Carney Betrays Canada
Canada and Alberta are focused on what we can control: building a stronger, more sustainable, more competitive, and more independent economy together.
Expressed differently, if countries cannot pay the debt they incur through IMF loans and World Bank (and associated Multilateral Development Bank) financing, they will be offered options to “repay” their debt through implementing SDG-related policies. However, as future instalments of this series will show, many of these options supposedly tailored to SDG implementation actually follow the “debt for land swap” model (now re-tooled as “debt for conservation swaps” or “debt for climate swaps”) that precede the SDGs and Agenda 2030 by a number of years. This model essentially enables land grabs and land/natural resource theft on a scale never before seen in human history.
- Sustainable Debt Slavery, Unlimited Hangout
By Gregg Wall (12-6-2025)
Mark Carney revealed volumes about himself and his administration of government in late November, when he signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Alberta’s Premier Smith. While the political dynamics surrounding the accord or détente between the two leaders have been widely speculated on, only time will tell what will come of the deal, the center piece of which is yet another pipeline from the Alberta oil fields to the British Columbia (BC) coastline. The agreement also calls for the opening of British Columbia coastal waters to supertankers, just due south of where the infamous Exxon Valdez spill occurred. A deep-water port that First Nations have vowed will never happen. The MOU was panned by some First Nations tribes and environmentalists and praised by the O&G industry. To date, no private sector interests or oil & gas industry players have stepped up with a commitment to build the pipeline. All this for an industry, oil & gas, that is highly lethal & problematic for Canada and the world.
Also contained within the memorandum, Carney backed off environmental controls, regulations, and kicked the deadline can down the road on remaining regs and objectives… all of which served as a reminder that under Liberal government, going back to Trudeau’s arrival as PM in 2015, Canada has never hit its climate objectives. It’s so bad that Canada now plans on hitting its net-zero goals by 2050. Some will recall that Carney was the leader of GFANZ, which, high soaring rhetoric and window dressing aside, is entirely about the commodification and monetization of carbon, so that the financial elite and oligarchs can profit off the financialization of the planet killer, fossil fuels… and GFANZ is about the West maintaining its stranglehold over the global south, via debt for land & resource swaps and indentured servitude. Sustainability and the promotion of fossil fuels are yet another Trojan horse for servility & subjugation, as described in Unlimited Hangout. So, the Carney/Smith MOU should come as no surprise to anyone. Reminder, carbon capture, carbon credits, carbon commodification, carbon and nature monetization, as well as net-zero… have done absolutely nothing to rein in carbon emissions. More specific to the MOU, Carney eliminated the commercial emissions cap on oil & gas, abandoned rules on clean electricity. Carney & Smith, in turn, bumped the rate on carbon pricing, which benefits the financial services industry and they agreed to a carbon capture program. Carbon capture, infamously, is known as a waste of taxpayer cash and historically, has been cost prohibitive, given renewable energy’s advances & affordability. In fact, it's nine to twelve times more expensive to install carbon capture than it is to go 100% renewable.
Unsurprisingly, the Canadian taxpayer already owns a pipeline from Alberta to BC (i.e. Transmountain) which was built by Trudeau for a corrupt, ungrateful Alberta government and the O&G industry. A Transmountain pipeline that operates at less than capacity and will likely not operate at capacity anytime soon, given the global glut of fossil fuels. All of which serves as yet another reminder, the O&G industry fully supports: privatized profits; socialized (i.e. taxpayer funded) bailouts, CAPEX, cleanup costs, expenses, infrastructure, remediation… that have come to define modern day capitalism.
Which brings us to why this industry is an epic loser for Canada, indeed the planet, this is my favorite part. Let us count the ways, shall we?
O&G is cutting heads and eliminating its workforce, despite record production and high profits. The Pembina Institute notes that O&G production jobs have declined 43%, since peek hiring in 2012. The Maple - MAGA, insurrectionist crowd in Alberta believes the industry is being held back, but with a global glut of oil & gas and declining prices that does not appear correct. That is, the industry has less of an incentive to expand production, invest in infrastructure & jobs, as prices drop. Moreover, the renewables industry, which Premier Smith ran off, offers more jobs and opportunity. It looks like UCP and its followers have hitched their star to an industry that is fully dedicated to eliminating headcount and payroll.
The Alberta and Canadian governments are collecting inadequate royalties and taxes on Fort McMurray relative to other nations, say Norway. In short, Alberta and Canada are being ripped off. Norway has $2.1 trillion in assets, Alberta and Canada have zip to show for Fort McMurray. Blame Canada’s political parties and the O&G industry.
O&G hoovers billions in direct and indirect subsidies annually. Trudeau’s free pipeline is but one of many examples. Externalities… like environmental damage, clean up pawned off on the public, and public health…are said to be running $30 billion. See also Canada burning for six consecutive summers (since I moved here in 2020); and yet, mysteriously, there’s never any discussion about presenting the bill to the O&G industry. The industry loves to deny attribution and conveniently, crony governments delay in setting firm numbers to externalities because once the numbers are set, the litigation begins. If O&G were properly assessed and billed for externalities, some have concluded that the retail price at the pump would double. The public would howl for EVs and free renewable energy.
“US funds now own about 59% of Canadian oil & gas companies,” per CBC. Canadian ownership has dipped to 34%. In short, Canada bears the hideous fallout of the Alberta oil patch, plus subsidies and externalities, while the Americans own the patch and reap the bulk of the profits and rewards. Does anyone thing the Americans will pay for the cleanup and pollution? Not a chance. All of which begs the question, who does PM Carney and Premier Smith actually work for: the Americans, Blackrock, Brookfield Private Equity, Chevron, etc (?)… so many conflicts of interest, so little time to sort them out.
It's easy to talk about the direct and indirect costs, fiscal, and tax & royalty ramifications of the industry and its impact upon Canadians… none of it good… but what we don’t discuss is monetary policy. The Bank of Canada (BOC) loves to keep the Canadian dollar low; this is classic beggar thy neighbor behavior that helps Canada export its resources and oil, globally. But the BOC’s Canadian dollar devaluation hits Canadians in the pocket, at the grocery checkout, when it comes time to pay rent or the mortgage on the new truck. It’s nice for the robber barons & bankers, as the exchange rate aids exports and makes repatriated earnings look good on financial statements, but it’s a drag on Canadians already slammed by greedflation, sky high groceries, rents, and lowballed minimum wage. The Alberta and Federal governments are not the only entities captured by O&G. It would appear the Bank of Canada is also owned by the industry.
The Alberta Maple MAGA mob loves to cry and moan about “equalization payments” or taxes paid to Ottawa being greater than the money sent back to the province by Ottawa… but the reality is that’s simply not true. As noted above, externalities and subsidies exceed royalties and taxes. In other words, if the industry, or the Alberta government, were correctly assessed and billed externalities, both current & retroactively… like healthcare, destroyed property from fire season (i.e. Canadian summers), soaring property insurance, free pipelines, and a burned-up Canada… Alberta and O&G would end up owing Canada and Canadians money, annually. The so-called equalization or more accurately, tax advantage would evaporate. All this is to say, the industry, Oil & Gas, is a net loser. On taxes, royalties, ditching oil well cleanup, running away from environmental damage, escaping the healthcare costs of murdering one in five, American ownership, and throwing sand in the air and running away from externalities… this industry is a NET LOSER for Canada & the United States. And who benefits from an industry that defines privatized profits and socialized (publicly funded) cleanup, externalities, healthcare, and subsidies… well, that would be the industry, the Mark Carneys of the world, the Premier Smiths, Bay and Wall St, and American ownership. The privileged and the powerful, while the public has been indoctrinated and lied into believing the industry is a cornucopia of wealth, just waiting to trickle down upon humanity. It’s an egregious lie.
It gets better. Carney said in a recent X or Tweet, post- MOU signing, that he wants to build a sustainable economy and future for Canada… and being an energy superpower is a key component of Carney’s dreams, along with an oil & gas powerhouse. But the simple reality is there’s nothing sustainable about an O&G industry that: dumps abandoned well clean up on the public; murders one in five and dumps the healthcare costs on the taxpayer; produces 1.4 trillion liters of tailings/contaminated water and proposes that the gov look the other way, while it dumps processed oil field water into Alberta rivers… nice; burns down homes, forests, businesses, towns and not once offers to pay for the damages the industry is responsible for; dumps tens of billions in externalities and subsidies onto the backs of Canadians, while profits are realized in the U.S.; pollutes the minds of Alberta & Canadian voters with industry disinformation and propaganda campaigns; captures and owns federal and provincial governments, in a direct threat to democracy; an industry that benefits from endless wars in the middle east and around the globe (see a possible war in Venezuela to capture that nation’s oil fields)… war also a huge threat to the planet with massive carbon emissions. Never asked, how are the American owners going to feel about exporting Alberta oil to China, when they are making a killing off the Canadian fuel inside the U.S.… this, of course, might explain why the industry hasn’t stepped up to fund Carney’s and Smith’s pipe dream? I have a feeling the Americans are going to want to service the American market first.
Somehow, PM Carney never gets around to explaining how an industry that is responsible for burning down the planet and Canada is sustainable. It’s merely assumed. That’s the power of conflicts of interest and compromised men and women in positions of power. Women and men who will do whatever it takes to please money & power, oil & gas… where the ends always justify the means. On at least one level, Carney did Canada a big favor. The honeymoon is over; the mask is off. No one can deny that we have a far-right, fascist oil & gas, private equity government in Ottawa. No one can deny that when it comes to oil & gas, both PM Carney and Premier Smith are so closely aligned, that there’s little or no daylight between the two of them.
Who pays? Who always pays: the disenfranchised, First Nations, minorities, the poor & the powerless. Who profits? Who always profits: the connected, the powerful, the politicians and insiders, the bankers, war contractors, and the oil field robber barons. Given the rate of economic and planetary collapse, those gains appear to be both illusory and pyrrhic.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025
