Did you know Canada spends about $2.3 billion annually to import oil from Saudi Arabia, while groups like Greenpeace never protest foreign oil tankers on our shores? That’s right – countries with laughable standards for human rights and environmental protection get a free pass from Canadian activists who attack our own industry daily.
And now our federal government is contemplating a bill that would further damage Canadian energy companies, employees, contractors and families, while it helps foreign competitors by ensuring Canadian fair trade oil remains virtually landlocked from reaching global markets and higher prices.
The proposed additions within Bill C-69 – including the requirement for “gender-based analysis” – will make it even harder to build a pipeline in our country, even as we’re forced to import oil from regimes who strip human rights from their citizens with impunity.
But we lead the world in human rights, including the rights of women.
So we’ve launched a petition to tell the Prime Minister that hindering Canada’s energy sector by citing human rights including the rights of women – while his government allows the importation of oil from regimes that ignore those very same rights – hands anti-Canadian energy activists a win, tilts the field toward global competitors from dictatorial regimes, and is simply unacceptable.
After all, the mandatory consultation and review process for these projects is already immense. The new Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, for example, took three years to gain approval. Bill C-69 would only further cripple the sector.
The bill would hinder not just the Canadian oil and gas industry on which our tax base depends, but also any company or worker across Canada that supplies goods and services to Canada’s energy sector. In a brief on the proposal, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA) noted: “It is difficult to imagine that a new major pipeline could be built in Canada” if Bill C-69 passes.
Canada leads other energy producers in virtually every major international ranking for protecting people and the planet – from democratic freedom and lack of corruption, to women’s empowerment and employment standards, to access to health and education. Only the virtuous Canadian sector is in the activists’ crosshairs. Bill C-69 would hand them another tool to hurt us and to help our global competitors. Enough is enough!
Say ‘no’ to Bill C-69 and the unfair obstacles it places in front of our industry, our employees, contractors, suppliers, families, and country!
Cody Battershill is a Calgary Realtor and founder/spokesperson for CanadaAction.ca, a volunteer organization that supports Canadian energy development and the environmental, social and economic benefits that come with it.
