OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has definitively slammed the door on regulating Canada's oil and gas sector, calling it a “crazy, crazy” economic policy under current global oil prices.
His comments in the House of Commons come as international talks are underway in Lima, Peru, in an effort to reach a new post-2020 global agreement on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
Harper was emphatic that Canada will not move unilaterally to curb fast-rising emissions from Alberta's oilsands.
The Conservative government has been promising to regulate the oil and gas sector since 2007 as part of its sector-by-sector approach to curbing emissions, an approach the government called a Made-in-Canada plan.
Harper was responding to questions about Canada's poor record in meeting its previous Copenhagen emissions targets, which a government report this week showed are far off track.
The Environment Canada emissions report shows that increasing GHG emissions from the oil and gas sector - principally the oilsands - will almost completely offset major reductions in the electricity sector by the year 2020.