Global oil shortages, exacerbated by Canada’s inability to increase its supply to meet demand, will lead to commodity prices continuing to rise, according to Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy. ."Canada has refused to build pipelines. And as a result, Canadians are paying an extraordinary toll," said the former Liberal MP.."When does that start to meander into other aspects of the economy? I think it's already happening and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better." .Speaking at a panel on The Growing Cost of Living Crisis at the Strong and Free Networking Conference in Ottawa, McTeague said the increasing cost of gas will result in many Canadians asking for higher wages, “or something else is going to have to give.” .McTeague said Canada could have increased oil production up to two million barrels to make up for global supply shortages, but the country “cannot step up to the plate” because not enough pipelines have been built. .McTeague said the price of diesel is what “keeps me up at night,” because the elimination of many refineries and recently introduced environmental regulations are putting pressures on the supply..Most products that are shipped by trucks and trains, as well as most farming and construction vehicles, have diesel engines. .McTeague added that while many politicians want the country to transition away from using fossil fuels, “[t]he problem is there's no replacement. It's not scalable, it's not reliable, and it certainly isn't affordable.".Philip Cross, a senior fellow at the Macdonald–Laurier Institute, said in the last year, almost 70% of the components of the Canadian Consumer Price Index rose by more than 3%, which is “well beyond” the Bank of Canada's (BOC) inflation target..Cross said the BOC's money printing is to blame for inflation, and said their misdiagnosis of the problem as being transitory was a “massive failure.”.“How we were able to delude ourselves into thinking that we could expand the money supply by 30% and run historic deficits and that there would be no consequence for inflation, is one of the great unanswered questions,” said Cross. .He said the BOC will need to raise interest rates further in the coming months, especially since the federal and provincial governments are continuing their generous stimulus spending..“Monetary policy is alone in fighting this and that makes their job more difficult," he said. .Mike Moffat, senior director of policy and innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute, said the issue of skyrocketing housing prices is primarily due to high demand and not enough supply, which is leading to societal consequences like families putting off having children and young adults living with their parents..Moffat said in addition to increasing the supply of homes, getting rid of municipal red tape would help the situation. He said Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Housing Supply Task Force had “a number of fantastic recommendations” about ways for municipalities to build more duplexes and triplexes..“I'm kind of heartened to see across the sort of four parties who are contesting the provincial election here in Ontario," said Moffat. ."They’re all kind of singing from the same playbook that they need to reform the system, and a lot of that is, recognition of property rights, allowing people to actually build duplexes and triplexes, and to stop being so restrictive.”
