Carney's Capitulation

Instead of balance between hydrocarbons and climate, the Prime Minister caved, enthusiastically it seems, to Alberta and the oil and gas CEOs

Environmentalists are deserting the Good Ship Carney. Three recent high-profile resignations raise a serious question about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s political acumen: how did someone so closely associated with the global fight against climate change become so quickly welded at the hip to the Canadian oil and gas industry and its chief cheerleader, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith?

Simon Donner, Steven Guilbeault, and Catherine Abreu have a few insights to share.

Donner, co-chair of the federal Net-Zero Advisory Body (NZAB), quietly resigned after Canada last week signed the pipeline memorandum of understanding with Alberta that significantly diluted national climate policies.

“The structure and governance of the NZAB… was never ideal,” he said, as quoted in The Energy Mix. “I was comfortable chairing an appointed body whose advice is considered but ultimately rejected… I was not comfortable with the process becoming neglected or performative, and it had begun to feel that way to me.”

Then, Guilbeault, former Minister of the Environment and one of Canada’s most respected environmental leaders, stepped down from cabinet after watching the climate plan he helped build being systematically dismantled.

“Several elements of the climate action plan I worked on… have been, or are about to be, dismantled,” he wrote. “The proposal to exempt Alberta from the Clean Electricity Regulations… is, in my view, a serious mistake.”

Finally, Abreu — widely respected, pragmatic, and a key architect of Canada’s climate accountability framework — offered her own pointed assessment:

“At no point has the expert advice of Canada’s legislated advisory body been sought or considered in these decisions,” she wrote. “Under these circumstances, I cannot conscientiously continue… whose function has been significantly curtailed so as to serve in name only.”

Three different voices, from three different corners of the climate ecosystem, converging on the same diagnosis: Carney’s government is leaning heavily into oil and gas expansion while neglecting the clean-energy side of the ledger Canadians were promised.

Donner’s Resignation: When Evidence Is No Longer Welcome

Simon Donner is not a firebrand. He is a climate scientist known for precision, balance, and a deep commitment to public service. When someone with that profile resigns, something has gone off the rails.

The MOU with Alberta was that breaking point. Ottawa gave up far too much and received too little in return. For Donner, that bargain crossed a line. Not because his advice was ignored, but because the process itself had become, in his words, “neglected or performative.”

His departure says something important: the federal government has begun making climate decisions that science cannot defend. And if experts are expected to bless those choices anyway, then the entire advisory system becomes theatre.

Donner refused to play along.

Guilbeault’s Departure: A Climate Architect Forced to Disown His Own Blueprint

Guilbeault devoted his political career to building Canada’s climate architecture. His resignation signals a philosophical schism, not a personal dispute.

He raised four core objections:

• Indigenous nations were excluded from the MOU process.

• The proposed pipeline threatens the Great Bear Rainforest and increases emissions.

• Removing or modifying the tanker ban heightens serious ecological risks off the coast of northwest British Columbia.

• Exempting Alberta from Clean Electricity Regulations would reverse 20 years of progress.

For Guilbeault, these decisions are not minor course corrections — they are dismantling the foundation he helped build. Staying in the cabinet meant legitimizing a strategy he doesn’t believe in.

He walked.

Abreu’s Warning: The Accountability System Is Being Hollowed Out

Abreu’s resignation completes the picture. Her concern is not just policy, it’s governance. She argues that the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, designed to enforce transparency and trigger corrective action, is no longer being respected.

Her words are stark: the government is using taxpayer dollars to expand “the largest and least controlled source of climate pollution in the country.” And expert advice is not merely being ignored. It is not even being asked for.

When the country’s most credible climate advisers tell the public that the accountability mechanism itself is being compromised, that is a profound warning.

Did Canada Get Value(s) Carney — or Goldman Sachs Carney?

When Canadians voted for Mark Carney, many believed they were electing the author of Value(s). The Carney who argued that markets must serve a social purpose, who championed fairness, sustainability, and humility.

But the Carney in office looks much more like the Goldman Sachs banker who spent 15 years structuring deals and financing megaprojects for corporate Canada. A Carney who wants to “build, build, build,” who sees oil and LNG export infrastructure as a bridge rather than a potential stranded asset, and who has surrounded himself with lieutenants who share that worldview.

Most telling is his choice of Tim Hodgson — former Goldman Sachs CEO and Carney’s colleague from the Bank of Canada — as Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. Hodgson has made his position crystal clear: the government is doubling down on oil and gas development even as the global energy system accelerates toward electrification.

This is Danielle Smith's worldview. It is the worldview of Canada’s oil and gas incumbents. And it is increasingly the worldview shaping federal policy.

What the Resignations Reveal About Carney the Politician

Carney came into office promising to thread the needle: short- to medium-term oil and LNG development paired with massive, forward-looking clean-energy investments, especially a power grid capable of electrifying the national economy.

That was the pitch. That was the balance. Canadians overwhelmingly support that kind of balanced transition.

But as the resignations show, Carney is delivering only half of the bargain. The oil and gas side has flourished; the electrification side has been neglected.

Ottawa is adopting the assumptions, language, and priorities of the hydrocarbon industry while sidelining the very people tasked with guiding Canada’s climate and energy transition policy. The grid build-out has slipped down the priority list. Clean Electricity Regulations are being weakened. Climate architecture is being stripped of its core components.

That is why Donner, Guilbeault, and Abreu resigned. Not because they oppose oil and gas development entirely, but because Carney has abandoned the balance Canadians expect.

Canadians may support pipelines and LNG terminals. They may welcome investment in resource development. But they also expect — consistently, across every poll — that these projects will be matched by meaningful climate action and real clean-energy expansion.

And as these three resignations make clear, the Prime Minister is a long way from threading that needle.