EDITORIAL: Scrap Justin Trudeau's economy-killing laws

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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to forge ahead with “nation-building” projects will fail unless his government cancels or amends a wave of economy-killing legislation passed by his Liberal predecessor, Justin Trudeau. Long before U.S. President Donald Trump launched his tariff war against us, the previous Trudeau government was passing legislation that cut our own economic throats by undermining Canada’s energy sector.

For Carney to make good on his election promise to make Canada “the world’s leading energy superpower, in both clean and conventional energy,” he needs to take steps to build long-term investor certainty and market confidence in our energy sector.

Ontario’s Doug Ford, Alberta’s Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe issued a joint memo of understanding on Tuesday on what they say needs to be done, at the meeting between Carney and the premiers in Ontario’s cottage country.

As they described it:

“Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan agree on the need for the federal government to address underlying conditions that have harmed the energy industry in Canada, including significantly amending or repealing the Impact Assessment Act, as well as repealing the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, clean electricity regulations, the oil and gas sector greenhouse gas emissions cap, and all other federal initiatives that discriminately impact the energy sector, as well as other economic sectors, such as mining and manufacturing.”

Indeed, without these changes, nation-building infrastructure projects such as new oil and gas pipelines to get Canada’s vast oil and natural gas resources to tidewater and from there to global markets — instead of selling them at huge discounts to the Americans — will never become a reality. Ditto new railway lines to create made-in-Canada supply chains for our vast mineral resources — such as those in Ontario’s Ring of Fire — to establish new markets for growth, and achieve “Canadian energy security in the face of trade uncertainty with the United States.”

Given that Trudeau justified these initiatives in the name of fighting climate change, the Carney government also needs to reassess the effectiveness of the more than $200 billion his predecessor earmarked for fighting climate change through 149 government programs, while having, according to environment commission Jerry DeMarco, the worst record of reducing greenhouse gas emissions of any G7 country.

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