Trudeau’s Liberals emerge Canada’s 2nd minority government

Gary Park

for Petroleum News

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau triggered a federal election two years ahead of schedule he declared it was a performance review of his administration’s handling of COVID-19, including hundreds of billions of dollars in support benefits and a massive debt.

What he really wanted was an outright majority in Parliament to act on continued pandemic spending and eventual economic recovery as well as passing laws to enable Canada to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

In other words, he wanted a blank check to govern without having to negotiate support from one of the minority parties.

Apparently Canadians did not agree with the early vote, that cost C$610 million to conduct.

As of press time, the Liberals held 156 of 338 electoral districts, the Conservatives 121, the Bloc Quebecois (which promotes sovereignty in Quebec) 32, the socialist New Democratic Party 27, the Greens 2.

Under that structure, Trudeau needs the backing of at least one of the three leading opposition parties to adopt legislation, while those same three parties would have to form an unlikely alliance to force another election.

For now, the oil and gas sector, which has faced demands by the NDP to accelerate an end to fossil fuel development, faces continued unease.

Tristan Goodman, president of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, told the Calgary Herald the industry’s only consolation is an “understanding of where this government wants to go … there’s a continued focus on us to improve our greenhouse gas emissions.”

“The No. 1 thing we need is stability and certainty because then we know what the policies are.”

Jeremy McCrea, an analyst with Raymond James, said that so long as rules on carbon emissions and taxes “don’t keep changing, companies are just fine hunkering down and not being in the limelight.”

The Liberals have promised to introduce a C$2 billion tax credit to promote carbon capture, utilization and storage, CCUS, to raise the national price of carbon to C$170 per metric ton from the current C$40 and to achieve net zero emissions in five-year increments by 2050.

The unknown is what price the NDP will demand for its support in the House of Commons, given its pledge to end federal subsidies to the industry, which could mean no federal backing for investments in technologies such as CCUS that could achieve its own net zero target by 2035.

- GARY PARK