News broke recently that our per capita income has fallen behind that of Alabama, a shock to the many Canadians who have long regarded the US south with self-satisfied derision. Chris Selley wrote in the National Post, “At least we're richer than Alabama in complacency”. But perhaps he should have said “because” rather than “at least”. And to emphasize the point, after former Prime Minister Trudeau sent the German chancellor and others packing when they came begging us to export Liquified Natural Gas to them, we are now… importing LNG from Australia. Incredibly, it now makes short-term sense to ship the stuff over twenty-five thousand kilometers to our east coast, prompting dismay and sarcasm from sensible observers. So where’s the “elbows-up” prime minister who promised to boost productivity to strengthen our sovereignty? Why, he’s leaving on a jet plane, spewing carbon and platitudes. We understand why Australia is looking to diversify its sales. But the only reason Canada is now a plausible customer is the preposterous record of policy failure, obstruction, inertia and a ghastly icing of smugness on this indigestible cake that continues to characterize our performance on this as on so many files.

With regard to the strange habit “Carbon” Carney has of flying about endlessly exchanging Davos clichés, one of us complained in another forum that “instead of going to the office to battle a stack of tricky files, he basically spends all his time gallivanting about internationally and exchanging clichés with Keir Starmer.” And we promptly got a press release saying “Today, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, participated in a virtual meeting of the Coalition of the Willing in support of Ukraine. The meeting was co-chaired by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.” And while you may retort that at least he finally heard of videoconferencing, with its modest carbon footprint, even if it’s hard to imagine what Carney, Starmer and Macron can say to one another about Ukraine that they have not already said, we also promptly got a news story “Prime Minister Mark Carney to travel to India ‘with very good image,’ says envoy”.

Interestingly, the press release about that one, designed further to burnish his already excellent image, deepen already deep ties and generally leverage the catalytic transformation, didn’t mention climate once, only nodding curtly at “clean energy”. Possibly he’s slightly more self-aware than his predecessor about the contradiction between a career denouncing “carbon pollution” and a career spent flying constantly. (Including, on that trip alone, to Australia and Japan as well.) It’s still hard to believe that, with everything going wrong in Canada including, at least from his perspective, missing our emissions targets, he shouldn’t occasionally drop by the office, let alone that things like “Prime Minister Carney secures new economic, security, and talent partnerships with Luxembourg” are meant to be credible in any way shape or form, never mind more important than the boring stuff in his inbox about striking down interprovincial trade barriers or getting pipelines built.

According to an opinion headline in Canada’s main establishment paper, the Globe & Mail, “Ottawa cannot keep giving mixed signals to Canada’s energy sector”. But just as “must” when used in headlines and polemical press releases means “won’t”, so “cannot” means “will”. The authors, “president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce” and “president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers” respectively, try to flatter the monarch. They lead off:

“As the world grapples with disruptions to trade flows and economic uncertainty, Canada’s options for generating meaningful growth have become a focal point for our country.”

The first part of which is essentially cut-and-pasted from the first paragraph of dozens upon dozens of press releases from Liberal cabinet members whose communications are under the thumb of the Prime Minister’s Office. (Or, from the PM’s about his latest international jaunt, “In a changing world, we are investing in our strength, diversifying our trade, and cultivating a dense web of new connections throughout the world to build Canada strong.”) Nice touch. And then they add:

“While economic growth is often linked to jobs and affordability, in the current environment it also extends to economic sovereignty and geopolitical leverage.”

Evidently someone reminded them that the Prime Minister’s own bloviations treat catalyse, transform and leverage as magic symbols. And on they flatter:

“The historic signing of a memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and Alberta last November – which came with a commitment to eliminate the emissions cap and the Clean Electricity Regulations – set us on the road to becoming an energy superpower and served as an important signal the federal government sees the sector as a driver of Canada’s economy.”

But Canada is not an energy superpower. As Tristin Hopper recently noted in the National Post regarding Ontario’s premier, a nominally conservative, full-time blusterer and part-time Carney ally:

“At the height of U.S.-Canada tariff tensions in early 2025, Ontario Premier Doug Ford famously threatened to cut off Canadian electricity exports to the United States…. There was once a time when the prospect of such a thing would have been devastating to millions of American homeowners. The sudden removal of Canada’s brawny reserves of hydro and nuclear power would have plunged whole states into brownout, if not total darkness…. But apparently unbeknownst to Ford, that was no longer even close to true. At the time his threat was made, less than one per cent of U.S. electricity still came from Canada, and there were days when Canada emerged as a net importer of American power. Severing the electrical links between the two countries wouldn’t have been noticed.”

It’s bad enough that it was so. Far worse that the politicians don’t even know it. As one of us also complained elsewhere, Canada is governed as if nothing mattered. Not even facts. We can demolish our energy sector and remain an energy superpower, elbowing Uncle Sam into the cold darkness.

Or not. For as Hopper went on:

“The economic story of Canada’s last 20 years is replete with missed opportunities, particularly when it comes to energy. Canada failed to export its oil to anyone except the U.S., leaving it vulnerable to U.S. trade shocks. Canada dawdled on LNG infrastructure, leaving it unable to capitalize on Europe and Asia’s newfound thirst for the fuel.”

It’s what a real leader would be acting decisively to change. And what the hapless energy executives are trying to half-cajole Carney into and half-pretend he’s already doing. But he’s not, and we are not on the road to energy superpowerhood. Not least because that fabled memorandum was a trick, in which Alberta accepted an actual increased industrial carbon price for a rhetorical pipeline.

We don’t blame the executives for trying to appeal to the better economic angels of Carney’s nature. But they’re not on the job either. Carney does not see their sector as a driver of Canada’s economy. He sees it as an outdated destroyer of Planet Earth.

When he gallivants about the globe trading clichés with the Davoisie, they are not about Canada as a massive exporter of oil and natural gas. They are about AI and “critical minerals” for the green energy transformation. When he says “energy” people try hard to hear “oil and gas”. But he means wind and solar, like all the cool kids.

If he means anything at all. Sadly, as Parker Gallant warned:

“Back in early April 2025 PM Carney vowed to speed permits that would turn Canada into an Energy Superpower and then five months later in September 2025 he finally delivered a list of five major projects that was sent off to his new creation the ‘Major Projects Office’ with a budget of $264 million! Here we are in February 2026, and it appears we Canadians are still waiting to hear if any of those original projects on the list have been approved!”

Other than a nuclear reactor because of the obsession with electrifying everything. Because Carney does not sit at his desk making sure approved projects get approved, and then of all weird preoccupations actually built. He flies about leveraging catalytics. Which is one reason his “austerity and investment budget” was all spending labeled investment and no austerity. He’s just not there making the tough calls. He’s abroad making the easy smiles and firm handshakes.