By Mark Milke and Ven Venkatachalam Canadian Energy Centre Atlantic Canada struggled to create good-paying jobs long before the COVID-19 pandemic. The multiple reasons include poor policy and high taxes on businesses and individuals. Poor policy reinforces other lousy policy, leading to a self-reinforcing downward economic spiral. For instance, previous governments formed policy forbidding fracking…
International power politics employed by the likes of Russia have resulted in many countries looking for new energy sources
By Mark Milke and Ven Venkatachalam Canadian Energy Centre Russia cut off the natural gas supply to Ukraine in mid-winter 2009, ostensibly over a pricing dispute. It was a reminder that energy can be used as an economic and political weapon by autocratic regimes – in this instance, Vladimir Putin’s Russia. We have more recent…
The $493 billion in oil and gas revenues paid to governments since 2000 is more than family allowance and children’s benefits since 1970
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre Humans are wired to respond to stories that paint a relatable picture of an issue at hand. And those stories are easier to remember. If we repeat a Rex Murphy story about how out-of-work cod fishery workers from Newfoundland saved their homes and marriages by moving…
Less supportive policies and regulatory constraints has led to natural gas stagnation in Canada
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre The United States has undergone an energy renaissance of sorts in recent years. After decades of importing significant volumes of natural gas, there has been a transformation in both the economy and policy on that source of energy in particular. Americans began to produce and export…
The importance of oil and gas extraction to Canada’s GDP, jobs, incomes or tax revenues can’t be understated
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre No matter how you slice it, Canada’s oil and natural gas sector has been one of the nation’s most significant contributors to jobs, gross domestic product (GDP) and tax revenues over the decades. Even in down years, such as 2016, the oil and gas extraction sector…
Most B.C. and Alberta First Nations favour oil and natural gas development. So why do we let activists claim otherwise?
By Gregory John and Mark Milke Canadian Energy Centre A common tactic of anti-oil-and-gas activists and some international organizations over the past decade is to group all Indigenous people under the false narrative of broad opposition to energy development. Those with anti-development agendas ostensibly enlist Indigenous allies as the easiest way to delay or stop…
Oil and gas revenues can be used by tyrannies, autocracies and dictatorships to oppress their populations
Why would consumers treat tyranny oil differently than blood diamonds or clothing made by child labour? One of the more bizarre reactions to bare facts came recently after a colleague and I analyzed oil-and-gas-producing countries and their degree of freedom – the Tyranny Index, as we labelled it. Some argued such tracking is irrelevant because…
Despite claims by some that ‘oil is dead’ and that the sector is heavily subsidized, the evidence suggests otherwise
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre In the ongoing debate over whether Canada’s oil and natural gas industry will or should survive, one argument often advanced is the notion that oil and gas activity in Canada survives only due to massive subsidies from taxpayers. The debate has been fuelled recently by comments from…
Neither the lockdown not government diktat will end our dependence on fossil fuels for quite some time
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre In 1897 while in London in the midst of a worldwide speaking tour, American author Mark Twain became the subject of rumours back home that he was dead. To discover the truth, a reporter from the New York Journal wrote to Twain to ask if he…
The COVID-19 crisis can’t be used as an excuse to kill one of Canada’s largest, best-paying industries, which benefits us all
Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre While the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic and an economic downturn, anti-energy activists have spotted an opportunity: to kill off Canada’s oil and gas industry – the one that provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenues to governments.…