The Pembina Institute issued a report titled, "Drilling Down – Oil and Gas Jobs in Transition" on August 14, 2025. The report is remarkable for how far it is removed from reality.Its authors rightly state that Canada's oil and gas industries took a big hit in the global oil price collapse of 2014, and neither the industry nor jobs have recovered. Thousands of jobs were lost and many oil and gas professionals left Canada for jobs in competitor nations. Ironically, Canadian industry innovated and pressed on, improving production despite these losses.However, the Pembina Institute's premise that this situation signals the phase-out of hydrocarbons is false, as are their reasons for why there was no recovery per se. The recent "Statistical Review of World Energy 2025," summarized here, debunks such a claim..MCCRAE: Every child matters, or perhaps not.Pembina tries to frame the 2014 situation as a lesson for Canadian policy makers that, instead of the roller coaster ride of global oil and gas prices, Canada would do better to create policies and legislation to mandate and ensure the creation of "green jobs" in what they declare is a rapidly growing "clean energy" sector which will lead to prosperity for all.Robert Lyman, retired energy economist, former federal public servant and diplomat, has written a rebuttal report, issued August 17, 2025, titled, "The Energy Sector that Enriches Canada – And the One That Does Not." Lyman notes that six years ago he wrote an article showing that according to Statistics Canada, "clean energy" was not a growth industry in Canada. In contrast to Pembina's present claims, the increased costs of electricity due to renewables were reducing employment in Canadian industry. And who was and is the main economic beneficiary of renewables? Then as now, it is China!.Lyman writes, "'Clean energy' (very broadly defined by StatsCan) is still only 3% of Canada's GDP, even after many billions of dollars have been spent by governments promoting it."This includes millions of dollars of taxpayers' money that the federal, provincial and municipal governments have shovelled into environmental groups like Pembina Institute for "climate change" grants and consultations. The most recent Canada Revenue Agency filings for the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development show that of their ~$8 million in revenues, about $1.4 million (17.90%) come from government. Only about $400K (4.86%) come from receipted donations. What is the net benefit to the public — a requirement for charities — of this ‘charity’ spreading misinformation about Canada’s oil and gas industry and jobs?.GIESBRECHT: How to fix CBC? Hire Ezra Levant.Lyman explains that the fundamental premise of the Pembina report is incorrect."Some industries, including oil and gas, are capital-intensive, not labour-intensive, meaning that the production process entails higher levels of capital investment per unit of output," he writes. "As a result, the oil and gas industry provides a broad range of economic benefits — higher national income, higher productivity, higher rates of investment in new technology and innovation, higher wages for workers, and higher levels of export revenues."His report continues, "From 2010 to 2021, crude oil and natural gas exports ranged from about $50 billion to $120 billion per year, depending on commodity prices, before reaching a high of $188 billion in 2022 …The oil and gas industry’s direct and indirect employment is about 450,000 people in Canada.".Curiously, Pembina’s authors fail to mention that the institute and a bevy of other ENGOs, along with substantial foreign-funding and campaign orchestration, were key participants in the decades-long Tar Sands Campaign, intended to decimate and ultimately shut down the Alberta oil sands. So, regarding those oil and gas job losses? Pembina. Look in the mirror.Unlike the non-existent "clean energy" sector, in 2022, oil and gas producing provinces collected a record-high $34 billion in royalties. Such royalties have stayed at over $20 billion a year. Add to that another $8 billion per year in income taxes, plus those income taxes from the well-paid oil and gas employees.By contrast, the "clean energy" sector of wind and solar drains the public purse. .MCMILLAN: To hell with the east, we want to be released.The Pembina Institute was a main proponent of accelerated coal-phase out in Alberta from about 2013, promising a reduction in $3 billion in health care costs, pushing wind and solar as the alternative. Instead, coal phase-out cost Albertans in the order of $22 billion, drove up power prices — including for medical facilities — and distorted Alberta's deregulated electricity market.The rapid adoption of renewables under the Notley NDP government led to grid instability and near blackouts by 2022, only recently managed under the UCP by the construction of additional dispatchable natural gas plants.Lyman writes, "In Ontario, the situation is even worse. The unwillingness of the Ford government to allow the excessive cost of 'clean energy' to increase consumer rates has meant that Ontario taxpayers have had to subsidize electricity rates. The annual taxpayer subsidy now exceeds $6 billion per year. Governments in Canada also have paid about $53 billion in subsidies to battery plants. The oil and gas industry enriches Canada, and the 'clean energy' industry sucks wealth out of it."So, drill down deeper than the Pembina Institute. Oil and gas industries enrich Alberta and Canada; "clean energy" enriches China.
