Commentary

Coming unstuck from the past

June 5, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

The listener on the CBC radio’s program Cross Country Check-up last Sunday told a story about what Wayne Gretzky attributes to his success in hockey. The man reported that the hockey star is quoted as saying, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” 

The program’s conversation was centred on whether or not Canada should be building more pipelines. There is so much pressure not to build any more pipelines, not to stick to oil when the alternatives are in abundance and money is in full flow – but where: in the coffers of the oil industry and the indulgent subsidies to oil and gas from the government.

So far, Carney has not committed to policies about the pipeline through Alberta to Barnaby B.C. nor has he discussed subsidies to the industry which were generous during Trudeau’s government. Money being spent on pipelines and the industry as a whole should be invested instead into developing and building the alternatives. 

Carney understands the eggshells on which he is walking, between the strident defence of the oil industry in Alberta and our provincial north but he has always been an active environmentalist. When Carney sat with Trump for the first time as prime minister, he mentioned addressing environmental problems in passing, not only as important but as inevitable. Never far from being part of almost everything he discusses, the environment will be part of any budget he prepares.

Why stay in the past: “Oil and gas will be in our future for decades,” the industry CEOs tell us because they are there; change is hard and they will claim alternatives are too far from ready. Neither of these are true.

We environmentalists must begin to truly show the proof our claims; must show and repeat how alternatives run cities in Europe. How as much as 50 per cent of Europe’s power comes from wind and solar energy? How the massive North Atlantic oilfield Rosebank has been stalled by the courts, citing undisclosed environmental dangers. Greenpeace has been instrumental in inciting this court action.

There lies the problem: that governments allow themselves to be the pawns of the oil and gas industry; that they consult and concur with the industry to ensure what? A supposedly irreplaceable source of energy to the country, for which the alternatives are too few and too late? That we should go despoiling the earth until Musk’s plans for Mars come to fruition? That we are too many people on this earth to take the chance on something else?

Why aren’t the countries across the wide band between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn energy centres, given that they are within the boundaries of the tropics? Why is Cuba running on Venezuelan oil when every roof shades heads during an endless summer: why are there not solar panels producing energy to power the island on every roof? Because of the cost? Nonsense. Cut the difficulty of importing oil – the kind of blackmail and pressure on Cuba and other South American countries – cut the cost of the oil and cut the harm that drilling, fracking, extracting and spilling oil in the Caribbean water – and the cost of solar panels becomes affordable.

Will the new houses Carney promises here in Canada sport solar panels to instantly reduce the cost for new buyers running their new homes? No? Because solar panels add to the cost of the homes? That is a short-term small price to pay for what is long-term monthly expenses. 

This is how we beat back the illusion that oil and gas must be retained for decades or indeed, preferably as they may say, forever.

We have to continue to push back Doug Ford’s just-like-always Bill 5, a plan to just dig, chop, mine, frack, destroy and never mind the consequences. It is a big country – just look at all that oil – see how many trees there are and if we spoil the water, it’s a bad day for the fish, frogs, the river, the lake but, never mind – there are plenty of those too.

That is how we have been thinking. Earth is paradise. Well, it was.

Ford’s illegal, immoral and damaging Bill 5 must be stopped.

Carney’s new homes must be actually new, not the shoddy look-a-likes that crowd the edges and centres of every town and village. The new homes must have artistic thought poured into their design because it is not more expensive to build beautiful.

It is less expensive to be environmentally caring about industry, transportation, agriculture and poverty. Poverty is detrimental to the environment? Yes: not the people who are the greatest victims of the environment’s degradation but the system that keeps them there; the risk of poor nutrition; the cost of homelessness; the increase of medical needs in hospitals and their very few ways to contribute to the economy.

Poverty is inefficient and expensive. Without looking at the moral, social and sentimental values of people in poverty, as our new Prime Minister is first and foremost an economist, he should very soon be talking about Universal Basic Income.

That is the most economical, sensible and, if you will, dignified way to deal with such an unforgivable failing in this Canadian land.

We must begin building Canada Environmentally Strong.

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