New in the New West Times: When it comes to temporary displays of economic nationalism, 'read the fine print'

"This social climate – our very social license – has changed, but not because Canada’s wayward left suddenly found its character and competency of old."

To call these last few months in the Canadian political sphere hectic would be an understatement.

And it hasn’t exactly been all fun and games and AI-rendered, Soviet-style ‘Team Canada’ campaign posters.

Buoyed by some utter performative nonsense, new car smell, the obnoxiousness of a certain president’s preferred negotiating tactic, Laurentian fickleness, and the 1/3rd of Canadians who lose their minds about everything all the time, the polls are indeed tightening.

What was once an 80-20 proposition for a Conservative majority is now something closer to a 60-40.

Almost everything I write here is in the encouragement of resisting ‘the black pill.’ (“The futility of the fight,” for those who don’t speak thought-criminal millennial.)

Today’s edition of the newsletter, below, which just dropped in The New West Times, is no different. But yes, we do indeed have a race on our hands.

I’ve been in meetings and conferences for days with some influential types, and without delving into too much detail the mood is still confident, but an aggressive pivot is underway.

Like the president who just snapped a 12-6 curveball into our shins, it’s now on common-sense-minded Canadians and the broader Make Canada Less Bad Again apparatus to turn this ‘Kamala bump’ into but a bump in the road.

Join me below for this week’s column, and I’m hoping to hop on the podcast sometime within the next 24 hours.

Thanks, as ever, for your support.

-Alex

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Beware the Liberal-NDP deathbed conversion on Canadian oil and gas

By Alexander Brown (read in the New West Times)

$670 billion.

That’s the combined estimated value of cancelled energy projects in Canada since 2015 under federal Liberal rule, the radical, de-growth B.C. NDP, and the province of Quebec, who have blocked every reasonable attempt to safely and cleanly bring our natural resources from West to East, but who have yet to turn down an equalization payment from Alberta.

Energy East.

Northern Gateway.

West Coast Canada.

Grassy Point.

Aurora.

Kwispaa.

Even two or three of these listed projects – of dozens total – would have provided the much-needed economic certainty and independence Canada needed to weather the tariff storm of recent weeks.

In British Columbia alone, that’s a loss of tens of thousands of jobs and tens of billions in revenue for a province that can’t balance a budget or staff a hospital, but will fight to the death to defend its right to serve as the nation’s largest drug dealer and fentanyl hub.

It was these cancelled projects I kept front of mind while in attendance at the Canadian Energy Person of the Year awards dinner on February 6th in Vancouver, which honoured Crystal Smith, Chair of the First Nations LNG Alliance, who has proudly overseen the Haisla Nation’s historic – Indigenous-owned and Pembina-shared – Cedar LNG project approval in Kitimat.

A rare Canadian LNG success story, in her accepting remarks before industry leaders, advocates, and a smattering of B.C. politicians, Smith spoke proudly and emotionally of this opportunity for self-determinism, of wealth and opportunities for her community, and taking advantage of this present moment to secure Canada’s energy future, get our products to our allies across the globe, and lower the cost of energy in our communities.

Not two months ago, Canada’s energy minister called for a production cap on Canadian oil.

And the Liberals proudly campaigned against Canadian oil and gas in 2008, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2021.

In 2023, Canada’s allies came begging for our LNG, offering billions, only to be rebuffed by the feds, who claimed there was “no business case” to do so.

Now that they find themselves under threat of electoral oblivion (and seeing an opportunity for rescue in the polls), those same ‘Net zero,’ de-growth, all but anti-civilizational activists, who have land-locked our Great Canadian energy producers and exporters, and who continue to punish the working and middle class with carbon taxes and parcelled out Saudi oil in place of our own, have finally found their “business case” after all.

It should worry all Canadians tremendously that these promises are coming from the same Trudeau camp presently working to install Mark Carney, whose ‘Net zero’ banking alliance just went belly-up the world over. Canada’s major banks have even recently fled his so-called climate initiative, which had yet to produce tangible results beyond lined pockets of the Davos elite.

Whether the general public is aware of it or not, ‘Net zero’ as a high-tax, extortionary, social governance strategy has been the cause of much of the hurt of the last few years. Judging by recent elections across the globe, it’s proven itself to be as controversial as Justin Trudeau at a face-painting competition.

And it should worry all British Columbians that Premier David Eby’s sudden deathbed conversion on “fast-tracking” mining and energy projects that sat on his desk for years happens to be coming from the same government that just recanted on their election promise to not place a ‘safe-injection’ site in Richmond.

This social climate – our very social license – has changed, but not because Canada’s wayward left suddenly found its character and competency of old; they put us in this mess, and now, backed against the wall on tariffs and federal election dates that loom large, they’ve wrapped themselves in the flag they lowered and denigrated for so long, and they’re calling themselves ‘Team Canada.’

We need more shovels in the ground today. We need more terminals, mines, pipelines from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Indigenous-partnered projects, and O & G shipped far and wide, in as green a manner as we can muster. We also need to remember just who is offering us this renewed social license.

Look a little closer at that contract. Read the fine print. Millions can’t afford to miss it.

It just so happens to state: “Offer only valid for this fleeting moment of economic nationalism, no refunds, no guarantees.”

Alexander Brown is a Director with the National Citizens Coalition and the writer of the best-selling Acceptable Views newsletter on Substack.