Thank you to everyone on the committee for the invitation to appear. It really is an honour to be here to share our perspective on this proposed bill concerning greening the prairie economy.
I'd like to start with Fairness Alberta's motto: “Proudly Canadian. Fiercely Albertan.” We are a group of Canadians who believe that Albertans have not been treated fairly by federal economic and fiscal policies. We believe that by respectfully but assertively raising awareness across Canada about the basic facts of these policies, we can persuade a majority to support meaningful reforms.
On the economic side, environment policies around energy are by far the biggest pressure point. Many in Alberta even say that federal policies are so consistently damaging to our natural resource development, and thus our long-term prosperity, that we'd be better off separating. But our members believe there are millions of fair-minded Canadians who just need to hear clear, positive and fact-based messages to understand the legitimate frustration in the west and join our call for policies that truly balance the environment and the economy. These policies should also respect provincial jurisdiction over natural resources.
With Russia's invasion of Ukraine exacerbating inflation pressures and making energy security a topic at the kitchen table, we think this is a critical time to shift opinions about Canada's role as a significant, safe and sustainable world energy supplier.
The bill under consideration has some laudable intentions. Certainly, there are green initiatives that are praiseworthy, such as the potential for federal involvement to stimulate an east-west electrical grid to move Manitoba hydro power west. Certainly, carbon capture and hydrogen plants are happening, and that's great, but the bill misses the mark in some important ways. The red tape that the bill would create is one concern. The bigger one is the focus on transitioning workers away from oil and gas development.
Existing federal policies that are in development and are already in place are, if anything, overly focused on emissions reductions insofar as the aggressive layers upon layers of taxes and regulations are clearly at the expense of the long-term prosperity of Canadians. Having the ministry devote more resources to new reports on greening our economy at the expense of growing our ability to increase responsible global energy security is entirely misdirected.
The biggest red flag in this whole bill is paragraph 3(3)(b), which calls for job “retraining in regions that rely on traditional energy industries to enable them to build a zero-emissions green economy”. Instead of training workers out of the traditional energy sector, we should be adding more of these valuable workers to expand production. They're also needed for building hydrogen plants and carbon capture systems. The world needs our energy. We can be leaders in climate change mitigation while also expanding jobs in this vital industry.
Fairness Alberta recently launched what we call the “unjust transition” campaign to raise awareness and highlight just how unjust it is to transition away from Canada's oil and gas production. Oil production is expected to climb and then hold steady or slightly decline for the next 30 years. Europe has classified natural gas as green energy, since it is so much cleaner than the coal it displaces and is also vital to supplement intermittent renewables like wind and solar. Natural gas production is going to rise over the next 30 years. We're currently the fourth-largest producer.
As I laid out in a Toronto Sun column in September, if we aren't supplying oil and gas, it's just sending more sales, investment and revenue to Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and another dozen dictatorships. Twelve of the top 15 national reserves in oil and gas are rated “not free”. Why would we step back and let them thrive?
LNG is the obvious place we need to expand. We have an LNG graphic we use in our campaign, pointing east to energy security for Europe and west to slashing coal emissions in Asia. The moral imperative is clear: We have dropped this ball, and for the sake of energy security and the environment, we need to pick it up and make up for lost time, not retrain its workers.
With the shifting global scene, Canadians are likewise shifting their opinion on LNG. Among recently polled Quebeckers, 60% agreed that Canada should pursue LNG export. That means more workers, not fewer.
New investment in oil and gas brings prosperity and opportunity in particular to indigenous communities. It does it better than any other present option. True indigenous partnerships are now the norm in any new investments in the sector. These investments are going to create good-paying jobs in many communities across the Prairies and massive revenues to all orders of government.
There's obviously one big reason the federal government suddenly has a surplus, and that's oil and gas. Last we heard, a lot of eastern provinces really enjoy the large transfer payments that come from the productive parts of the country like Alberta. As we've pointed out before, Albertans sent a net $600 billion more to Ottawa in the last 60 years than was spent back in Alberta. This golden goose can't be sacrificed without economic pain across Canada.
The bill's biggest flaw, then, is in calling on the industry ministry to focus on reporting how they plan to retrain traditional energy workers. It's insulting to Albertans and completely at odds with what Canada should do to help the world: namely, supply more of its energy to reduce global emissions as well as reduce the dependency of nations on petro-dictators.
Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to the question period.