Update - November 1st, 2021
Today, Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau effectively announced the end of Alberta's oil and gas industry.
In Glasgow, at COP26, he announced that his government will "cap oil and gas sector emissions today and ensure they decrease tomorrow".
Frankly, it's amazing how far Justin Trudeau has come since 2017, when he said that no country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there and disowned his father's NEP policy as a "failure" "that hurt growth and jobs".
But that, of course, was before he was Prime Minister.
That was back when he was campaigning to be Prime Minister.
Remember, this is the guy that just last week appointed radical environmental activist Steven Guilbeault as Environment and Climate Change Minister.
The same Steven Guilbeault who does believe we should leave 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground.
Now, yes, technically, Trudeau said he would cap and reduce emissions, not oil and gas production, and some energy companies are confident they can find efficiencies to allow them to continue producing some oil and gas without increasing emissions.
But anyone who's been in the game enough long has seen the goalposts moved often enough to recognize another goalpost shifting when they see it, and that's exactly what happened today.
How so?
Well, you would think Minister Guilbeault's friends in the eco-activist industry - the same people who just a few years ago were calling for this cap on emissions - would be happy about today's announcement, wouldn't you?
But no, these same people who were calling for exactly this policy just a few years ago actually attacked Trudeau's announcement today.
They think that today's announcement - the policy they were calling for until recently - is woefully inadequate.
They now want, you guessed it, a cap on production.
For example, Dale Marshall from Environmental Defence criticized Trudeau, saying:
"Focusing on emissions from oil and gas production but not production itself will allow oil and gas companies to keep putting forward false solutions".
That's right, you didn't misread that - they don't actually care about the level of carbon emissions, they don't actually care whether emissions go down, they want the amount of oil and gas produced to go down.
This, fellow Albertans, is what Alberta is up against.
The radical eco-activist environmental movement doesn't want Alberta's oil and gas industry to be more environmentally friendly, they want Alberta's oil and gas industry to die.
Meanwhile, having shifted the goalposts a dozen times already - the federal government's environmental policies are as close to a complete ban on oil and gas as you can get, without actually banning it.
One more goalpost shift, and it will be an outright ban.
The environmental groups are pushing for that last final goalpost shift.
And Albertans are just supposed to trust the federal government that, despite all the previous times they shifted the goalposts, this time they definitely won't.
The time to stand up for Alberta, and stand up for Albertan is now.
If we don't do so right now, it might be too late.
Stand Up For Alberta Resources
Meet Justin Trudeau's new Environment and Climate Change Minister, Steven Guilbeault:
Hint, he's not one of the police officers, he's the one being arrested for a radical stunt he conducted as an eco-activist with Greenpeace.
Admittedly, this was a few years ago, but it's not like Minister Guilbeault believes anything different than Activist Guilbeault.
Upon being appointed as Environment and Climate Change Minister, Guilbeault told media that he had no 'secret agenda'.
We agree! Guilbeault's agenda is no a secret, he's been completely open, transparent, and consistent about his wish to dismantle Alberta's entire oil and gas industry, piece by piece, until there's nothing left.
And it won't stop with oil and gas.
This is a guy who co-founded a Quebec activist group that also campaigns against agriculture, forestry, minerals, large vehicles (actually all gas-powered vehicles), basically every element of modern society.
Justin Trudeau's appointment of Guilbeault puts Ottawa and Alberta on an inevitable collision course.
In the 1980s, Alberta Premier, Peter Lougheed, fought for - and won - an amendment to the Canadian Constitution - Section 92A - that gave Alberta (and the other Provinces) the exclusive right to explore, develop, conserve, and manage their natural resources.
This amendment made clear that these resources belonged to the Provinces, not the federal government, and Alberta would not have signed on to the Constitution had that clause not been included.
Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault do not believe in that clause in the Canadian Constitution.
They have already ignored it many times, and intend to continue to ignore it.
Justin Trudeau's view is that Alberta can do whatever we want with our resources... as long as whatever we want to do is exactly what the federal government wants us to do.
And the new federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change's view is that we should leave them in the ground - all of them.
Enough is enough.
Now is the time for every Albertan - and the Alberta government - to stand up to the federal government.
If you agree, please join our campaign to Stand Up For Alberta Resources and send a message to Ottawa.
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Oil and gas.