“No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there,” Trudeau told participants at the big CERAWeek oil and gas conference. “The resource will be developed. Our job is to ensure this is done responsibly, safely and sustainably.”

The question for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland as she settles into her new cabinet portfolio is whether that statement still rings true in the context of a global health emergency, an accelerating climate crisis, a mounting wave of fossil-fuel divestment and stranded assets, and the meteoric rise of clean energy alternatives.

Nearly three and a half years since Trudeau’s speech, the world has changed. Canada, for the most part, has not.

There is much uncertainty about how Mark Carney’s role will evolve. But the story so far may suggest a government that is considering two of the key steps in addiction recovery: admit you have a problem, and get the help you need. Even if the details have to wait for a September cabinet retreat, and for all the mail-in ballots to be counted in the US election, Ottawa must not foreclose the essential option of making its pandemic and addiction recovery a green one.

Source: Freeland and Carney may be Canada’s last, best chance for a green recovery