In world politics and economics, energy rules. In this episode of the Power Struggle podcast, Stewart Muir talks with Heather Exner-Pirot. Among other roles, she is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa.
Canada and its energy
Natural gas has been providing 41% of Canada’s energy, oil 33%, hydro-electricity 11%, nuclear power 8%, biofuels and renewables around 5% and coal 2%.
Demand for more and more power is growing here and around the world. And
Heather Exner-Pirot tells Stewart Muir that nuclear energy has tremendous global possibilities. “That’s also great for Canada from an energy security perspective because of our incredible uranium resources.”
Canadian natural resources
Natural resource development in Canada has been driven by a steady stream of inventions and innovations, and the resources are produced to high environmental standards.
They’re a “golden goose” for our country, contributing 14.9% of Canada’s GDP, over 45% of manufacturing output, nearly one in 10 jobs and 58% of all merchandise exports. Natural resources are the only sector in which Canada has a trade surplus, and resource exports by themselves total more than all of Canada’s merchandise imports.
Heather Exner-Pirot says resources are what make Canada powerful. “They’re already the best in the world, they’re already A-grade.”
Canada’s resource benefits
The greatest beneficiary of natural-resource development is not industry but government. Federal, provincial and municipal governments get billions from resources, in taxes, royalty payments, and other direct charges.
No more recent figures are available but we know that from 2014 to 2018 governments derived $21.4 billion annually, on average, from the natural-resource sectors.
As Exner-Pirot puts it: “There’s no company that makes more money than the governments do out of responsible resource development, and then it’s on the government to distribute the benefits of that to the people.”
Nuclear energy
Nuclear energy now provides about 9% of the world’s electricity, and as global demand for power soars, many countries are looking at doubling that level by 2050. As well, 31 countries say they will need a lot more enriched uranium.
Exner-Pirot tells Stewart Muir: “Saskatchewan has the richest uranium reserves in the world and they’re the number one two exporter in the world right now. . . . Canada has an opportunity to start doing that (enrichment) value-add. We’re going to start needing it for ourselves for the first time.”
Indigenous rights
Indigenous rights are front and centre in resource development in Canada, under the Constitution Act, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) that now is is a core principle in Canadian law. And those rights have been supported in numerous court decisions.
Exner-Pirot: “Almost any resource extraction . . . will have an impact on Aboriginal rights because it has an environmental impact. And the end goal here is really a win-win that industry benefits, Indigenous communities benefit (and) everyone benefits.”
Climate change
Canada claims a 7.1% decrease in its greenhouse-gas emissions since 2005, and some other nations have also reduced emissions. But, over all, global emissions are up 1.1% from 2022.
Exner-Pirot has a clean Canadian answer: “Your best climate strategy? Export more Canadian commodities, because in almost every case it’s going to be better, there’s going to be lower emissions for that product in the world.”
Donald Trump’s tariffs
While the US president keeps changing his plans to impose tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, they could hammer Canadian exporters. And one US estimate is that they would cost the typical US household over $1,200 a year.
Heather Exner-Pirot points out that it’s in the United States’ interest to use Canadian resources, and it’s in Canada’s interest to sell them our resources.
“America is more than Trump. The Canadian-American relationship is more than one president and one prime minister.”
And there’s much more in this new podcast.
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