The green transition is 'cult-like,' says head of Canadian Gas Association at right-wing summit

The head of the Canadian Gas Association says the energy transition away from fossil fuels is driven by an extreme “cult-like” ideological mission.

Timothy Egan, Canadian Gas Association (CGA) president and CEO, shared this view last month at a summit in Hungary organized by far-right think tanks the Danube Institute (which receives funding from from the Batthyány Lajos Foundation, which is funded by the authoritarian Hungarian government), and the Heritage Foundation, which wrote Project 2025 – the widely criticized policy blueprint Donald Trump could use to overhaul the executive branch and usher in a new era of extreme-right governance.

During an eight-minute speech, Egan, whose organization represents major gas companies including Enbridge, TC Energy, FortisBC and others, failed to mention climate change in a talk focused on the energy transition. Rather than acknowledge the scientific reality of climate change as the reason governments around the world are pursuing an emissions reduction agenda, Egan instead said governments are “gambling” public money because of a “deeply ideological” position. 

“We say we have to achieve net zero, a kind of promised land where everything will operate in perfect balance,” Egan said. “But this is the language of religion, not commerce, and the fervor for it is more cult-like than it is religious.”

Egan spoke at a Danube Institute meeting last year, suggesting growing ties between the CGA and the controversial think tank. The Danube Institute has previously also invited Canadian Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich to its conferences, as reported by PressProgress. 

The CGA did not return a request for comment.

Links between Canadian conservatives and the Hungarian government have been growing for years. In his role chairing the International Democratic Union (an international alliance of right-wing political parties), former Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last year he wants closer ties between the two countries. 

And last year, five Conservative MPs travelled to London, England where they dined on Porterhouse steaks, Scottish smoked salmon and more, sparking ethics concerns. Details uncovered by iPolitics found the trip was sponsored by the Danube Institute. 

The fossil fuel ‘cult’

To Egan, government policies to curb emissions, which world-leading scientists say is critical to reduce the catastrophic impacts of climate change, are ideological. That’s because “it's presented as a moral obligation, as something we must invest in because it is a threat to our existence not to do so, and it's morally wrong to do anything else,” he said.

“And so, innovation involving hydrocarbons is often scorned and scoffed at,” he added. “How dare you support something that's destroying humanity, whereas investment in wind or solar technology or methane reduction technology is immediately applauded.”

Egan also characterized himself as a free market proponent, criticizing government subsidies in renewable technologies like solar panels and heat pumps. 

The hypocrisy is staggering for Greenpeace Canada senior strategist Keith Stewart, who said the “fossil fuel cult” is refusing “to acknowledge the harm that it is causing.”

“Why in the world is the Canadian Gas Association going to Budapest to talk about how to fight back against the green agenda?” Stewart said, adding Egan’s speech was “classic climate denial” where it’s assumed climate change isn’t an issue in order to play up the benefits of fossil fuels. 

“That's a counterfactual we don't really need to consider in the real world because climate change is a problem,” he said. That’s why framing concern over climate change as ‘cult-like’ when in fact it is deeply rooted in science, ought to be “disqualifying.”

The CGA is a fossil fuel lobby group under investigation by Canada’s Competition Bureau for alleged greenwashing. Beyond its traditional role lobbying for the gas industry against environmental policies, the group also has significant influence with the federal government and was tapped by Natural Resources Canada to sit on a government working group to provide recommendations on expanding the country’s hydrogen sector.

Stewart says because the fossil fuel sector is, for the first time, facing the real possibility of being replaced by cleaner alternatives, like heat pumps, the industry is “becoming more desperate in terms of their politics.”

“They used to be able to rely on a few well-paid lobbyists taking people out to lunch, now they are going on a full court press,” he said. “As they become more desperate, they become more extreme, and we [see] things like teaming up with the Heritage Foundation, which is part of the far right ecosystem in the U.S.”

The CGA currently lists 12 federal lobbyists, who advocate for an increased role of natural gas, including expanding the gas grid, using natural gas to power vehicles, and extracting government subsidies for the gas business. 

Beyond its official lobbyists, the CGA works to have influence with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party of Canada. On the sidelines of this year’s Calgary Stampede, Egan  attended a $1,650-a-plate fundraiser for the Conservatives, alongside representatives from the Pathways Alliance, vice presidents from Suncor, Cenovus, Canadian Natural Resources and Imperial Oil, and the CEOs of Enbridge, Cenovus, TC Energy, and Trans Mountain Corporation. 

The CGA is also behind “front groups” to shape public opinion, Stewart said. One of those groups is Voices for Energy, which runs ads on Google, in the New York Times and other outlets, while billing itself as a platform for Canadians to "speak up" against municipalities taking steps to reduce or ban natural gas to "protect" people’s so-called "energy choice."

“Industry associations typically play the bad boy role,” Stewart said. “The association says and does the things the companies don't want to dirty their own hands with, and to have the head of the Canadian Gas Association go to a climate denial conference to basically spout a bunch of climate-denial talking points is something he should have to answer to his membership for.”

In 2021, undercover Greenpeace activists in a sting operation on Exxon Mobil revealed that fossil fuel companies use industry associations to attack climate science and government regulation. Posing as job recruiters, the activists interviewed an Exxon lobbyist who admitted the company publicly takes positions it has no belief in, while working with “shadow groups” to undermine public support for climate action, and using industry groups as “whipping boys” to dodge accountability.