Stop The Federal Cap On Oil And Gas

Stop The Federal Cap On Oil And Gas

This week, Environment and Climate Change Minister, Steven Guilbeault, effectively announced the end of Alberta's oil and gas industry.

In Egypt, at COP27, he announced that his government will cap oil and gas sector emissions from the end of next year, and work to reduce them after that.

Remember, even Justin Trudeau said that no country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.

But that, of course, was before he was Prime Minister.

Radical environmental activist Steven Guilbeault does believe we should leave 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground.

Now, yes, technically, he 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 long enough 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 this week's announcement, wouldn't you?

But no, these same people who were calling for exactly this policy just a few years ago actually attacked his announcement.

They think that this week's announcement - the policy they were calling for until recently - is woefully inadequate.

They now want, you guessed it, a cap on production.

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 Albertans is now.

If we don't do so right now, it might be too late.

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 stop the federal cap on oil and gas.