Canada was prepared to ration gas in the 1979 oil crisis. Could we be running on fumes once again? | CBC News

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/gas-rationing-stamps-oil-crisis-9.7134294

27 Comments

  1. GreeneSummer1709 on

    We could start by following guidance issued by the IEA first. Something like encouraging WFH would go a long way.

  2. Mediocre_Run_2756 on

    FFS: had our leaders actually planned for rainy days we could be self sufficient on the energy front. Instead they virtue signalled and literally turned away potential customers who could boost our economy.

  3. Electioncanthrowaway on

    Bangladesh is on 4 day work week to save fuel. Of course that could never happen in Canada. Or reinstating Wfh if possible.

  4. The biggest problem for Canada in this probably won’t be actual shortages unless the USA bans exports then the east is pretty fucked.What it could do is drive the cost into the stratosphere.

    What actually boggles my mind is the seeming lack of concern in some European countries and Australia .

    One thing if it drags much longer is people are going to get a good look at what decarbonization actually looks like

    Edit:spelling

  5. Prosthetic-Rake on

    In the west our gas is made in Edmonton

    The in east they buy it from America

  6. Hour_Significance817 on

    Canada produces enough oil for its own domestic needs and still has enough leftover for exports. Canada also has enough land to be storing petroleum reserve that’s been extracted from the ground, at minimum, that would last the country for months if not an entire year.

    The result of any price increase is an indirect result of not having enough pipelines to the east and refineries across the country, along with the lack of relevant contingency by authorities to cap prices and export in extraordinary times. Any calls of rationing is simply fear-mongering, or if it really comes down to that, poor governance.

  7. You’re saying we had 47 years to learn the lesson about dependency on fossil fuels and chose instead to subsidize oil and gas and double down on it? Yeah, sounds about right. A country that’s still debating whether to electrify trains in, checks date…2nd quarter of the 21st century

  8. Be kinda cool if all the people who could work from home did. Wonder how much gas that’d save? Jesus christ.

  9. Lisan_Al-NaCL on

    The headline is nonsensical

    Canada is a massive NET Exporter of Oil.

    West of Ontario, 95%+ of our gasoline, diesel, and other refined petrol products are produced and refined HERE. Ontario and Quebec are a mixed bag of importing refined products and self-refining either a) domestic unrefined oil or b) imported unrefined oil. The martimes, IIRC, imports a fair bit of oil from overseas or from the US via ocean tanker (Thanks Irving Family).

  10. Admirable-Essay8444 on

    Serious question: will this actually spur Canada to finally enact an east-west pipeline? Like we are at the proverbial ‘gun at the head’ moment, where eastern Canada could actually run out fuel, while western Canada sits in a sea of fuel.

    And before you all @ me. I’m all for EVs, but EVs having been going to make gas vehicles obsolete for the last 40+years… let’s live in the here and now. Fossils fuel are still going to make up a large part of the energy mix for the foreseeable future. And it’s shocking mismanagement that a top 5 energy producer, is seeing half the country possibly run out of fuel and is dependant on imported fuel from another country (even if it’s Canadian fuel from the US, still a security concern… like right now).

  11. AverageT1000 on

    If Canada stays to ration the fuel, y’all better be ready for inflation to skyrocket worse then it is now

  12. >One, if there’s a physical oil shortage in Canada — which a region like Central Canada may be more vulnerable to given a lack of an east-west pipeline — there would be a need to ration, he said.

    It is an ongoing embarrassment that this country allows lobby groups and ideologues to prevent the creation of a robust internal energy system. We are sitting on one of the largest oil reserves on the planet and yet, because of their actions, Central Canada could run out of oil and gasoline or face beyond the pale gasoline prices.

    Alberta refines its own gasoline from our own oil, we aren’t going to run out. The only reason the rest of Canada can’t benefit from that is because lobby groups spent millions of dollars convincing people that pipelines are evil.

  13. We refine enough of our own and imported oil for our domestic needs, eastern Canada still needs to import oil from USA mostly for their refineries because our pipelines run south as opposed to east.

    IF we had a pipeline east we could be fully self sufficient.

  14. SigmaHouse28 on

    No, Canada is self-sufficient in oil, we are net exporters. What we need to do, is build a pipeline to Eastern Canada (Quebec and the Atlantic provinces). They might run out of oil, which will teach them.

  15. BritCanuck05 on

    We’re somewhere in the top 5 for oil exports. We shouldn’t have to ratio at all. A massive failure in successive governments to ensure the Canada is self sufficient in times of crisis.

  16. Odd_Cabinet_7734 on

    How long does it take to build a refinery? Maybe we should start doing that now? Unless somebody wants to start investigating some other energy source, we should probably figure out how to refine our own oil.

  17. VanCityPhotoNewbie on

    I have no choice but to drive to because of my profession but it would a good idea to implement WFH for all those people who do not actually need to be in an office……..

    Like imagine how much you would save.

  18. We should really be building refineries to process our heavy crude oil. The best time was 10 years ago the second best time is now while we are expecting windfalls