In the face of Donald Trump’s annexation musings and tariff measures, there was a sudden strong wind of patriotism in Canada including an apparent determination to start taking the economy seriously. As well we might, since if you rank Canadian provinces and US states by median employment earnings, we sweep the cellar, 51^st through 60^th spots, with even our most prosperous jurisdiction, Alberta, below all of theirs, yes, even including Mississippi. Suddenly our fossil fuel sector had become “conventional energy” and was respectable once again. Or was it? On March 18 a group of hopeful Canadian energy company leaders, Presidents, CEOs and Executive Chairmen, wrote a letter to leaders of Canada’s four main federal political parties urging them to seize the moment and start developing Canada’s clean, reliable oil and gas. In return, former Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson gave them a brisk smackdown, reminding them that they too had endorsed the notion of a climate crisis and urged strong action including carbon taxes to reduce emissions. Proving once again that he who would sup with the devil must have a long spoon, even when seeking morsels of his own goose that he cooked himself.

The letter has the same kind of ingratiating tone as too many oil company proclamations of support for vigorous action on the so-called climate crisis. It starts out “We are at a turning point in Canada’s history and national interest” and after plugging “new oil and natural gas pipelines and LNG terminals, to expand Canada’s energy exports” it says:

“Canadians increasingly see the importance of using our abundant energy to ensure Canada can defend its sovereignty, play a role in the world as a force for good, and improve our overall economic competitiveness and prosperity.”

So elbows up! (For non-Canadians, this phrase has suddenly become a battle cry in dealing with the United States because it evokes an, um, robust style of ice hockey.)

They hit almost all the right notes:

“A catalyst for more Canadians wishing to increase production and energy exports has been a desire to fortify Canadian independence through a stronger economy while diversifying our markets. A more prosperous country will not only raise Canadians’ standard of living and create high quality jobs but provide the financial capability for the country to be a more active and relevant international player.”

The world needs more Canada! Or so we think; the world hasn’t really said. But here we come anyway:

“With a strong commitment to environmental stewardship, Canada can be the global leader in ensuring energy security by being the provider of affordable, democratically produced energy to people around the world, including allies with shared values. A growing Canadian energy sector will also help address the world’s energy poverty emergency. More than 4 billion people, over half the world’s population, live below modern standards of living, which require reliable energy for housing, infrastructure, educations, jobs, and mobility. Energy poverty shrinks as energy grows, which requires affordable and reliable supply. In addition, every year, 8.3 million people die globally due to inadequate access to heating and cooling and indoor air pollution from burning over open fires kerosene, wood, animal dung, crop waste and coal. Canada has the resources to responsibly meet this demand as one of the top five global oil producers and one of only two democratic oil producers in the top ten.”

And just in case, we still believe in the climate emergency:

“At the same time, Canadian energy can help address global carbon emissions. Canadian LNG could replace the more emissions-intensive coal fired electricity generating plants throughout Asia. Canada’s oil sands industry has been investing heavily in research and regulatory approvals to develop new carbon capture and storage projects that have the potential to reduce the sector’s carbon emissions intensity. Thus, an expanding Canadian oil and natural gas sector helps the world’s efforts to tackle this global challenge.”

After a call for “collaboration between industry, government, and society” they then make a set of asks, starting with “Simplify regulation.” By which they mean among other things “Commit to firm deadlines for project approvals.” Right. In Canada.

Then they say:

“Grow production. The federal government’s unlegislated cap on emissions must be eliminated to allow the sector to reach its full potential.”

Followed by:

“Attract investment. The federal carbon levy on large emitters is not globally cost competitive and should be repealed to allow provincial governments to set more suitable carbon regulations.”

And naturally a land acknowledgement: “Incent Indigenous co-investment opportunities.” And a nod to the Liberals’ penchant for emergency legislation:

“By declaring a Canadian energy crisis and key projects in the ‘national interest,’ the federal government will be able to use all its available emergency powers to ensure that the dramatic regulatory restructuring required to expand the oil and natural gas sector is rapidly achieved.”

Or not, because as Charlie Chan once warned, making bedfellow of serpent no protection against snakebite.

Wilkinson, presumably with the approval of his new boss and our new parachute Prime Minister Mark Carney, snarled back that:

“I read with interest, and I must say, with disappointment, your letter of March 18, 2025. There are portions of your letter which are reasonable and with which I agree, but there are also statements I find quite difficult to square with previous public statements a number of you have made.”

The agreement he discerns is that his party has done a great job in the last decade on the energy file, something the executives did not say for obvious reasons. But according to Wilkinson:

“Canada is indeed an energy powerhouse and will continue to be one moving forward. This is true of both conventional and clean energy.”

OK, so a change of heart from all the stuff about phasing out fossil fuels and a decade of blocking projects and saying it was on purpose? Well, no. After claiming that his government has a superb record on energy megaprojects, and has an excellent and efficient regulatory regime in place, both laughable even by political standards, he warned that:

“it is important to be clear that such processes must respect constitutionally protected indigenous rights and must appropriately consider the environment.”

Then he boasted of massive tax handouts, which in Canada take the place of market processes in boosting prosperity, productivity and investment, which is why all three are in the tank here. But having said how great he and his colleagues are, he moved on to rubbishing the industry and its representatives with: “a few, perhaps pointed, words about where we differ.” And guess what comes first:

“I believe in strengthening the competitiveness of a sector in a world that inevitably must reduce the use of unabated hydrocarbons. Climate change is real, and it continues to represent an existential threat to the future of the human race. Simply closing your eyes or pointing out that poverty in parts of the world is also a problem, does not and should not let the sector off the hook.”

He then churned out some of the pseudo-economics in which politicians specialize:

“Addressing production emissions in the sector is not simply an environmental necessity, it is also an economic necessity in a world that will increasingly value low carbon products.”

Not that firms or countries that take that approach are actually prospering, you understand. Quite the reverse; Britain and Germany are deindustrializing while poor citizens shiver in the dark. But Wilkinson has an expense account, a fancy six-figure salary and of course an inflation-adjusted defined-benefit pension. So he can afford to lecture mere energy executives about what would actually make their companies prosper. So with the European Union, the very incarnation of lack of actual economic dynamism and endless rhetoric about the opportunities from ditching reliable power, keen to impose tariffs on high-carbon goods:

“it is more important than ever that we must do everything we can to strategically access these markets and reduce our reliance on the US, not put up barriers that will slow down and stunt our growth.”

Barriers like low taxes and streamlined regulations, don’t you see? But now come the really pointed words and, alas, they are theirs not his:

“In the past, there were some who questioned the sincerity of you and other oil and gas sector executives when they said they were truly committed to addressing carbon emissions. These observers will be emboldened today as a result of your letter’s call to eliminate the industrial carbon price – a price which originated in Alberta under a Conservative government – and a price which many of the authors of your letter have long and publicly supported.”

For good measure he then accused them of disloyalty:

“it is disappointing to see the CEOs of major Canadian energy companies seemingly looking to profit from actions being taken South of the border after spending millions of dollars over the past few years speaking to your sector’s commitment to environmental sustainability – you arrive here.”

It’s the sort of bite you should expect when you invite a serpent into the bed. And yes, you were warned.

In fact we at CDN have long warned Canadian hydrocarbon firms, and by “long” we mean since well before we founded the Climate Discussion Nexus, that the superficially slick cleverness of endorsing a man-made climate emergency in the hopes of being permitted to remain in business was, as Churchill warned, like feeding a crocodile hoping it will eat you last, and not paying much attention to how quickly it gets hungry again.

As one of us once told a senior energy entrepreneur, not a signatory to the letter, in a public forum, “Our product destroys the planet; get yours today!” was not just the worst marketing slogan we’d ever heard, it was the worst such slogan imaginable. To be sure, we recognize that entrepreneurs are in the habit of seeking win-win solutions. But hoping that if you met the politicians half-way they would behave like good men of business was folly.

We said then, and say now, that if you do not believe in the supposed science behind man-made global warming, including if you work in the hydrocarbon industry, you should say so and be prepared to contest it. And if you do, you should not be in this business you yourselves disingenuously pretend to admit is roasting the Earth. Oh men of the worldly minds and juvenile PR departments, do you or do you not believe that:

“Climate change is real, and it continues to represent an existential threat to the future of the human race”?

If you do, what are you doing contributing to it? And if you do not, why on Earth do you pretend to? The only imaginable result is that politicians and zealots will try to shut you down and when you complain they’ll point out that you told them to.

You have been cooking your own goose and should not be surprised that they’re now serving it up including to you, with the sauce that Wilkinson quoted two senior executives, one a signatory to the letter, directly supporting the very carbon taxes they now seek to have lifted. Did they think he wouldn’t find out?

It’s never too late to do the right thing. Well, it’s not while you’re still alive or, in the case of a firm, in business. But if you advocate your own execution, don’t then ask what you’re doing on the scaffold or who cooked your goose. It was you.