OTTAWA, ON — The Conservative Opposition Members on the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development issued the following statement when tabling their dissenting report to the Committee report The Government of Canada’s Planned Phase-Out of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and of Public Financing of the Fossil Fuel Sector:
“Once again, Trudeau and his NDP coalition partners are attacking our energy workers and using every tool available to harm the world’s leading energy sector.
“The Canadian oil and gas industry is the single largest private sector investor in clean technologies. It has a tremendous record of reducing pollution, reducing emissions and the highest standard of environmental practices that ensures a sustainable environment for all. The value and expertise of the Canadian oil and gas industry clearly demonstrates why it is a part of the solution.
“Lowering carbon emissions needs to be addressed with realistic, concrete, and practical measures. We need to remove the gatekeepers, red tape, and government blocking of any development to allow the innovators and creators in the private sector to develop and apply new technologies to reduce pollution.
“The oil and gas industry provided $21 billion to Canadian governments in 2021 – precisely the opposite of a subsidized industry. Instead of embracing the contributions made by the industry, the Liberal-NDP coalition is using a biased and flawed committee report to justify their ideological crusade against Canadian oil and gas.
“The Liberals’ solution is a job-killing carbon tax, a second carbon tax (the clean fuel standard), and the recently unveiled unjust transition to make the cost of living more expensive for all Canadians while failing to meet a single solitary climate target.
“The Liberal-NDP committee report fails to define what a fossil fuel subsidy is and does not provide the tools needed to reduce emissions. It is also no surprise that it gives no credit to the work that has already been done to phase out subsidies to the sector, including by the previous Conservative government.
“Canadian oil and gas fuels our economy and brings home hundreds of thousands of good paycheques for Canadians – but the NDP-Liberal coalition have shown they will stop at nothing to shut it down. Canada produces oil and gas with the highest environmental and human rights standards. Canada has what the world wants, and needs, but the NDP-Liberal government seems determined to ensure they will not get it.
“The Liberal government will turn the hurt they have caused into more hurt by forcing down the main economic driver for many of our communities and the interconnected jobs and businesses they rely on. This activist-driven NDP-Liberal Government will undermine our energy security, jeopardize Canada’s contributions in reducing emissions, and drive up the cost of energy and goods for all Canadians.”