Carney sleepwalking Americanization of Canada: Fossil fuels, nuclear, vehicles, military, austerity, immigration and more

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September 17, 2025

Mark Carney won the April 28, 2025, federal election, in part, because many Canadians believed he would be the best to face up to Trump. Trump often refers to Canada as the 51^st state. The irony is since then Carney has engaged in a plethora of initiatives to incrementally sleepwalk Canada towards Americanization of segments of the Canadian political energy and economic landscapes.

Bill C-5: Fast-tracking projects of “national interest”

One of Carney first legislative accomplishments was the hastily adopted Bill C-5 in June 2025, also known as the One Canadian Economy Act. This Act gives Carney absolute power to approve almost whatever major projects he wants in the “national interest,” a very subjective terminology.

Under the umbrella of the Act, nearly all existing legislation can be ignored, and/or rendered ineffective, for major projects of “national interest.”

The primary objective of C-5 is to fast-track major projects such as very large-scale oil and gas export pipelines. C-5 is in keeping Carney’s aim from the outset to make Canada an energy superpower, U.S. style.

Priority “national interest” projects, environment shoved aside

On September 11, 2025, Carney announced the first round of major projects on his to do list. Indications were given that projects for the next round of approvals will occur sometime in November 2025.

Natural gas

One of the first to go major projects high on the agenda is that of a supporting the Phase 2 of the LNG Canada, the liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia.

For the next round of announcements, the probabilities are good for a LNG terminal northern Manitoba, Churchill on the Hudson Bay.

This speaks to Carney’s fixation with “drill, baby drill” resembling Trump’s fetish and an affirmation that Canada is the sixth largest natural gas exporter in the world.

To this end, Carney discussed possible LNG exports to Germany while with Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Germany in August 2025.

This is incongruent with EU gas consumption down by 20% between 2021 and 2024; and EU LNG demand is expected to peak in 2025. The EU clean energy goal is that of energy independence, favouring clean energy by 2027.

Likewise decarbonization is a global phenomenon.

Too, it doesn’t seem to phase Mark Carney that methane emission leaks associated with fracking natural gas, through to the LNG export destination and consumption, render LNG as bad as coal.

Methane has a global warming potential 80 times that of CO2 over a 20-year period.

The declining prices of renewables, mean infrastructure for electrical power from gas is headed for stranded assets.

Contrecour

On the first priority “national interest” list is the construction of a second Montreal port terminal at Contrecoeur. This project has plethora of environmental degradation implications, including contravening the federal legislation, Species at Risk, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and The Fisheries Act. While the project was the object of environmental impact approval in 2021, many authorization requirements remain outstanding.

Oil export pipelines

High on the next phase of projects are cross Canada oil export pipelines comprising:

1) Energy East to cross over most of Canada from Alberta to an export terminal on Canada’s Atlantic coast; and

2) the Northern Gateway with a terminal on the Pacific coast.

Carney’s export pipeline contemplations seemingly don’t take into account the experiences of the Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline twinning project to the Burnaby, British Columbia Pacific coast. This project, which has been operating under capacity at a loss. It has cost Canadian taxpayers C$50 billion in federal subsidies so far and costs Canadians C$3 billion annually.

How fitting is it for Carney to appoint in August 2025, Dawn Farrell, the till then chair of the board of directors of Trans Mountain, to head up the new Major Projects Office.

Here again the matter of global decarbonization is ignored. There is an existing oil and gas glut on global markets which will get worse as more new suppliers enter global markets while China, the European Union, South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, South Asia and other traditional oil and gas importers, are decarbonizing.

Decarbonized oil: An oxymoron

Mark Carney’s drill, baby drill thrust would have us believe that there aren’t serious emissions considerations related to his oil export pipelines because Canada would be exporting “decarbonized oil.” Decarbonized oil doesn’t exist, a Trump-like climate hoax!

Carney was alluding to the next set of announcements to include the carbon capture and storage project of the Pathways Alliance.

Not a single CCS project has met its goals regarding emission reductions, costs and timelines.

The Alliance is made up of 6 major oil sands producers for which the combined revenues were C$35 billion in 2022. Does the Pathways Alliance require government subsidization?

And the “decarbonized oil” does not consider that 75% to 80% of CO2 emissions occur during combustion.

Surely Carney has made a political decision without regard to the environment and economics.

Small modular reactors (SMRs), like Trump

Carney is emulating Trump’s fascination with nuclear energy.

In the works is a nuclear renaissance collaboration deal between the U.S and the United Kingdom. This deal reserves a special focus on small modular reactors (SMRs).

Ontario’s proposal to build 4 SMRs at its Darlington site, are included in the first round of announcements. SMRs are nascent, still experimental, with a track record on costs per unit of energy produced suggesting it should be a no go.

Governments, with the exception of China and Canada’s Ontario Premier Doug Ford, don’t see the case for SMRs for which the costs are five times that of an onshore wind farm or solar project to produce the same amount of energy.

A 2024 report of CSIRO, Australia’s science and research agency, found SMRs to be the most expensive option for power generation. CSIRO predicted SMRs would cost US$382 to US$686 per megawatt hour in 2030.

Pedaling backwards on vehicle emissions, like Trump

The Canadian 2026 requirements for automakers to hit 20% of new vehicle sales to be zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) beginning 2026, was dropped in early September 2025. This adjustment is in line with Trump’s plan for choice between electric and gas-powered vehicles, reversing 2025 vehicle emission rules to 2019 levels.

A Trump conflict with California is ongoing as California’s mandated target market share for ZEVs for 2026 is 35%, with significant incremental increases to 100% by 2035. In 2025, around 25% of new passenger cars in the state are electric.

Carney and Trump and pedaling backwards on the transportation energy transition. Global sales of electric vehicles in the first 7 months of 2025 were up 27% over 2024.

Canadian environmental bottom line

Not surprisingly, the Carney administration cannot commit to meeting the Paris Agreement, according to a statement from the office of Environment Minister, Julie Dabrusin.

Quadrupling military budget to attain 5% of GDP: Aligning with Trump’s Ministry of War

Responding to Trump’s nagging Canada for not spending enough on military capacity, Carney plans to quadruple Canadian spending on defence by 2030, beginning with an increase federal funding for military support by C$9 billion in the upcoming fiscal year 2026/2027, 2% of Canada’s GDP, as part of incrementally increasing military investments to reach 5% of Canada’s GDP by 2035. There isn’t any scientific analysis as the why the military sector should be such a major percentage of GDP.

In keeping with the 5% of GDP objective, Carney’s urgent focus includes the purchasing of 12 submarines to patrol Canada’s three coasts.

This military impetus seems to conveniently ignore that the only potentially “dangerous aggressor” country on Canada’s borders is Russia, in Canada’s Arctic region.

However, submarines on Canada’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts may be justified should Canada be preparing for WWIII, with a Department of War. This resembles Trump’s Department of War with its economic benefits.

Notwithstanding, Carney likes to boast of the economic opportunities, as a sovereign economic agency, associated with new defense spending. Carney speaks of the economic possibilities for innovation and the creation of good new jobs for Canadians. This is similar to the Trump narrative.

Sure, there will be economic opportunities with any type of major fresh government spending.

Why emulate the U.S. military industrial complex when Canadian spending of huge amounts on cleantech innovation and deployment can close the gap in one of the fastest growing sectors in the world, a sector for which Canada is pitifully weak competitor?

Austerity cuts to government services, Trump “light”

To compensate for the sharp hike in the military budget, Carney will be cutting operational funding for federal services by 7% in fiscal year 2026-27, 10% in 2027-28 and 15% in 2028-29.

This dismisses that federal services are cracking across the board because of insufficient financial resources, people and operational needs, unable to accommodate demand. Examples are manifold, ranging from inexpedient reviews of each immigrant’s status request to underfunded public transportation, to inadequate transfers of federal funds to support financially tormented provincial healthcare systems.

Targeting immigrants and border security, Trump “light”

Awaiting approval is Mark Carney’s Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act, which allows for discretionary retrograding of an immigrant’s status and discretionary deporting of immigrants. This appears to be an “emulation light” of Trump’s chaotic harsh treatments of immigrants.

Other Trump appeasing initiatives

Ceding to Trump’s rants, Carney annulled the implementation of the Digital Services Act, which, like similar Acts in Australia, France and others, would have imposed a 3% tax on digital services such as Netflix, Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb, crossing into Canada, earning revenues in Canada, without paying any taxes. It has taken almost a decade for Canada to adopt this act in 2024, due to heavy lobbying/bullying.

To avoid rattling the beast, Trump, Canada will not apply retaliatory tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S. that are impacted by U.S. tariffs and not protected by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Trump implemented 35% tariff on items not protected by the USMCA anyway.

The Takeaway

Mark Carney is Americanizing segments of the Canadian political landscape, but so gradually that it the cumulative results are missed by most Canadians.

Climate change has taken a back seat to Carney’s Trump-like “drill baby drill” “national interests” to favour major oil and gas projects.

Projects that defy economic and/or environmental considerations are being sanctioned, such as small modular reactors.

Hints have been offered that Canada will not comply with the Paris Agreement.

Zero emission vehicle objectives have been abandoned, emulating Trump in the process.

Canadian military spending will be quadrupled while Carney boasts of economic opportunities for doing so. This aligns well with U.S. military-industrial complex mindset and Trump’s Department of War.

The stretched thin government services will be cut to compensate for quadrupling in the military budget. Trump has been shown to be most enthusiastic on cuts to “wasteful” government services.

The Digital Services Act has been abandoned, though long awaited, immediately after Trump threatened more tariffs if the Act was to be implemented.

Discretionary powers to retrograde the status of many immigrants and to deport immigrants are to come, though there is no apparent need for doing so. This may be described as a pale reflection of Trump policies on immigration.

Carney is sleepwalking the Americanization of Canada and action on climate change has been slaughtered on the altar.

Nearly all of this wasn’t laid out in Carney’s election campaign.

“Drill, baby drill” Trump will flop

By

Will Dubitsky

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March 6, 2025

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Flop Cheniere Energy LNG export terminal FT-AA528_LNG_SOC_20181128221004 — LNG export terminal

Introduction

The current oil and gas gluts and planned expansion projects will hit walls as demand around the world for fossil fuels is already on trajectories to decline.

China, the largest importer of fossil fuels, is engaged in a transition to a green economy at such a humongous pace, it is difficult to keep up with developments.

Too, China’s affordable electric vehicle (EV) global sales are on launching pads to take the world by a storm, leaving the U.S. to become a dinosaur.

U.S domestic power trends favour renewables over natural gas.

South and Southeast Asia, perceived by the liquified natural gas (LNG) industry as the next hot markets, are turning to renewables.

Lastly, Europe, South Korea and Japan, half the global LNG market, are engaged in a transition away from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels glut

Oil

According to the International Energy Agency, oil production will outstrip demand from now until at least 2030. Two principal factors point in this direction.

First, growth in oil demand in Asia, aviation and petrochemicals will be more than offset by a decline in demand associated with transportation sector electrification and better fuel efficiency plus the climate action of critical fossil fuel importing jurisdictions, most notably in China and Europe, along with other countries. More on the climate achievements and momentum of these jurisdictions follow in subsequent article segments.

Second, Guyana, Brazil and Argentina are increasing their supplies to global markets.

Hence, Trump is his worst enemy by encouraging expansion of U.S. oil production.

This could be exacerbated by a pending price war with Saudi Arabia.

For the U.S., the bottom line is the oversupply has contributed to the current price of oil, around $70/barrel, too low for U.S. expansion. The U.S. oil industry is hesitant to expand, and more focused on shareholder returns.

For U.S. oil production to expand, the price must rise to $80 or more, becoming more unlikely due to the indefinitely long global glut.

Natural Gas

There’s already a natural gas glut, as per the conclusions of the for Institute Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). This glut will get much worse, very much the result of the U.S. massive natural gas expansion projects.

Globally, the LNG supply capacity may increase to 666.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) by 2028. That’s greater than the IEA assessment of demand prospects for 2050, 482 MTPA.

The U.S has about 20 new LNG project terminal projects, with 4,667 km of pipelines. If pending applications are combined with the 360 MTPA of approved projects and added to current production, the U.S. would be on a path to produced 430 MTPA of natural gas, by 2029 to 2035.

This would far exceed the current global capacity of 400 MTPA.

The U.S. expansion projects and the European gas import substitutes, post Russian invasion of Ukraine, have driven up the international price of natural gas and U.S. domestic power rates as a side-effect.

In January 2024, Biden had tried to put a temporary pause on pending LNG-related projects. One year later, in January 2025, Trump ordered resuming reviewal of applications for pending projects.

Trump chose to ignore the implications of increasing U.S. gas exports.

Even current capacity alone indicates there will be costly stranded assets before 2030. Quite the risks, given the price tags of large export terminals are $15 to $25 billion, the lifespan of a export terminal is 30 to 50 years, and import terminals cost around $3 billion.

There are also the obstacles to the financing of long timelines for building LNG related infrastructures. Terminal construction can take from just under 4 to 5.1 years.

For an idea of the expenditures for pipelines, 13 of them adds up to more than $62 billion.

Further, the poor economics of the U.S. natural gas sector demise is already evident. While U.S. natural gas supplies are 78% shale gas, 30% to 40% being by-products from shale oil sites, the more productive/profitable shale U.S. oil and gas wells have been depleted. Since shale gas wells have a productive life duration of 3 years, the industry looks like its heading for another financial conundrum, a repeat of the shale industry meltdown in early 2020s.

Swelling the global supply situation, Norway, Russia, Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, and potentially Mozambique and Tanzania, are, and/or my soon be, contributing to more gas supplies on global markets.

The gas export stakeholders continue to pin hopes for larger LNG supplies to supply new markets in South and Southeast Asia, To serve the power needs of these markets, home-grown renewables projects are the better options since they are relatively inexpensive, and construction timelines are short.

Significant, China has its own shale gas potential. Together with China’s goal severance from fossil fuels dependencies, this will lessen the need for LNG imports. It is estimated that China has 31.57 trillion cubic metres (1,115 trillion cubic feet) of recoverable shale gas.

Eventually, the global gas oversupply bottom line will lead to lower prices, something that threatens the viability of the U.S. shale gas sector. These lower prices will likely last for quite some time.

Green transition is well-underway

China’s oil and gas imports decline

China, the world’s largest energy consumer, representing 25% of global oil imports and 18% of global LNG imports, is weaning off oil and gas at spellbinding rates.

China is the most electrified nation in the world and the pace of electrification continues to spiral.

No wonder, the peaks of China’s crude oil consumption and refined oil are 2025 and were 2023 respectively. Crude oil imports declined 2% in January 2025. By 2035, China’s refined oil products consumption is projected to drop 25-40%, based on the peak year 2023.

On natural gas, though China is the largest importer of gas in the world, consumption and emissions are destined to drop through to 2030, because gas is more expensive than coal and not green; wind and solar total capacity to-date have exceeded China’s target; coal capacity is used primarily for peaking periods; there has been a shift to supercritical coal power plants with less emissions than traditional coal facilities; and, most important, China has an overarching goal for a peak emissions deadline with an emphasis on energy independence.

China’s EVs domestic and global market expansion:

In 2024, China’s affordable and advanced tech EVs captured 60% of the global EV market, 53% of its domestic vehicle market.

Chinese EV manufacturers are now poised to conquer ALL major global markets outside North America. The BYD momentum to-date entails manufacturing plants and projects in 7 countries and entering a new country nearly every week, with an average selling price of $16,700.

Concurrently, legacy automakers, for which China is a major market, are losing market share in the country, because they cannot compete with China’s EV’s which have better designs, prices and technologies.

The EV Trump effect

The Trump administration wants to stop attacks on gas-powered vehicles

Contributing to the demise of North American-based legacy automakers, Trump’s plan is to roll back corporate average fuel economy standards from the 2025 level to that of 2019.

The reversal on vehicle emissions will result in 25% more emissions/vehicle mile than current 2025 rules and an average fuel economy dip of 15%. The brakes have been put on the transition to EVs.

The Trump package would also prohibit California and 13 other waiver states to adopt stricter emission rules than those of the federal government, beginning 2026. During his first term, Trump had blocked waivers of the previous administration, but the Biden unblocked this restriction.

As for Musk, he believes the termination of EV consumer credit will hurt Tesla’s competitors more than Tesla. Ford claims it loses $100,000 per EV sold and EV-related 2024 loses will be well over $5 billion.

Accordingly, the Trump administration has sent clear signals to legacy automakers in U.S market to change priorities to favour lineups of more of the more profitable gas guzzlers.

The U.S. EV market share will not come close to the Bloomberg projection of 13% for 2024 or the IEA prediction of 11%.

EVs, the U.S. aside

Notwithstanding Trump’s undermining the EV sector in the U.S., by 2030, the global EV fleet will displace 3.3 million b/d (b/d) by 2030, up from 385,000 b/d in 2022.

China, renewables and keeping pace with rising electricity demand

China’s renewables have reached 50% its power supply with the installation of 357 GW of solar and wind in 2024, an 18% increase from the previous year.

The result is China’s renewables target for 1.2 TW by 2030 was reached in 2024, 6 years ahead of schedule.

Yet these achievements have not been enough since China’s electricity demand has risen faster than the economic growth since 2020. The country’s electricity demand increased 7% in 2024, and the forecast is for an annual average of 6% through to 2027. In addition to the electricity consumption growth associated with the manufacturing of clean tech and energy intensive industrial sectors, there are new phenomena, such as the latest highs in consumption for air conditioning and 5G networks.

The U.S and renewables

Most inconsistent with Trump’s view for America, 93% of 2024 power capacity additions stemmed from clean energy. U.S. solar set a record in 2024, at 30 gigawatts (GW), accounting for 61% of U.S. utility scale power capacity additions for the year.

And the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts 2025 solar new capacity will reach 32.5 GW. That’s far less than the 2025 EIA projection for gas at 4.4 GW of added annual capacity and lower than wind for this year at 7.7 GW.

U.S. solar additions combined with energy storage, will come to 81% of U.S. of 2025 capacity additions.

Interesting, Texas is the U.S. windpower leader and its solar sector is booming, 11.6 GW estimated for 2025.

The other 50% of global LNG markets

Elsewhere, the combined LNG imports of Japan, Europe and South Korea, which account for half of LNG demand, declined in 2023. The descent is expected to continue through to 2030.

European gas imports were down 20% in 2024 and consumption is expected to peak in 2025. EU gas imports trajectory is expected to continue to decline through to 2030.

Japan previously the world’s largest LNG importer, is another country where imports of gas are descending, 8% in 2023, another 9% in 2024. Increases in nuclear and renewables capacity will assure continuation of the gas use tumble. Since 2018, LNG imports fell 20%.

For South Korea, traditionally the largest importer of U.S. LNG, imports dropped 5% in 2023. With the planned increases in solar, wind and nuclear capacity, by 2035, LNG imports may drop by 20%.

In Southeast Asia, LNG projects are on pause with significant transitions to renewables underway, especially in Vietnam and the Philippines.

In South Asia, Pakistan proclaimed a halt to LNG projects while engaging in a radical transition to renewables. During the last two years Pakistan installed 40 GW of solar, extraordinary since its entire power generation capacity in 2023 was 46 GW. This profound departure from past energy policies may soon get a big boost, to the tune of $1billion in climate funds, from the International Monetary Fund.

India, like Pakistan, has no plans for plans for new LNG plants.

This spells trouble for U.S. export contracts which typically integrate flexibility for the termination of shipments.

In Canada, most of the LNG projects have been shelved, the results of high cost for terminal construction and pipelines along with public political opposition to new projects.

The takeaway

It is clear that the current oil and gas gluts will get worse with demand for fossil fuels at the precipice of a global decline.

China alone, the world’s largest energy consumer, is engaged in a mindboggling rate of electrification and decarbonization of its economy. This will significantly reduce global fossil fuel demand, peak oil has already been reached and peak gas very soon.

China’s affordable EVs are penetrating global markets, leaving the U.S., and probably Canada, way behind in road transportation. Road transportation traditionally represents 25% of petroleum consumption.

Renewables around the globe are displacing natural gas demand.

This is even happening in the U.S, where 93% of new capacity in 2024 was attributable to renewables. Solar and energy storage combined, will come in at over 80% of power additions in 2025.

South and Southeast Asia emerging economies are engaged in a transition to renewables. Thus the prospects for bets on the LNG industry exports are fiction.

Ditto for South Korea LNG demand.

The European momentum on renewables, EVs, heat pumps and other decarbonization measures, are unstoppable.

Better technology at better prices are globally agnostic, as such, cannot be stopped by the phantasms of the President of the U.S.

The world is already engaged in the energy transition and all the new economic paradigms that go with it.

The Trump drill baby drill objective will flop globally and domestically.

China: Largest emitter to green gamechanger, but…

By

Will Dubitsky

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July 4, 2022

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China climate emergency global influence

China is several years ahead of other developed countries on the migration to a green economy, in clean technology production capacity, massive market penetration and green investments. China already has an extraordinary global green export potential. China leads in renewables, electric vehicles and battery production, incrementally regulating plastic solutions, high-speed rail, private clean tech investment, government environmental support and green bonds. China’s concurrent climate actions are gamechangers destined to have huge global competition impacts on energy, economic, transportation, industrial and other paradigms, perhaps more so than the climate crisis. But there are simultaneous contradictions. China is the world’s largest liquified natural gas importer, once again ramping up coal production and certainly not a leader on human rights.

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