TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th May, 2020) Canadian lawmakers must not bail out the energy sector if they want the economy to recover from the coronavirus crisis, Green Party leader Elizabeth May said on Wednesday.
"If we want to get out of this pandemic with a healthy global economy, don't put money in fossil fuels at all - to try to bail them out - it won't work... oil is dead," May said before a coronavirus parliamentary committee sitting.
May said more investment is needed in the green energy sector because it is the only sector that can create an abundance of jobs quickly and undoing the economic carnage caused by the ongoing pandemic.
Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet endorsed May's statements, saying that, even if talk of the oil industry's demise is premature, the Alberta oil sands certainly are "condemned."
Officials in oil-laden regions and energy executives have repeatedly highlighted the challenges the Canadian energy sector faces as a result of the earlier oil dispute between Russia and Saudi Arabia and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as it continues to struggle to recover from the 2014 oil price crash, while advocating for an energy-sector-specific stimulus package.
In mid-April, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $1.75 billion to fund orphan and dormant oil well clean-up projects and an emission reduction fund, although, some have seen this as a symbolic gesture.
