Former minister Catherine McKenna blasts the heads of Canadian oil companies

Catherine McKenna attends the Global Citizen NOW conference in New York on Friday 28 April 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

MONTRÉAL — Former environment minister Catherine McKenna says the leaders of Canada’s oil industry are figures close to American President Donald Trump who are “taking us for fools” and putting both the economy and environment at risk.

Canada’s official greenhouse gas inventory was published last week. It showed that in 2024, oil and gas production was the only sector in the country to have increased its greenhouse gas emissions.

“In Canada, we expect, Canadians expect everyone to step up and do their parts. But instead, we have oil and gas, which is largely foreign-owned, largely U.S.-owned, who aren’t doing their part. All they’re doing is increasing our emissions and demanding subsidies,” McKenna said in an interview while at Montreal’s climate summit last week.

She adds that oil companies are “demanding that Canadian taxpayers pay the bill for cleaning up the pollution they cause and building pipelines they won’t risk their own money on.”

The Montreal Climate Summit is an annual gathering of political, business and union leaders as well as philanthropic and environmental organizations to discuss the city’s climate transition.

McKenna, who served as environment minister from 2015 to 2021, has a long list of grievances against the heads of these companies. She says they have been profiting from Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine and now the war in Iran.

“But what do they do with those profits? They give them back to fat cat CEOs and then they go give them back to their shareholders, largely Americans who support Donald Trump,” she said.

Canadian companies in the oil industry are bringing in an extra $170 million in profits every day because of the war in Iran, which has pushed global oil prices up by more than 50 per cent, according to an analysis published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

According to Canada’s official greenhouse gas inventory, oil sands production has increased by more than 900 per cent in the country since 1990.

McKenna stresses that increasing gas and oil production year after year is not the direction the rest of the world is taking.

“From an environmental perspective it makes no sense — and economically, even less,” she said. “Energy shocks are moving countries everywhere even faster toward renewable energy which is cheaper, cleaner,” she said.

Energy shocks refer to sudden changes in prices, caused major disruptions, like wars.

A recent report by the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that in 2025, renewable energy accounted for 85.6 per cent of the total expansion in global electricity capacity.

McKenna says she’s worried for Canada.

“How about get people off fossil fuels, get them into EVs,” she said. “Why are we still heating our homes with oil and gas?”

According the the former minister, oil can be delivered to homes in Halifax when people can use heat pumps. She also questions why utility companies don’t allow Canadians to put solar grids on the ground and be paid for it.

“We really have to move forward on these solutions. That isn’t so much about affordability as it is about Canada’s economic competitiveness now and into the future,” she said. “And of course it’s also better for kids.”

Meanwhile, McKenna says, oil and gas are the leading cause of climate change. She accuses major companies of participating in greenwashing efforts and spreading disinformation to keep up business as usual.

Though she did not specify what she was referring to, she stressed they have repeatedly been accused of spreading misleading information.

Three researchers from the University of Ottawa published a study in the Energy Research & Social Science scientific journal in June 2024 on how the New Pathways Alliance was misleading the public with its environmental claims.

The New Pathways Alliance, now known as the Oil Sands Alliance, is a consortium comprising Canadian Natural Resources, Suncor, Cenovus, Imperial Oil and ConocoPhillips.

For years, this alliance has been promoting the Pathways’ project, which aims to make oil sands production “carbon neutral” by 2050 through carbon capture and storage.

But another former environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, says he did not see any sense of genuine commitment since he entered politics.

“They’ve invested more in advertising to talk about their project than in actually carrying it out. So, I see a lack of seriousness, and then double talk on the part of the oil companies on this issue,” said Guilbeault.

Both the Oil Sands Alliance and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers did not respond to The Canadian Press’s request for comment.

Stéphane Blais, The Canadian Press