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The UK is an example of why CANADA MUST *NOT* privatize assets & services: "[The] UK public has paid £200bn to shareholders of key industries since privatisation... The transfer of tens of billions of pounds to the owners of the privatised water, rail, bus, energy and mail services comes as families face soaring bills, polluted rivers and seas, and expensive and unreliable trains and buses." - The Guardian reports. Yet the Canadian Government says they're following the privatization example of the UK in 'recycling assets' (i.e. selling off public assets like airports to private interests) to put money into a fake 'sovereign wealth fund.' It’s NOT a Norwegian-style wealth fund – it’s likely to be a taxpayer money-funnel to risky oil and gas projects that puts public assets at risk. The new “sovereign wealth fund” is really the OPPOSITE of Norway’s: the Norwegian fund takes from oil and gas revenues and invests broadly – in part to serve as a backup given the volatility of oil and gas prices. By contrast, the “Sovereign Wealth Fund” announced by Canada takes from public money – likely through the sale of public assets (like airports) and public service cuts – and then invests it in projects that would likely include high risk oil, gas and LNG projects (especially since transferring risk off of corporations and onto the public is a key goal of Canada’s new fund). Norway’s fund lowers risks to the public, but Canada’s fund increases public risk to the benefit of already wealthy (often U.S.-owned) oil and gas corporations. Find out more: https://secure.sierraclub.ca/civicrm/mailing/view?id=3929&reset=1 Again new oil, gas and LNG projects will not have a market by the time they are built and are therefore economic dead-ends (and terrible public investments): www.sierraclub.ca/lng-national-interest-canada/ The Iran war has accelerated the global transition to renewables by pushing countries to get off oil and gas – further hurting the economic viability of oil and gas expansion: https://www.sierraclub.ca/iran-oil-gas-profits-prices/ A REAL energy plan would tax the excess (or ‘windfall’) profits of oil and gas corporations and use that revenue to fund renewables (rather than cutting services and selling public assets): https://secure.sierraclub.ca/civicrm/mailing/view?id=3916&reset=1 But, as the National Observer reported recently, the Federal Government has no comprehensive plan for wind, solar, and battery storage even though the rest of the world realizes wind and solar are much more efficient, cheaper, and quicker to deploy than all other forms of power. Indeed: “Canada, the Global Electricity Review found, is an outlier to the market trend. Renewable energy plant construction has dropped over the past two years, leaving wind and solar power accounting for just nine per cent of the country’s electricity mix, less than half the average among the G7.” Climate action is the canary in the coal mine – not a secondary issue: if governments can’t commit to climate action and take affordability measures that confront oil and gas corporate profits, we can’t rely on them to do a lot of other things either. Cuts - like cuts to the CBC - are already happening that hurt Canadians and hurt Canada's sovereignty as a whole. The way the Federal Government talks about pharmacare now is the way they talked about the emissions cap just before it was scrapped: vaguely. As Althia Raj writes: 'Without a line item in budget 2025 or [the] eco­nomic update... The [pharmacare] pro­gram is end­ing... The fed­eral gov­ern­ment is also slash­ing bil­lions from health care.' More on that here: https://secure.sierraclub.ca/civicrm/mailing/view?id=3932&reset=1 These cuts and actions are NOT 'pragmatic,' 'practical,' nor 'balanced.' They do NOT help defend Canada - they make it HARDER to defend Canada and they put Canadians at risk. The Federal Government has defended plans to expand shipments of Canadian gas to climate-wrecking U.S. billionaire data centres by saying it put cards in Canada's hands. Even if that were true - and it is NOT true - you'd need to be willing to play those cards from them to be in our hands: https://www.sierraclub.ca/canadian-gas-ai-data-centres-keystone-xl-fortress-north-america/ But the Prime Minister has confirmed that 'Canada won’t ‘leverage’ energy, critical minerals [even in current] trade talks with the U.S.' If our existing 'cards' are not to be leveraged, more will certainly not be of use. The United States' new 2025 ‘National Security’ Strategy reveals the U.S. plans to use soft power – including private sector influence – to exert influence on other countries like Canada. The strategy mentions the oil and gas and tech sectors in particular as tools for expanding U.S. influence and specifically declares climate action in other countries to be a threat to U.S. dominance. All the more reason TO take climate action in Canada. IT’S TIME TO GO RENEWABLE - NOT FURTHER INTEGRATE OUR ECONOMY WITH U.S.-OWNED OIL AND GAS CORPORATIONS that are acting like a "Trojan Horse" for U.S. influence in Canada: https://www.sierraclub.ca/canadian-gas-ai-data-centres-keystone-xl-fortress-north-america/ - Read our related fact sheet on why wind and solar with batteries make much more expensive gas plants and the concept of 'baseload power' obsolete: https://www.sierraclub.ca/renewable-energy-does-not-need-baseload-power-more-facts-on-wind-solar-batteries-grids/ - A full podcast on the fake wealth fund: https://www.sierraclub.ca/canada-strong-fund-sovereign-wealth/ - And our previous newsletter on gas price caps, corporate profiteering, and how gas tax pauses are pointless and often just benefit corporations who vacuum up the difference: https://secure.sierraclub.ca/civicrm/mailing/view?id=3916&reset=1 - Our fact sheet on wind and solar power: https://www.sierraclub.ca/canada-wind-power-facts/ - Our fact sheet on electric vehicles (no, they will not overwhelm the grid - they can even be used to reinforce the grid in fact): https://www.sierraclub.ca/canada-electric-vehicles-facts/ - Canada CAN go fully renewable: https://www.sierraclub.ca/canada-can-go-100-renewable/ - Find links to even more Abacus Data, Opinium, Ekos, and Leger polling here: www.sierraclub.ca/lng-national-interest-canada/ As of February 2026: A majority of Canadians say reliance on oil and gas increases the risk of international conflict (67%), believe Canada would be safer if it produced more renewable energy (59%), and a majority say transitioning away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy is more important than ever (58%) only 11% say it’s less important. As of September 2025, “70 per cent of the public would feel pride if Canada were to become a renewable energy superpower, versus only 30 percent feeling that way about becoming an oil and gas superpower…. These results include a majority of Albertans (56%) and 79% of people living in Newfoundland and Labrador.” As of June 2025 fewer than 1 in 5 Canadians want their tax dollars going to largely foreign-owned companies to build more LNG projects and 72% of Albertans wish to maintain or increase federal climate action and action to transition the country to clean energy. In March [2025] polling showed ​​65% of Canadians want renewables instead of oil & gas development and polling in June confirms 67% now prefer renewables and clean energy generally to oil and gas development (it’s 77% in BC). A majority of Canadians continue to oppose oil and gas subsidies.