Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, is taking fire for publishing a critique of Ontario’s new carbon cap and trade program without acknowledging the author’s close ties to the fossil fuel industry.
Morgan, a past president and current board member with natural gas company Encana, blasts Ontario’s Green Energy Act, claiming that “much of the green power comes on stream when it isn’t needed.” He adds that carbon trading in Europe has largely resulted in energy-intensive industries relocating overseas.
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“The Ontario announcement has promulgated a debate as to whether cap-and-trade is a tax,” he writes. “Clearly, for those having to buy carbon credits, it amounts to a tax. But for those who have credits to sell, it amounts to a subsidy.”
But one employee of a leading Canadian renewable energy provider fired back on his personal social media page (reprinted with permission), noting that “Encana is the largest Canadian company, by market cap, and the largest recipient of more than $34 billion annually in subsidies from federal and provincial governments (source: IMF). When you know that, this article reads like a child whining because someone is threatening to take away their paints because they’re making a mess of the wall.”
The social media post links to a recent Canadaland podcast on Canadian media coverage of the oil and gas industry. “The energy sector has flooded Canada’s media with money, be it in ad dollars, speaking fees, charitable donations, or ‘native content’ partnerships,” state the program notes. “What this has bought, in effect, is a lack of critical mainstream discourse on oil and the environment.”
