Could Canada's oilpatch trust another Liberal? Here's how the PM contenders stack up
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s decision to step down in March will mark the end of a tumultuous era in the Canadian oilpatch that put the country’s energy sector on a collision course with a growing climate movement, the rise of green investing and organized political opposition to pipelines.
During that time, many in the sector became convinced that Trudeau, despite early claims to the contrary, was an enemy of the energy industry and bent on prematurely sunsetting Canadian production of oil and gas.
In a more generous mood, his oilpatch critics allow that his government salvaged the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX) when Kinder Morgan Inc. threatened to walk away in 2018, a move that has opened new markets for Canadian crude and narrowed the discount on barrels of Western Canadian Select (WCS).
But beginning with Trudeau’s ban on oil tanker traffic off the coast of northern British Columbia — which effectively killed Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline project — and continuing with policies such as Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Act (dubbed by Jason Kenney the “No More Pipelines” act), his tenure was a fraught time for oil and gas development.
TC Energy Corp. scrapped its Energy East pipeline project in 2017, amid shifting regulatory requirements and environmental opposition. The Joe Biden administration in the United States would cancel Keystone XL in 2021.
By the time the federal Liberals began work on an oil and gas emissions cap, there was virtually no goodwill remaining in the sector towards Trudeau or his government, despite its approval of Enbridge’s Line 3 expansion and Ottawa’s assistance in fighting Michigan’s bid to shut down Line 5, which carries oil from Western Canada through the state to
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