Heather Exner-Pirot

While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Heather Exner-Pirot.

Heather Exner-Pirot

Indigenous consent is an objective, not a standard, for resource development

In Canadian resource development, the concept of “consent” has become a litmus test for ideological and philosophical divides. While such debates may be intellectually stimulating, they pose a serious obstacle to project development. Proponents seek clear expectations and standards when committing capital and building things. The Canadian legal and political systems have plodded along inelegantly on the question of Indigenous...

Perrin Beatty, Thomas d’Aquino, Heather Exner-Pirot, Fen Osler Hampson, Lawrence Herman, Tim Sargent

Building Canada’s Energy Future Should Top the List in Huntsville

Canada is at a pivotal moment in its energy transition, with hundreds of major projects — spanning LNG, hydrogen, wind, nuclear, hydro, pipelines, and Indigenous-led infrastructure — representing over $600 billion in actual and potential investment. According to the Government of Canada’s Canadian Centre for Energy Information, “In 2023, there were 223 planned (announced, under review, or approved) major energy...

Heather Exner-Pirot

High costs, low returns - Canada’s wildly expensive emissions cap

Canada is the world’s third-largest exporter of oil, fourth-largest producer, and top source of imports to the United States. Much of Canada’s oil wealth is concentrated in the oil sands in northern Alberta, which hosts 99 percent of the country’s enormous oil endowment: about 160 billion barrels of proven reserves, of a total resource of approximately 1.8 trillion barrels. This...

Sonya Savage, Heather Exner-Pirot

(Im)balance of power – How federal overreach fuels Western Alienation

Western anger is largely fuelled by Ottawa’s decade-long legislative and regulatory agenda, which trampled on provincial jurisdiction while specifically targeting the oil and gas industry – a major source of Western Canada’s wealth.

Heather Exner-Pirot

Northern corridors: Hype or hope? Heather Exner-Pirot

In the rush to diversify Canada’s trade routes and export destinations, provincial, territorial, and federal politicians of all partisan stripes have heralded new corridors and ports. With major ports already established on the Pacific side, in Vancouver and Prince Rupert; and the Atlantic side, in Montreal, Halifax, and Saint John; attention has turned to the Arctic.

Heather Exner-Pirot, David McConkey

We take our energy security for granted. Our adversaries do not.

Sonya Savage, Heather Exner-Pirot

Canada’s greenwashing amendment: A failure of process and policy

On April 30, 2024, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance pushed through a late-stage amendment to the Competition Act under Bill C-59: The 2023 Fall Economic Statement. The “greenwashing amendment,” as it has come to be known, has had a dramatic silencing effect on the many businesses and associations across the country that want to communicate their environmental...

Heather Exner-Pirot

Securing the future – Canada’s deep geological repository for nuclear waste: Heather Exner-Pirot

In the coming year, Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) – a consortium of nuclear energy and waste producers – will choose the site for its deep geological repository: a final resting home for the spent nuclear fuel Canada has produced since the 1950s and will continue to produce in the future.

Heather Exner-Pirot

Ruthless, reckless, damaging: the Hon. Steven Guilbeault is MLI’s Policy-maker of the year

The Liberals have been chided for focusing on communications over substance, for announcing policies rather than implementing them. But there is an exception to this rule: the ruthlessly efficient Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. No one else in Canada has been as influential, and, in my view, no one else has done so much damage. From an emissions cap to toxic...