GUNTER: Canada’s energy solution is right here at home

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In nearly eight years in office, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers have said a lot of stupid things. Two boats.

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For example (I’m paraphrasing): “We have to seize the bank accounts of hundreds of Canadians and suspend everyone’s civil liberties just to kick some non-violent truckers out of downtown Ottawa.

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« I never pressured Jody Wilson-Raybould to make a deal with SNC-Lavalin. »

« Budgets balance each other out. » (That’s a direct quote.)

And, « Of course, I’ve worn blackface many times, but let’s use this as a learning experience for all of us racing. »

Yet the dumbest thing a member of the Trudeau government has ever said came from the prime minister himself when he claimed this week that there was ‘never a solid business case’ to ship LNG (liquefied natural gas) from the east coast of Canada to Europe.

Eh!?

Perhaps you would come to this conclusion if, like Trudeau, the only people you talk to were the eco-fanatical organizations that believe all carbon-based energy is bad.

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But here in the real world, global demand for natural gas is expected to rise until at least 2040. So for Canada, as the world’s fifth largest producer, it makes a lot of commercial sense to build pipelines and other infrastructure, east and west, to get our product to market.

(Unlike many right-wingers, I don’t believe Trudeau is a conniving liar. I think he’s actually dumb enough to believe the bunk he says.)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was in Canada this week to sign a deal with Trudeau for Canadian hydrogen from a plant in Newfoundland that doesn’t even have regulatory approval yet, said Germany wants really more Canadian LNG to help break free from Vladimir Putin’s Russian gas dependence.

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« We would really like Canada to export more LNG to Europe, yes, » Scholz told CBC’s Power & Politics show.

Perhaps no one informed the chancellor that Canada is ruled by a ‘green’ sect that has done its best to foil the construction of any new pipelines that could help supply Europe with energy she needs to put pressure on Putin.

Scholz might want us to export more LNG to his country. Thanks to Trudeau’s environmental obsession, we just can’t.

This does not only affect Europe and benefits the Russian dictator. It also affects ordinary Canadians in three important and costly ways. It raises taxes, threatens public services like health care and fuels inflation.

In other words, Trudeau’s eco-hysteria is costing Canadian families more money – a lot more.

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Selling more LNG to Europe alone could net the federal treasury nearly $1 billion a year. This is money that could go to health care or airport damage repair.

Even without this revenue, hospitals and airports will still need to be repaired. It’s just that now you’re going to have to pay for the fixes through your income taxes.

It’s not just the big oil companies that benefit when we sell more oil and gas.

Also, because Trudeau has denied Canada the infrastructure to sell resources to anyone but the Americans, they can demand deep discounts from the prices they pay since we have so little other customers.

This means that it costs them nothing on world prices to buy our oil and gas, which in turn drives down the price of our dollar.

And it’s hammering the wallets of ordinary Canadians because we have to buy foreign goods with devalued dollars, which means it’s getting a lot more expensive to buy food, cars, cell phones, TVs, computers , machinery, plastics and (if you live in Quebec where they don’t allow the construction of national pipelines to bring Canadian oil to them) oil from the United States

The best business case for energy development is to maintain the standard of living for all Canadians.