Following a summer that saw British Columbians choking on wildfire smoke, facing evacuation orders and alerts and returning to homes burned down to their foundations, on Oct. 1 the federal government deemed the rebranded, million-barrel-a-day Pacific Link oil pipeline as the first project in the national interest under the Building Canada Act.

Now that the pipeline is a project of national interest, it will be put on the fast track, with consultations to be wrapped up by September 2027 and guaranteed approval on all construction permits.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the obscenely profitable oil and gas industry want us to believe that building the Pacific Link with tax dollars will help diversify the economy away from the United States.  

It’s hard to see how copying the Trump administration’s approach of “drill baby drill, burn baby burn” will boost economic prosperity — especially as Asia and beyond embrace renewables to insulate their economies from geopolitical energy supply disruptions.

Indeed, the International Energy Agency recently confirmed this in a new electrification report requested by Türkiye and Australia, the co-hosts assembling the world for the COP31 climate conference in November. The report concludes that by 2035, through focusing on electrification and electrotech’s massive improvements in efficiency, countries can cut oil imports by 15 million barrels a day and avoid 120 billion cubic metres of gas imports a........

© National Observer