-building.
And he pushed an oil and gas emissions cap that he knew would hit production levels and further (if that were possible) alienate Western Canadians.
His departure - and that of Freeland - give Carney scope to pursue what he hopes is a transformative response to not only Donald Trump, but to federal policies that amounted to driving with the handbrake on. Carney has made his intent clear - to optimize Canada’s resource wealth, while attempting to minimize emissions.
Five years ago, Trudeau was nearly tarred and feathered during a visit to Calgary; Carney received two standing ovations in the same town yesterday.
For too many years under the Trudeau/Freeland duopoly the plan was to redistribute the pie. Now it is clearly about wealth creation.
In my National Post columns, I have been scathing about some of the things the Carney government has done, as is appropriate for someone whose prime directive is the public interest. The decisions to recognize a Palestinian state; apologize to Trump for the Ontario “Ronald Reagan” ad; announce a bunch of major projects that were so advanced they didn’t need to be fast-tracked; split spending into the confusing binary of “operating” or “capital”; and visit the United Arab Emirates on a trade mission in the midst of a genocide in Sudan that the Emiratis had helped to fund were all, to me, missteps.
But, so far, Carney has got the big things right. The budget and this MOU are auspicious moves aimed at ending a decade of stagnation and lost investment.
There is a new mood of anticipation in the country, summed up in the S&P/TSX index, which hit record highs this week on the back of energy and mining stocks. Canadian pension funds are taking another look at the domestic market, intrigued by the prospect of investing in the potential privatization of airports, for example.
Canada is feeling better. There has been a shift in the mindset from saying no to everything to being open to removing barriers that stop the private sector from investing.
Success and prosperity are not guaranteed. But stagnation need not be either.
So happy to see Guibbeault leave. You could have mentioned how he poohpoohed any suggestion of inaction at the Jasper Forest Fire. I hope the gate hits him on his way out. I’m guessing his Pension kicked in.
The MOU might be a shift in tone or shiftiness. Time will tell, especially IF a pipeline consortium comes forward and pushes the Liberals into a corner that they want nothing to do with: using the constitutional powers granted to them to ensure that projects that cross provincial boundaries go forward. Eby is holding zero cards and it's time to call him out for his recalcitrance.