GOLDSTEIN: Do the math, Liberals — we need fossil fuels

Every Canadian province relies on fossil fuels for most of its energy needs

Published Jul 22, 2026  •  Last updated 1 hour ago  •  3 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a press conference in the Old Port of Montreal in Montreal, on Feb. 19, 2025. Photo by ANDREJ IVANOV /AFP via Getty Images

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Computer science and artificial intelligence pioneer John McCarthy famously said that, “he who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.”

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He meant that when dealing with complex systems, decisions must be based on hard numbers and data, as opposed to ideology and emotion.

That explains how Canadian energy policy became a train wreck under the Justin Trudeau Liberals, starting in 2015 when they took power.

They subjected Canadians to a decade of propaganda about how the age of fossil fuels was ending, supported by government-subsidized environmental lobbyists, while a succession of Liberal environment ministers spouted absolute nonsense about how Canada was coming ever closer to achieving its farcical greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

They refused to do arithmetic, were doomed to talk nonsense, and subjected Canadian taxpayers to the consequences.

A report by the Fraser Institute released this week based on the latest government data demonstrates just how much nonsense there was.

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It notes that between 1995 and 2024, despite earmarking more than $200-billion of federal taxpayers’ dollars to reduce Canada’s use of fossil fuels, they accounted for 76.3% of Canada’s domestic energy consumption in 2024, essentially the same as the 76.8% recorded almost three decades ago, in 1995.

In terms of Canadian energy production, fossil fuels accounted for 88% of the total in 2024, up from 83.3% almost a quarter century ago in 2000.

As for the endless Liberal hype about how wind and solar power are growing by leaps and bounds when it comes to energy production, in 2024 they accounted for 0.8% of total energy production compared to 88% for fossil fuels, 5.1% for hydro, 3.9% for nuclear and 2.2% for biofuels.

In Canada’s three largest energy-consuming sectors of the economy — transportation, industry and residential construction — fossil fuels in 2024 supplied 98.7% of the energy consumed by the transportation sector, 74% by the industrial sector and 50.6% by the residential sector.

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Every Canadian province relies on fossil fuels for most of its energy needs — 89.7% in Alberta; 84.1% in Saskatchewan; 78.7% in Ontario; 76.2% in B.C.; 73.7% in Nova Scotia; 72.6% in Manitoba; 69.6% in P.E.I.; 66.4% in Newfoundland and Labrador; 61.1% in New Brunswick and 54.6% in Quebec.

It’s also vital to the rest of Canada that Alberta remains a part of Confederation, since it contributes 70.2% of Canada’s total energy production, according to the Fraser Institute study.

Just three provinces, Alberta (70.2%), British Columbia (15.8%) and Saskatchewan (5.1%) produce 91.1% of Canada’s energy. No other provinces comes anywhere close to those numbers.

As Kenneth Greene, co-author of the Fraser Institute study, “Energy Facts — Canada Edition” noted:

“There is a lot of misunderstandings about the reality of energy production and consumption in Canada today, which is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels and will be for many years to come.”

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It’s significant that at long last Trudeau’s successor, Mark Carney, has dismantled some, but not all, of Trudeau’s economy-killing restrictions on energy production in Canada after a decade of utter stupidity in policy making.

That’s assuming he actually believes in building new pipelines and fast-tracking new energy infrastructure “at speeds not seen in generations,” despite his pre-political life as the world’s leading corporate spokesman for higher carbon taxes.

Had Canada had a wiser government over the past decade, as opposed to one that refused to do arithmetic and was thus doomed to talk nonsense, things could have been different today.

We could, for example, be exporting our vast natural gas resources to global markets today beyond the current trickle, enabling other countries to replace their coal-fired electricity with cleaner burning natural gas — the single most effective thing we could be doing to help lower global greenhouse gas emissions, while simultaneously boosting our economy.

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