Oil, gas companies told to cut emissions by one-third under planned cap

WINNIPEG – A teepee and a sacred fire were set up in front of the Manitoba legislature on Monday to honour Murray Sinclair, as tributes poured in from across the country for the former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools.

People lined up under grey skies, facing a cold wind, to enter the teepee and pay respects. Flags nearby flew at half-mast.

Sinclair died in a Winnipeg hospital Monday morning. He was 73.

“I think we can truly say he was one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation,” Premier Wab Kinew said.

“As we begin to mourn his loss … I think we have to contend with the ultimate question of, now that we’ve been left to ourselves as Canadians, how are we going to take it from here?”

Kinew joined Sinclair’s family and community members in setting up the large teepee, which he said is an important part of Anishinaabe culture. Kinew had known Sinclair since the premier was a child.

“The sacred fire is a gathering place for mourners. And significantly, what it represents in our culture is the offerings that Murray will need in order to be successful on his four-day journey along the everlasting road to the afterlife.”

Sinclair’s family issued a statement and they invited people to visit the fire.

“Mazina Giizhik (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) committed his life in service to the people: creating change, revealing truth, and leading with fairness throughout his career,” said the statement, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid tribute in Ottawa to Sinclair’s work on reconciliation.

“To me he was a teacher, a challenge function, a guide, an elder, a sage and a friend as he helped me and this country navigate through something that we will be navigating through for decades still,” Trudeau said.

Born in 1951, Sinclair was raised on the former St. Peter’s Indian Reserve north of Winnipeg. He was a member of Peguis First Nation.

He was raised by his grandparents and graduated from a high school in Selkirk, Man., where he excelled in athletics.

Some of his earliest childhood memories were published earlier this year in his memoir, “Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation.”

In it, Sinclair described discrimination he experienced being Anishinaabe in a non-Indigenous school.

“While I and others succeeded in that system, it was not without cost to our own humanity and our sense of self-respect. These are the legacies all of us find ourselves in today.”

In 1979, Sinclair graduated law school at the University of Manitoba and later became the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.

He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of J.J. Harper.

In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.

The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.

“Education is the key to reconciliation,” Sinclair said. “Education got us into this mess and education will get us out of it.”

Two years later, he and the other commissioners received the Meritorious Service Cross for their work.

It was one of many recognitions Sinclair received over his career.

He was given a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, now the Indspire Awards, in the field of justice in 1994. In 2017, he received a lifetime achievement award from the organization.

In 2016, Sinclair was appointed to the Senate. He retired from that role in 2021.

The following year, he received the Order of Canada for dedicating his life to championing Indigenous Peoples’ rights and freedoms.

In accepting that honour, Sinclair said he wanted to show the country that working on Indigenous issues requires a national effort.

“When I speak to young people, I always tell them that we all have a responsibility to do the best that we can and to be the best that we can be,” he said.

Sinclair limited his public engagements in recent years due to declining health.

In his memoir, Sinclair described living with congestive heart failure. Nerve damage led to him relying on a wheelchair.

In his memoir, released in September, he continued to challenge Canadians to take action.

“We know that making things better will not happen overnight. It will take generations. That’s how the damage was created and that’s how the damage will be fixed,” Sinclair wrote.

“But if we agree on the objective of reconciliation, and agree to work together, the work we do today will immeasurably strengthen the social fabric of Canada tomorrow.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

OTTAWA – The federal government has published new draft regulations that will force oil and gas companies to slash their greenhouse gas emissions.

Here’s what that looks like, and what it might mean for the industry and for Canada’s climate targets:

1. What is an emissions cap and what does it target?

The government is essentially proposing to put a limit on how much oil and gas producers can pollute with greenhouse gas emissions. Those producers together account for 31 per cent of Canada’s total emissions.

Under the proposed regulations, those producers would be required to cut their emissions by about one-third below 2019 levels over the next eight years.

2. What are the oil and gas industry’s current emissions?

In 2022, the most recent year for which Canada’s emissions data is available, oil and gas production and refining emitted 256 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or its equivalent weight in other gases, including methane.

Emissions from the oil and gas sector have gradually declined since a peak in 2014, according to government data, representing a roughly 12 per cent reduction. The 2022 emissions are about on par with 2007 levels.

3. Can the industry meet the regulations without cutting production?

According to the government, it can — which is paramount to the entire proposal.

The government is pitching a cap-and-trade system as part of the proposed changes. In essence, companies will be given an emissions allowance equating to one unit per tonne of carbon pollution.

Companies that pollute less will be able to sell their leftover allowance units for profit, while companies that fail to reduce their emissions enough will have to buy allowance units — a maximum of 20 per cent of their emissions cap — from other companies to stay in compliance.

4. What would the industry do to meet the cap?

The government is hoping oil and gas companies reinvest their profits in technology that reduces greenhouse gas emissions without cutting their production.

Some of those initiatives include carbon capture technology, an area that some of Canada’s producers are already investing in. For instance, Shell announced in June it was launching two new carbon capture projects in Alberta. Both are expected to be operational by 2028.

Producers could also buy offset credits from decarbonization projects outside the oil and gas industry — like tree-planting programs — to be cap-compliant. Those credits can only be the equivalent of up to 10 per cent of their emissions cap.

5. What do the industry and environmental groups say about the proposed regulations?

Monday’s announcement was met with skepticism from Canada’s leading oil producers.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers — which represents about three-quarters of Canada’s oil and natural gas production — warned the cap would likely deter investment in Canadian oil and gas products, resulting in lower production and fewer jobs, and would hurt Canada’s GDP.

Environmental Defence, one of Canada’s leading environmental advocacy organizations, welcomed the proposed changes but called for them to be implemented sooner and for the government to close “loopholes” like allowing offset credits.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

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VANCOUVER – Employers have locked out more than 700 unionized workers in the latest development in a labour dispute that the union says will shut down all ports in British Columbia until further notice.

The BC Maritime Employers Association said Monday that its “difficult decision” to impose the lockout came after the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 commenced “industry-wide strike activity” at employers’ terminals.

The employers association said in a release that the lockout in response to strike action would begin on the 4:30 p.m. shift on Monday and continue until further notice, but it would not affect grain or cruise operations.

“ILWU Local 514’s strike action has already begun to impact B.C.’s waterfront operations and strike activity can easily escalate, including a complete withdrawal of labour without notice,” the employers said in explaining its decision to lock out union members.

Local 514 said in an email response that members went to work as normal at 8 a.m. Monday, but an overtime ban was implemented and workers would “refuse to participate in technological change as their limited job action.”

A statement from the union on Monday in response to the lockout said employers have “deliberately and irresponsibly overreacted” to its overtime ban, which was aimed at restarting stalled talks that have been ongoing for almost two years.

Local 514 president Frank Morena said in the statement that the employers’ lockout is a “clear effort to force the federal government to intervene.”

Speaking in Parliament Monday, federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon reiterated that he spoke with both the employers and the union on the weekend and urged them to find a solution.

“It is their responsibility, and they need to do the work necessary to get an agreement,” MacKinnon said.

The minister’s comments come after questions by NDP parliamentary member Matthew Green.

“This blatant attempt to manipulate this Liberal government into undermining workers’ rights is an outrageous assault on free collective bargaining,” Green said in Parliament.

The employers association, however, said the only reason the lockout was triggered was because of strike action by the union.

Morena said the union’s negotiators are “ready to resume talks any time the BCMEA shows up.”

The two sides met for mediated talks last week, and Local 514 has accused employers of not showing up on the last day of scheduled talks on Thursday.

“Our union members have been trying since our contract expired March 31 of 2023 to reach a new collective agreement and have been more than patient in the face of BCMEA provocation, which continues today with a full-scale lockout,” Morena said in a statement Monday.

The union issued its notice of job action last Thursday in response to a “final offer” presented by employers a day earlier, an offer the association said would give a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year agreement ending in 2027.

“The BCMEA’s final offer to the union represents our best effort to settle the dispute and move forward with an agreement that recognizes the skills and efforts of 730 hardworking forepersons and their families, while also ensuring Canada’s West Coast ports remain reliable and stable for the many customers and supply chain partners who conduct business there,” the association said at the time.

The association also said the offer would include a 16 per cent increase in retirement benefits, additional recognized holidays and an average $21,000 lump sum for eligible employees that includes back pay since the contract expired.

“Despite ILWU Local 514’s regrettable decision to destabilize Canada’s supply chain, the BCMEA’s comprehensive offer remains open until withdrawn,” the employers association said Monday.

In its response Sunday, the union said the proposal from the employers failed to address one of the key concerns for workers: a staffing requirement that addresses the implementation of port automation at facilities such as DP World’s Centerm container Terminal in Vancouver.

Local 514 said employers have “demanded the union agree to having technological change provisions of the Canada Labour Code that apply to all federally unionized workers waived in a new contract,” a demand that Morena called “ludicrous.”

“The idea that our union would waive provisions of the Canada Labour Code that protect not only ILWU Local 514 but all Canadian workers is absolutely outrageous,” Morena said in the statement Sunday.

Morena also said employers told the union that they would remove parts of the existing collective agreement — including retroactivity on wages as well as welfare and other benefit improvements — if the union did not accept its final offer presented Wednesday.

The employers, in response to Morena’s comments, disputed a number of points raised by the union leader.

The association said its final offer not only matched a deal reached last year with longshore workers to end a dispute that included a 13-day freeze at B.C. ports, but also included “additional elements” specifically for Local 514 members.

“The BCMEA is not requiring any concessions of the union in our final offer, nor is the final offer removing any items from the existing collective agreement,” the employers said.

The labour disruption in Vancouver, Canada’s largest port, has prompted concern from both political and business leaders.

In a joint written statement, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen called on the federal government to “urgently intervene with binding arbitration” in future disputes, while also improving “its strategy for managing labour relations” in federally regulated transportation sectors.

“These ports export about $50 million worth of Alberta’s key commodities every day including agricultural, energy and manufacturing-related products,” the statement said. “A prolonged work stoppage will disrupt the movement of these products, backlog other transportation networks such as rail and trucking and damage the economies of Alberta and Canada.”

Chemistry Industry Association of Canada president Bob Masterson said in a statement that “this level of uncertainty further strains Canada’s reputation as a reliable trading partner,” while Fertilizer Canada urged government to legislate changes that would oblige service provisions to continue during strike or lockout in longshoring.

“We are once again on the brink of losing access to a critical trade corridor,” Fertilizer Canada president Karen Proud said in the statement, noting disruptions earlier this year when both major Canadian railways shut down due to labour strife.

“Potash fertilizer will be one of the hardest hit commodities,” she said. “We are asking both the BC Maritime Employers Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada to come to a resolution and avoid a catastrophic shutdown.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.