{"id":15478,"date":"2025-02-08T14:27:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T14:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/torontotribune.ca\/index.php\/2025\/02\/08\/should-i-just-laugh-energy-experts-question-freelands-pledge-to-push-lng-national\/"},"modified":"2025-02-08T14:27:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T14:27:47","slug":"should-i-just-laugh-energy-experts-question-freelands-pledge-to-push-lng-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torontotribune.ca\/index.php\/2025\/02\/08\/should-i-just-laugh-energy-experts-question-freelands-pledge-to-push-lng-national\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Should I just laugh?\u2019: Energy experts question Freeland\u2019s pledge to push LNG – National"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland<\/a>\u2019s pitch to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to allies is drawing skeptical reactions from those who say her government neglected the sector over the past decade.<\/p>\n

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The former finance minister\u2019s policy statement on jobs and growth, released on Feb. 5, includes a pledge to \u201cseize the opportunity to make Canada an energy superpower, from powering our grids with hydro to exporting liquefied natural gas to our allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

That line is part of a package of proposals Freeland made to diversify Canada\u2019s exports in response to U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s threat to impose steep tariffs on those exports.<\/p>\n

But critics \u2014 even those who agree with her ideas for LNG \u2014 found it to be a tough line to swallow.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould I just laugh?\u201d said Martha Hall Findlay, director of the University of Calgary\u2019s school of public policy. \u201cIt would be funny if it weren\u2019t just so frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Hall Findlay said Freeland was a central figure in the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for nearly a decade, as it \u201cdid everything it could possibly do to limit our ability to export energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trudeau government shelved the Northern Gateway pipeline project in 2016. It also passed Bill C-48 in 2019, which prohibited tankers off the northwest coast of British Columbia.<\/p>\n

Gary Mar, CEO of the Canada West Foundation, said Ottawa\u2019s track record over the past decade has \u201cnot at all been friendly to the development of natural resources\u201d and that \u201cnobody was speaking up for the oil and gas industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re the right things to do,\u201d he said of Freeland\u2019s energy policy proposals. \u201cThe question is whether she has credibility to say these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Freeland\u2019s campaign cited the Liberal government\u2019s purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline project, which kept it alive.<\/p>\n

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John Manley, once a heavyweight blue Liberal who now describes himself as \u201cpost-partisan,\u201d summed up his reaction to Freeland\u2019s policy proposal in two words: \u201cTotally agree.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But Hall Findlay, a former Liberal party leadership contestant herself who later left and backed centrist Conservative party contenders, noted the absence of any mention of oil in Freeland\u2019s platform.<\/p>\n

She suggested Freeland\u2019s strategy here is to try to \u201cplease the environmental keep-it-in-the-grounders, the anti-oil people in the Liberal party, but also trying to sound like she wants to do the right thing for the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s trying to play both sides by saying, \u2018Well, we\u2019ll look at expanding the friendlier fossil fuel \u2026 but we\u2019ll avoid mentioning the one that really is the fundamental economic driver,’\u201d Hall Findlay said. \u201cShe\u2019s trying to please everybody and I just don\u2019t think that pleases anybody.<\/p>\n