Opinion: Major parties ominously silent on Canadian oil

By Catherine Murton Stoehr

The climate platforms presented by the three major parties in Canada’s 44th national election will not prevent or even substantially mitigate the ongoing climate emergency that caused this year’s devastating wildfire season, burned the town of Lytton to the ground, and created a “heat dome” that immobilized Vancouver for six terrible days in June.

Responding to consistent polling numbers showing that climate change is at the top of Canadian’s election concerns, Conservative, Liberal, and New Democratic Party (NDP) candidates have expressed genuine concern about the climate events we are all experiencing and put forward policies for carbon pricing, electric cars, green savings banks, and more. The Liberal platform promises to require the oil and gas industries to be net-zero by 2050, it fails to mention that the technology to achieve that goal does not exist. However, all of these initiatives are eclipsed in importance by the need to leave most Canadian oil in the ground. None of the parties have committed to this.

A regionally specific large-scale study correlating global fossil-fuel reserves with rising carbon levels published in nature in 2015 and repeated in 2021, concluded that of the 49 billion barrels of oil currently in Canada, more than 80% must remain in the ground to maintain the possibility of keeping climate warming to 2 degrees or less.

Not that the silence among Canada’s political class is a surprise. Trudeau’s federal government spent 4.5 billion dollars to buy the failing Trans Mountain pipeline to expand Canadian sales to the Asian market. Far from objecting, the Conservatives under Andrew Scheer said given the opportunity, they would protect Trans Mountain with a “national interest” designation and under the leadership of Erin O’Toole, they have promised to buy the Northern Gateway pipeline as well. Despite critiquing that purchase at the time, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh will not commit to ending Trans Mountain should the NDP form government.

Canadians cannot reduce our national carbon footprint if the federal government is working against us by using our tax dollars to subsidize massive oil and gas infrastructure projects. A United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released just days before this election was called states that “unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach.”  However determined individuals cannot effect “rapid, large-scale reductions” of Canada’s emissions.

Strikingly, the political pro-oil consensus lags behind small but growing voices within the fossil fuel sector itself. Just transition advocates “Iron and Earth” polled fossil fuel industry workers and found that 80% support a dedicated national upskilling initiative to enable them to change jobs. In 2016, oil giant Suncor shocked the industry by asking the Alberta government for permission to leave some of its allotted reserves in the ground. Though likely motivated by financial considerations (Suncor’s proposal would enable them to harvest the oil most cheaply extracted and “strand” harder to reach deposits), the proposal nevertheless reveals a discrepancy between the political push to extract and sell all available Canadian oil and actual market forces.

Just this week, The Guardian quoted Christophe McGlade, the British researcher on the pivotal nature study spoke to this Canadian reality:

“The research underlines how the rhetoric of tackling climate change has diverged from reality. None of the net-zero pledges made to date by major oil and gas producing countries include explicit targets to curtail production.”

Global warming is caused by burning fossil fuels, the fewer fossil fuels we burn, the less the planet will warm.  This simple truth places a huge burden of responsibility on Canada, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer.  How can Canadians take up the challenge before us if our political leaders can’t bring themselves to articulate the possibility of leaving some of Alberta’s oil in the ground?  Just when Canadians are ready to fight, our own leaders are lowering the bar.

Erin O’Toole, Justin Trudeau, and Jagmeet Singh can do better, and at this pivotal moment in our history, they must.