Canada’s Economic Recovery and Environmental Leadership: Driven by Natural Gas and Oil

We are the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) and we have a vision for Canada’s post-pandemic recovery — including opportunities for Indigenous prosperity — that also embraces how Canada can help address global climate change.

Natural gas and oil are fundamental to our quality of life. From fuels for heating, industry and transportation, to petrochemicals used to make products like N-95 protective masks, natural gas and oil underpin virtually every aspect of Canada’s economy — and Canadians’ lives.

The energy industry has the nationwide ability to stimulate large-scale economic recovery to sustain Canada’s financial future. Canada’s natural gas and oil industry is positioned to play a critical role in developing solutions and delivering results, from employment to generating government revenues. This sector is one of Canada’s largest employers and economic growth generators, and can drive a robust, sustainable recovery to the benefit of the entire country while continuing to drive down emissions.

We envision a path forward guided by these key principles:

• Create and retain good jobs in Canada
• Generate pan-Canadian benefits, especially focused on prosperity for Indigenous communities
• Advance environmental leadership at home and abroad
• Build wealth and value while shrinking Canada’s debt

CAPP’s vision highlights how strategic investments and federal government policy choices that coincide with the projected global rebound in energy demand can enable Canada’s natural gas and oil industry to drive a strong recovery, creating opportunity and building value by employing Canadians while shrinking the country’s deficit. The right policy environment would result in annual incremental impact through 2030 of $20 billion per year in investment, 120,000 additional permanent jobs, $45 billion increase in GDP, and $7.5 billion per year increase in government revenues.

The path to recovery includes attracting investment back to Canada’s industries. With rising national debt resulting from the economic crisis, attracting capital will be critical to growing Canada’s economy, getting Canadians back to work and funding advanced technologies to address emissions.

Rebuilding Canada’s natural gas and oil industry to enable jobs and prosperity is aligned with the federal government’s commitment to addressing climate change. Capital investment not only supports growth in the industry but is also vital to developing and commercializing advanced technologies that address emissions. Exporting responsibly produced Canadian energy, expertise and technology to reduce global emissions is how Canada can play an outsized role in the fight against climate change. Our industry emphasizes collaboration within the industry and with governments, First Nations, communities and stakeholders. The industry’s advanced expertise and technological innovation are keys to our solutions-focused approach to emissions reduction. We believe delivering reliable, affordable, responsibly produced energy addresses important social issues and creates prosperity, without compromising environmental performance improvements. A stable and globally competitive business environment enhances investment, creates jobs, promotes innovation and ultimately enables our ability to reduce emissions.

Learn more about CAPP here.