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Energy Insiders Podcast: Will data centres make or break wind?
Kane Thornton has moved from the peak renewables body to data centres, now the presumed peak renewable buyer. We discuss Bowen’s new rules, the bigger rooftop solar rebate, and other news.
The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Will data centres make or break wind? appeared first on Renew Economy.
Climate Active is dead. The funeral will not be certified carbon neutral
Australia's government-run "carbon neutral" certification scheme is being wound up. It is good news for the climate.
The post Climate Active is dead. The funeral will not be certified carbon neutral appeared first on Renew Economy.
Australia’s first offshore wind auction is “going ahead as planned,” new energy minister confirms
Victoria's newly appointed energy minister says the state will go ahead as planned with Australia's first ever offshore wind auction, despite speculation of further delays.
The post Australia’s first offshore wind auction is “going ahead as planned,” new energy minister confirms appeared first on Renew Economy.
Labor’s data centre gas double-speak leaves the gate open for dodgy offsets
A promise of banning gas while waving through “gas firming” and “gas peaking” with unlimited offsets leaves gate open to fossil power buying its way clean with offsets.
The post Labor’s data centre gas double-speak leaves the gate open for dodgy offsets appeared first on Renew Economy.
Massive wind project, with up to 280 of Australia’s biggest-ever turbines, seeks federal green tick
Plans for a potentially massive new wind farm start federal environmental assessment, proposing up to 280 of the most powerful turbines seen in Australia.
The post Massive wind project, with up to 280 of Australia’s biggest-ever turbines, seeks federal green tick appeared first on Renew Economy.
Friday’s Headlines Go North, Young Man
- Albuquerque and a bunch of other Sun Belt cities are the most dangerous for walking, according to an analysis of walk scores and pedestrian death statistics. The study shows a regional divide between the car-dependent sprawl and wide streets of the South and Southwest, and the rest of the country. (Momentum)
- Breaking news: The data is at odds with the Trump administration’s claims that transit is dangerous. (Washington Post)
- Speed traps are an ineffective way of slowing down drivers, writes Beth Osborne. If you want drivers to stick to 25 mph, don’t just lower the speed limit, design the road differently.
- A study out of California suggests that Flock cameras misread license plates 70 percent of the time. (CNET)
- A combination of social service outreach and law enforcement cut homelessness on L.A. transit by more than half. (Metro Magazine)
- In addition to a referendum in Wayne County that stops inner-ring Detroit suburbs from opting out of transit service (Bridge Michigan), Spokane voters narrowly renewed a sales tax funding transit (Spokesman-Review).
- Asthma rates in Philadelphia are measurably higher near freeways and industrial areas. (The Conversation)
- Amtrak is adding a second train connecting New York City, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. (Patriot-News)
- King County is adjusting bus lines in a way that will add a net 3,000 bus trips each week for the Seattle area. (The Urbanist)
- Twin Cities officials are scrambling to find $200 million for the Blue Line. (KSTP)
- San Francisco has already outpaced last year’s number of serious injuries from car crashes. (SFist)
- Nashville is considering banning right turns on red. (WSMV)
- Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett announced eight new sidewalk and other transportation projects. (WRTV)
- West Memphis — a separate city in Arkansas across the river from Memphis — is starting a new transit system. (Local Memphis)
- Almost 90 percent of Kansas City streetcar riders are satisfied with it. (KCTV)
- A Los Angeles man is trying to bike all 7,500 miles of L.A. public streets, and he’s about three-quarters of the way there. (L.A. Times; paywall)
“Second roof:” Solar glass pioneer unveils big rooftop module in time to ride wave of expanded PV subsidy
Australian solar glass and window specialist gets CEC accreditation for its new integrated solar panel, just in time for the expansion of the federal PV subsidy.
The post “Second roof:” Solar glass pioneer unveils big rooftop module in time to ride wave of expanded PV subsidy appeared first on Renew Economy.
Construction and concrete pours begin on another wind farm, as one state prepares to say goodbye to coal
Construction officially starts at another wind project in W.A., which is benefiting from firm coal closure dates and a state owned utility writing PPAs.
The post Construction and concrete pours begin on another wind farm, as one state prepares to say goodbye to coal appeared first on Renew Economy.
The Driven Podcast: More small cars arrive as EV sales stay big
Australian BEV sales pass the 20% mark for the second month in a row as Geely's best-selling hatchback arrives on Australian shores. Plus, news of the week.
The post The Driven Podcast: More small cars arrive as EV sales stay big appeared first on Renew Economy.
AFSA Newsletter | April-June, 2026
The second quarter of 2026 was marked by a clear shift from advocacy alone towards influence, implementation and institutional change. Across the period, AFSA’s work entered legislative chambers, regional trade discussions, global climate negotiations, financial policy debates and community learning spaces. The significance of this quarter lies not only in the number of activities undertaken, but in the way they connected. Seed rights were linked to human rights. Agroecology was linked to law and trade. Soil restoration was linked to enterprise. Food culture was linked to citizen power. Research was used not simply to describe problems, but to challenge the institutions and investment models shaping Africa’s agricultural future.
Several developments gave this quarter particular weight. The East African Community Agroecology Bill moved formally into the legislative process. The N’Djamena Declaration gave renewed continental direction to farmer managed seed systems. African farmer testimony began feeding directly into a United Nations process on the right to seed. At the same time, AFSA questioned the choices being made by major financial institutions, advanced agroecology in climate negotiations, strengthened agroecological markets and enterprises, and documented practical evidence from communities restoring soils and building livelihoods. The launch of the My Food Is African Barefoot Guide also expanded the conversation beyond policy, reminding us that food systems are shaped every day in homes, schools, markets, kitchens and public culture.
This edition therefore tells a story of convergence. Laws, markets, seeds, finance, climate, culture and community action are often treated as separate fields, yet the quarter showed how deeply they depend on one another. AFSA’s achievement was to hold these threads together and to keep African farmers, citizens and communities at the centre of each conversation. What emerges is not simply a record of completed activities, but evidence of a movement gaining stronger tools, clearer positions and greater influence over the decisions that will shape Africa’s food future.
Download the free PDF copy of the newsletter hereParty Time? Setting the record straight
On June 9, 2026 Tempest Magazine published Party Time?, the transcript of an interview with Charlie Post by David Camfield. The central question being asked was whether socialist organizations should consider themselves parties.
Charlie Post, a former member of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Solidarity and current member of Tempest, takes a stab at answering that question by outlining how all of the traditions in the U.S. failed because they followed what he calls “the micro-sect model”. While a revolutionary party is necessary, it requires that a large layer of the working class be radicalized.
Post provides a history starting in the 1860’s in Europe up to the broad Left parties of today. In addition to the basic objective problem regarding the working class, there were also subjective mistakes made by socialist organizations which included swinging from ultraleft abstentionism to adaptation. From my perspective, so far, so good.
At this point, Post begins a broad attack on the existing far Left. All groups either continue to use the micro-sect model or proclaim themselves to be parties. Those following the micro-sect model are prone to a “fetish of leadership” which played a part in those organizations ignoring or excusing oppressive behavior from leadership. This led to the demise of the ISO and other organizations.
Post then turns to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as an alternative to the micro-sect model. He says there were opportunities for engagement between 2017-2020. He cites the Jamaal Bowman debacle as an illustration of the decline of DSA into a more authoritarian and bureaucratic organization. Today, with the advent of Mamdani, Tempest is re-evaluating whether engaging with DSA is worthwhile.1
Post next turns to Solidarity. He was a member from its founding in 1986 until 2015. During much of this time, he was in the leadership. He claims that Solidarity was good at training its members until about 1993. This change, according to Post, had to do with members giving up on revolution and accepting reformism as the only thing possible. His conclusion is the most damning “What we ended up with was that the group—politically, not organizationally—liquidated itself into a more amorphous left-reformist current.” He later goes on to say that Solidarity became depoliticized and the atmosphere became toxic.
I am a member of Solidarity, serving on its National Committee, and also a member of Tempest and DSA. I joined Solidarity in 1997 so I can’t comment on the shift in training members that allegedly happened in or around 1993 but I believe our remaining founding members would be as puzzled by that comment as I was. It is also totally untrue that we have a paper membership of one hundred with an active membership of thirty.
Solidarity’s membership has been affected by the same objective factors that have fragmented the rest of the far left. The rise of DSA drew members away as well as allowed a portion of the existing membership to be comfortable in supporting progressive Democrats, a mistake in my opinion. However, this is a question on which Solidarity members are about evenly divided and one that we continue to debate.
We lost members as we grappled with gendered violence and trans rights. However, unlike other organizations, we got things right. I proudly served on the Gendered Violence Commission during this time. The loss of members was an inevitable result of this painful process.
I’ve added to the list of negative issues that have affected Solidarity in the interest of honesty and to acknowledge mistakes and shortcomings. That does not mean that the musings of a disgruntled former member are accurate or fair. We continue to call ourselves revolutionary socialists in the tradition of socialism from below. We continue to grow with youth and women as new members. We continue to seek opportunities for collaboration with other like-minded organizations and individuals.
One such collaboration is the United Left Platform (ULP) which Post does not even bother to mention and to which he has done a great disservice in his snarky attacks on Solidarity.
Which organization is immune from criticism? Tempest, of course! It’s unclear how Tempest has all the answers. This is where it gets very vague. If Solidarity is a drop in the ocean, then Tempest is a drop and a half, a fact that should engender a high degree of humility and self-criticism both of which were sorely lacking in this interview.
NB: Dual Solidarity-Tempest members Bill Balderston, Ron Lare, Ted McTaggart, Peter Solenberger and Judy Wraight concur with this article. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of Solidarity.
[1] In my opinion, Tempest made a sectarian turn away from DSA, a mistake that I and others argued against at the time in an article published in Tempest magazine (“DSA after the 2023 convention: Another view”).The size of DSA has waxed and waned with the election of Trump in 2016, the election of Biden and the re-election of Trump. There is nothing surprising about this. Currently, DSA has over 120,000 members and continues to grow. A group with young, enthusiastic members who call themselves socialists and who have an active interest in Marx is one place we should want to be, illusions about social democracy notwithstanding.
The issue with Jamaal Bowman was a much more fundamental one than what Post identifies. DSA should not be endorsing Democrats, and if they do, they should not be surprised that there is no accountability. At most, DSA should be critically endorsing independent candidates. Revolutionary socialists should be arguing this at every step of the way, not mounting campaigns for expulsion when (surprise!) Democratic candidates, who have been endorsed by all kinds of groups and individuals, turn out not to be accountable. Post says that participation in DSA is a tactical question and I agree with that.
Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
The post Party Time? Setting the record straight appeared first on Tempest.
Surviving the Storm: Tropical Storm Impacts on Coastal Birds
Duke Energy to issue $10B in equity to capture gas generation growth opportunity — Utility Dive
CEO Harry Sideris said the company is deploying more than $1 billion per month to meet “record demand.” Advocates say the utility has exaggerated projections to justify spending.
By Emma Penrod
Duke Energy is committed to finding affordability solutions for customers amid rising demand — and opposition to the company’s $103 billion spending plan, company leaders said during a Tuesday earnings call.
…
The utility faces criticism in North Carolina, where it originally requested some $1.7 billion in additional revenue via base rate increases in 2027 and 2028. Sideris said Duke Energy had negotiated settlements in North Carolina that would authorize $1.1 billion of the company’s request. But the proposed rate increases have also led to calls for a moratorium on data center development in North Carolina.
In a letter to the state’s governor, NC Warn, an advocacy group focused on climate and energy justice, argued that Duke Energy testimony in the two rate cases revealed that electricity use in the state has declined despite population growth, that the utility has exaggerated its own growth projections and that the company is recruiting large load customers in order to justify its spending plan.
“This is a scandal and crime being perpetrated against the people of North Carolina who are already struggling with soaring power bills, repeated devastation by storms and assaults on their communities by massive data center developers whop provide almost no jobs after initial construction,” NC Warn wrote.
The utility company is also facing a dispute in Indiana over a rate hike approved last year. The state’s ratepayer advocate has accused Duke of over collecting more than $89 million. At the same time, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has been roiled by change, with Gov. Mike Braun expressing displeasure over recent rate hikes before firing Andy Zay from the commission this week after demoting him from its chairmanship.
The post Duke Energy to issue $10B in equity to capture gas generation growth opportunity — Utility Dive appeared first on NC WARN.
Data center power sales drive $220M increase in TVA’s net income
The federal utility’s total operating revenue was $10 billion over the first nine months of the fiscal year, up 3% year-over-year, with a net income of $965 million.
Take the Pledge for Migrant Farm Worker Safety
A pledge for Niagara municipal candidates
Road Safety for AllEveryone deserves the freedom to move safely through their community. Migrant farm workers are asking candidates to commit to practical action so that every worker can get to work, reach essential services and return home safely.
Take the pledge Read the commitmentsFreedom of mobility
Road safety is about the freedom to live a full life.Freedom of mobility means being able to travel between work, home, grocery stores, health care, legal services and community without risking your life.
For many migrant farm workers, there is little or no public transit. Workers may have no choice but to walk or cycle on dark rural roads without safe shoulders, bike lanes, crossings or lighting to get privacy and access basic needs.
Essential Work. Invisible to public planning.Migrant workers have helped sustain Niagara’s farms and food economy for sixty years. Their labour is visible everywhere. Their safety, transportation needs and voices have too often been missing from road design, transit planning and government decisions.
They have names
These deaths and injuries are part of a pattern.At least seven migrant farm workers have been killed or seriously injured on Niagara roads since 2019. Behind that number are workers, neighbours, friends and family members.
2026 Sinhue GarciaSinhue was killed while cycling home on Concession 6 near Line 4 in Niagara-on-the-Lake. He was 39 years old and leaves behind his wife and two daughters in Mexico.
2019 ZenaidaZenaida, a Mexican farm worker and mother, was killed in a hit-and-run in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
2022 Fermin Soto Sanchez and two co-workersFermin was killed and two of his co-workers were seriously injured when they were struck near St. Catharines.
2022 Ceto ReidCeto, a Jamaican farm worker, was seriously injured while cycling home from a laundromat.
2023 OmarOmar, a migrant farm worker, was injured in a hit-and-run on Lakeshore Road.
Sinhue Garcia was a neighbour, a co-worker, a friend and a father. He deserved to get home safely. So does every migrant worker who comes to Niagara to work.
The Road Safety for All Pledge
Candidates who sign commit to:Working with migrant farm workers, community members, municipal staff and regional partners to advance the following actions.
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Create and fund a migrant farm worker road safety plan
Support multi-year funding for improved lighting, protected shoulders or bike lanes, traffic calming, safer crossings and lower speeds on routes used by workers.
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Complete a worker-led road safety audit and map
Ensure migrant farm workers directly identify dangerous roads, routes and destinations and help set priorities for action.
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Put worker-identified routes into municipal and regional plans
Use transportation and master planning processes to prioritize routes identified by migrant workers.
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Assign responsibility and report publicly on progress
Identify a lead Niagara Region staff person and provide at least two public reports to council each year: one before and one after the height of the agricultural season from May to September.
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Ensure migrant worker housing is safe and dignified
Support proactive inspections through Niagara Region Public Health, including access to basic facilities, privacy, adequate space and protection from unsafe conditions.
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Call for a coroner’s inquest
Publicly support an investigation into migrant farm worker road deaths and serious injuries in Niagara.
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Meet directly with migrant farm workers
Hold direct meetings with workers and release a public implementation plan during the first year of the new council.
What happens next
Residents will know where candidates stand.We will publish how candidates respond to this pledge on this website. Please check back for updates.
For municipal candidates
Sign the pledgeAdd your name to publicly commit to the Road Safety for All Pledge and to working directly with migrant farm workers on implementation.
By signing, you commit to supporting all seven actions listed above.Your contact information will be used to confirm your response and communicate with you about the pledge. Only information you have agreed to make public should be published.
Candidate pledge formPlease complete the form below. We will follow up to confirm your response.
The post Take the Pledge for Migrant Farm Worker Safety first appeared on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.
The post Take the Pledge for Migrant Farm Worker Safety appeared first on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.
Hated By All The Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.
By KAY MATTHEWS
I was at the library to pick up a book on hold when I checked out the new books. There on the shelf was Hated By All The Right People: Tucker Carson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind. As we’ve all seen on social media, Carlson’s recent admission that there was a genocide in Gaza and his outspoken opposition to the war in Iran, are omnipresent. I picked up the book, figuring I’d browse through and get a sense of how author Jason Zengerle, a journalist with the New York Times, was going to treat this controversial public figure’s influence on the zeitgeist.
The book ends, in 2025, just as Carlson is beginning to question, and sometimes apologize for, his defense of Israel in Gaza and of the country in general. While the timing isn’t right for the author to speculate about just how much these flip-flops are politically motivated or “of the heart,” it isn’t hard for the reader to speculate on that motivation, as the book is, as Zengerle says in the Introduction, “the larger story of conservative politics and conservative media over the last thirty years” that resulted in the rise of MAGA. I ended up reading the whole damn book.
We begin in 1995 at the Weekly Standard with Bill Kristol, the newly minted editor from academia and son of Irving Kristol, the “godfather of neoconservatism.” His partner at the magazine is John Pomerantz, former editor of the Washington Times and son of Norman, longtime editor of Commentary. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch gives them seed money of $3 million to be the magazine of choice in Washington D.C. Fox News won’t come alive until 1996.
It was an auspicious entry for a 26-year-old neophyte journalist, but Carlson’s politics pretty much aligned with the Weekly Standard’s; a prep school boy whose father was also a conservative heavy weight. Names we still see today in journalism got their start along with Carlson: David Brooks (NYT); David Frum (Atlantic); and Matt Labash (Substack). Despite his lack of experience, according to Zengerle, Carlson wrote “some excellent and entertaining journalism.” He profiled many of the 90s leading political figures—Ross Perot, Jack Kemp, James Carville, and Al Gore—usually in rather withering prose. He took on Newt Gingrich, who the paper initially supported but then saw as “feckless” and timid. Carlson also took on Grover Norquist (the Standard let him publish it in The New Republic) as a “cash-addled, morally malleable lobbyist.” He became known in Washington as a “different kind of conservative journalist,” although his stand against abortion was lock tight.
Maybe if Carlson had remained a magazine or newspaper reporter he’d have avoided the ultra-right pull of the MAGA movement (Frum and Brooks just became hackneyed conservatives but Labash is a MAGA). He had a short stint at Tina Brown’s Talk, profiling George W. Bush, who he deemed unfit for office, and always aspired to be like his idols—Hunter Thompson, George Plimpton, and A.J Liebling—but they were from a different era and this era was soon to become the internet and cable news, where Carlson landed as a talking head. Through sheer luck (he was the only one in the Standard office when CBS came calling) he appeared on CBS’s prime-time news show 48 Hours to talk about the O.J. Simpson trial. CNN then came calling during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. While Carlson continued his job at the Standard, whose other reporters often mocked him for his television work, it was clear he was rising in the talking heads world. The Standard saw they were losing him and offered to reduce his workload by half if he’d stay, but CNN offered him his own show, The Spin Room, with cohost Bill Press, the former left-leaning chair on Crossfire. Rupert Murdoch put the kibosh on Carson working for both the Standard and his competitor, CNN. While The Spin Room didn’t last long, Carlson got promoted anyway to Crossfire, the longtime political debate show between the right and left.
He was in his element at Crossfire, or as Zengerle put it, “Carlson wasn’t merely a pundit; he was the host of Washington’s most exclusive cocktail party.” But, as in all things political, after a skewering by the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart CNN fired Carlson and cancelled Crossfire. He rebounded to MSNBC where he hosted The Situation with Tucker Carlson and spared with Rachel Maddow until that show, too, was canceled.
But it was his venture into website news, The Daily Caller, that was a real turning point for Carlson. At the beginning, Carlson felt the website could embody what he said at the CPAC meeting in 2009 where Rush Limbaugh was the keynote speaker: The conservative media was struggling because it “refused to put accuracy first” and instead prioritized bombast and opinion. Despite Tucker’s truth-telling as a bonafide journalist, The Daily Caller was, unfortunately, anything but. Once The Drudge Report, a hard-right website, and Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News became its main competitors, the Caller’s relentless quest for “hits” turned it into another media full of “bombast and opinion.” While he had hired respectable journalists at the Calling, he ended up hiring others who promoted white nationalism and racism.
Fox News was then in its ascendancy, and while Carlson initially took a condescending view—he dismissed its biggest star, Bill O’Reilly, as a “thin-skilled blowhard”—he recognized its hard right ideological success. Because of his reputation as a fairly open-minded TV host with a good sense of humor, author Zengerle has this to say about his role at Fox News: “He became a partisan shill.”
Carlson was hired at Fox News while still at the Daily Caller, and his ascendency was slow. Zengerle provides a brief history of the development of Fox News under Roger Ailes and its relentless right turn during the Obama administration, with Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly leading the way. Once Trump announced in 2014 that he would run for president, Ailes saw immediately that he was “good for Fox News ratings” (Rupert Murdoch was not so convinced).
Until Trump’s presidential run Carlson was by no means a fan. But during his years at Daily Caller he’d “seen the web-traffic metrics” about where the conservative base was heading and “how a populist candidate who explicitly ran on nativism, white grievance, and sexism might have a lane in a Republican primary.” Five days before the election Fox News announced its new 7:00 pm show: Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
The last section of Zengerle’s book analyzes Carlson’s relationship with Trump over his two administrations. The first, in which Carlson “kept a wary personal and professional distance from the president” while the president watched his show every night and often called him afterwards to discuss it, led to Carlson’s planning his show with an eye towards influencing the president. While he actually became a moderating influence on aggressive foreign policy, he was steered right, both politically and culturally by a group called the NatCons, or national conservatives, born of think tanks like the Claremont Institute that “were either attempting to add intellectual heft to Trumpism or trying to reverse engineer an intellectual doctrine to match Trump’s lizard brain populism.” In July 2020, Tucker Carson Tonight became the highest-rated program in US cable news history.
During the presidential interregnum Carlson kept his options open, flip-flopping on the January 6, 2020 storming of the Capitol from condemnation to “a mob of older people from unfashionable zip codes” and anchoring Fox News investigative long-form documentaries. He also befriended J.D. Vance in his rise to power and advocated for his senate run. Then, abruptly, in 2023, Fox News fired Carlson with no explanation. He had plenty of offers—one from Elon Musk—but by this time “the world was his oyster” and with billionaires stepping up he quickly formed his new digital-media company, the Tucker Carlson Network. This is where he whole-heartedly endorsed Trump’s second run and this time, he was the one to call Trump on the phone. He supported Vance for vice-president, helped persuade Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to not split the ticket, and was now an inside man.
Tucker Carlson Network is where we also hear him pontificating on anti-immigration and abortion while decrying the genocide in Gaza and Trump’s Iran war. I think most left-leaning pundits remain skeptical of his motivations but certainly welcome the anti-Zionist position he now promotes (although it’s more like pro-Christianity anti-Zionism). It may move us closer to the end of MAGA, but the tragedy is the damage already done. And for that, maybe Carlson will be remembered as being hated by everyone.
Debora Kapisha, RN, freed from ICE custody, returns home
Asamblea del TGA
Iran War, Soaring Prices Drive Record Oil Profits
U.S. President Donald Trump’s misguided war against Iran has caused another shock in global oil prices – the 14th such shock in the last half-century. World oil prices rose 50% or more after the war started, and have stayed high despite Trump’s repeated promises to stop the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. These price increases are is driving massive increases in profits for petroleum companies around the world – including Canada.
Canada produces three times more oil than it consumes. And while Canada imports small amounts of oil to the eastern provinces, almost none of that is sourced from the Persian Gulf. Hence there is no significant impact of the war on our domestic supply volumes or costs.
Nevertheless, because of a policy choice to tie domestic oil and petroleum product prices to global benchmarks (allowing oil producers to charge Canadians world prices for their own oil, on pain of diverting supply to more lucrative foreign markets), Canadian petroleum prices have soared in tandem.
The combination of sky-high prices with stable production costs is producing a profit windfall for Canadian petroleum companies. This is confirmed by the recent release of financial reports by publicly-traded Canadian oil companies for the second quarter of 2026.
The table below summarizes after-tax earnings and other metrics for the four largest publicly-traded Canadian producers. Their combined revenues (net of royalty payments) grew almost 50% in the April-June period, compared to the year-earlier period, thanks to the effect of Trump’s war on world prices.
After-tax profits rose more dramatically, since production costs remained largely unchanged. After-tax profits at the big four more than doubled: rising 144% compared to the second quarter of 2025, reaching a combined total of $13.3 billion. That’s almost $150 million per day in after-tax profit over the three-month period.
These four companies represent only a portion of the Canadian petroleum sector. Financial results for many companies (including wholly-owned subsidiaries of foreign oil companies) are never publicly reported. However, Statistics Canada publishes helpful financial data on an industry-wide basis. That data for the second quarter of 2026 will be released later in August.
Extrapolated to apply to the broad Canadian petroleum sector (upstream and downstream), the big four’s results suggest that second-quarter industry-wide profits could reach $30 billion (up from $12.6 billion in the second quarter of 2025). Canadian oil profits for the full year could reach $100 billion. That would set a new all-time record, smashing the peak $68 billion after-tax profit the industry recorded in 2022 (when oil prices were similarly shocked following the Russian invasion of Ukraine).
What are the oil companies doing with this record profit flow? There is no robust pattern of reinvestment in new Canadian projects. In fact, excluding acquisitions of other companies and properties (which does not represent an increase in real investment), capital spending by the big four companies actually declined slightly in the second quarter (compared to the year earlier period).
Instead, their main priority is to pay out so-called “excess cash” to company owners, in the form of increased dividend payments and share buy-back programs. Companies buy back their shares as a way of boosting share prices (this benefits company executives, too, through share-based compensation systems). The four majors spent over $6 billion on share purchases and dividend payments in the second quarter, up by almost $2 billion from like period 2026.
Hopes that booming oil profits will lead to new investment and jobs in the petroleum sector are being dashed by the priority these firms are placing on cash payouts, rather than reinvestments.
But the combination of record profits and rapid share buybacks has been great for company owners. Share prices at the big four majors have increased by an average of 45% since the start of the year. Most of those gains are captured by the wealthiest minority of the population. Other Canadians experience only higher costs and declining real incomes.
Research on the distribution of global oil profits during the 2022 price spike confirms that each oil shock further redistributes income upward. Global oil profits almost doubled that year, to nearly $1 trillion (U.S.). In the U.S., 50% of those gains were received by the richest 1% of the population; the bottom 50% of the population got almost none. A less extreme, but similar, pattern prevails in Canada.
In the meantime, oil-fueled inflation remains a threat to living standards and economic performance for most Canadians – those who do not own significant equity holdings in oil companies. Inflation has increased again in Canada since the Iran war started (just as it did in 2022 after the oil shock accompanying the invasion of Ukraine).
Spillover price increases for other goods and services (whose costs of production also increase due to high petroleum prices) will amplify inflationary pressures. And if the Bank of Canada responds with higher interest rates (as it will if above-target inflation persists), Canadians will be punished further with higher interest costs, on top of sky-high gasoline prices and faster broader inflation.
The current oil price shock, just the latest in an ongoing pattern of global price volatility, confirms that fossil fuel prices are the greatest threat to affordability and living standards for Canadian workers and consumers. Please follow the Centre for Future Work’s False Profits project for more details on the impact of oil prices on prices, real wages, and inequality in Canada.
The post Iran War, Soaring Prices Drive Record Oil Profits appeared first on Centre for Future Work.
Love Our Public Lands? That Means Maintaining Them
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