Recent media reports suggesting that the majority of Canadian women “support the production and growth of Canadian oil and gas” to make life more affordable do not reflect the results of a wealth of opinion research over the last two years.
As a climate communications professional, mother of school-aged children, and leader of a local chapter of For Our Kids, a non-profit, parent-led climate advocacy group, this claim also doesn’t echo what I am hearing.
Canada Powered by Women (CPW), an advocacy group led by women executives in the oil and gas industry, engaged Léger to survey 1,200 women on affordability and energy. Their findings suggest women support oil and gas production and connect this to keeping the cost of living down.
But is that what women really want? The survey findings are at odds with several other national polls showing that women are connecting the dots, not only between climate change and fossil fuel emissions, but between good climate policy and affordability: women want a rapid transition off fossil fuels for a stronger economy and a liveable future for their children.
The data I’ve been seeing certainly shows women are very concerned about the cost of living. But it also indicates that they recognize the heavy impact of the oil and gas sector. Polling in December, 2022 by EcoAnalytics suggests that 66% of Canadian women surveyed think companies that produce, transport, and burn fossil fuels are “very responsible for climate change”, and another 22% find them “somewhat responsible”. The survey by Université de Montréal researchers also found that 49% support suing oil companies for the damages incurred at taxpayers’ expense. More than half also knew that oil companies have misled the public about the impacts of fossil fuels on the environment since the 1970s.
It is true that many Canadians are reluctant to point the finger exclusively at the oil and gas sector, and that many recognize the benefits the industry has provided. But women support regulation of the sector, with more than 75% demanding more government action to tackle climate change. In an Abacus poll conducted last March on behalf of Climate Action Network-Canada, 67% of Canadian women said they wanted to see an emissions cap that is strong enough to enable Canada to meet its 2030 emission reduction targets. More than 65% of women in a national survey by Environics in April, 2022 also recognized that Canada must make a rapid transition to renewable energy to keep the costs associated with extreme weather down and stay competitive in a post-carbon global economy.
The CPW survey also suggests that women are more supportive of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an energy source, presuming it to have lower emissions. But even here, the Université de Montréal research suggests otherwise. When asked about the benefits of a transition off fossil fuels to either 100% renewable energy or a mix of natural gas and other energy sources, 60% of women supported a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2035, compared to just 47% for a mix of clean energy, natural gas, and nuclear. Nearly half believed that a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2035 would strengthen the economy, compared to 16% who were concerned it would weaken the economy.
While women are deeply concerned about the cost of living, and as CPW suggests, about energy costs in particular, the UdeM research shows them connecting the dots between our dependence on fossil fuels and inflation. No less than 76% of women respondents blamed the rising cost of living on surging oil and gas prices. The CPW study did not appear to show what affordable renewable energy could look like for comparison, or what the cost of oil and gas will look like as the rest of the world moves away from this polluting energy source.
Women, like other Canadians, are already experiencing the climate devastation caused by wildfires, floods, and heat domes, and they understand the implications of climate change on the world our children will grow up in. Some 79% of women surveyed in the UdM research know that climate change will cause a moderate or great deal of harm to our children and grandchildren.
In British Columbia, where I live, wildfires destroyed more forest last summer than in any other fire season on record, and at least one child died from poor air quality caused by the smoke. Women here also saw the impact of the heat dome in 2021 that killed 600 people, and the flooding that caused hundreds to lose their livelihoods in the Fraser Valley a few months later. I think such experiences explain, in part, why the parent-led group that I support, For Our Kids, has mushroomed across Canada.
So, yes, Canadian women do want a thriving, affordable energy sector. But not one that destroys their children’s and grandchildren’s prospects for a liveable future.
Kate McMahon, Project Manager for EcoAnalytics Research, a project of Makeway Charitable Society, lives in Burnaby, British Columbia.
