The Public Policy Forum is hugely influential in Canadian policy circles (membership<\/a> and board of directors<\/a>), but its 20th century-style “leadership blueprint<\/a>” for the future of Canadian oil and gas should not be taken seriously. Instead, Canada should be talking about bold strategies to restructure the industry for the 21st century.<\/p>\n Veteran energy writer Shawn McCarthy touches on the major criticisms of the Forum report in a March 17 review<\/a> in Corporate Knights magazine. I want to add three concerns to his excellent piece.<\/p>\n The first is the Forum’s straw man argument that there are only two “competing visions” of oil and gas: environmental groups’ demands to reduce production to lower emissions vs. aggressive decarbonization to extend “the natural lifecycle” of the resource.<\/p>\n Few serious Canadians are demanding that hydrocarbons be phased out in short order. Furthermore, energy is provincial jurisdiction and the federal government simply cannot mandate production cuts. In fact, IHS MarkIt forecasts (interview below) oil sands production to rise by 650,000 barrels per day (250,000 barrels per day for conventional production) by 2030.<\/p>\n The “keep it in the ground” movement is hardly the bogeyman the Forum claims.<\/p>\n