Canada's Natural Gas Industry Sees Opportunity Amid Global Demand

Shannon Joseph's organization, Energy for a Secure Future, has been listening to customers and came back from their international missions with a clear message: the world wants Canada's natural gas. In fact, they want it so badly that they're running out of patience.

Joseph put this question directly to the Philippines' ambassador to Canada: 'Does your country want Canadian LNG?' The answer was simple and direct: 'A hundred and fifty per cent.'

Canada's Asian trading partners produce less than half their own energy, so they import it. Before the war in Ukraine, most of that came from Russia. But with Russia's reduced supply due to the war and a brief disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, Canada could have filled the gap.

The customers aren't indifferent to emissions; Japan and South Korea both have net-zero commitments. However, they won't pay a premium for 'virtue', as Joseph put it, 'if we make our production more expensive, nobody's going to pay for that. We're going to pay for that.'

The report, When Our Nation Builds, modelled what would happen if the blockades had succeeded in shutting down LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink. The results were stark: without these projects, the corridor would have seen 180,000 people live with stagnant incomes, poor household earnings, and lagging post-secondary attainment.

The gain from building these projects is not just economic, it's also social. Indigenous languages are being kept alive by the money coming from these projects, and average incomes in participating First Nations rose 159% between 2019 and 2023.