Power Struggle

Canada is entering a new era of resource realism

Heather Exner-Pirot explains why global demand for energy and minerals is shifting the national conversation back toward our natural assets

In the high-stakes world of global geopolitics, Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot has spent years waiting for the tide to turn. As a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, she suggests that the wait is over.

The “commodity cycle”—that generational engine of the Canadian economy—is revving up, and with it, a long-overdue dose of economic realism is beginning to permeate the national consciousness.

Speaking on the Power Struggle podcast with host Stewart Muir, Exner-Pirot argues that Canada is standing at the precipice of a historic opportunity, provided the country can get out of its own way. From the resurgence of nuclear power to the cutthroat reality of global oil markets, her message is clear: Canada’s natural resources aren’t a 20th-century defect to be remedied, but the very foundation of its 21st-century power.

The return of the commodity cycle

Heather Exner‑Pirot speaking at a Get It Done B.C., September 2025.

For over a decade, the Canadian narrative was often one of embarrassment regarding its “hewer of wood and drawer of water” status. But Exner-Pirot views the world through the lens of the commodity cycle—a cycle she notes typically takes a generation to revolve.

The last boom, driven by China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, crashed in 2014, leading to a decade where resource policies were often treated as optional or even regressive.

“I’ve been waiting for this next cycle for a couple of years and I’m finally starting to see that it is coming,” Exner-Pirot says. She points to the 2025 performance of the TSX Venture 50 list as a bellwether, noting that “48 out of 50 were miners and their collective share price of their stocks is more than 400 per cent” for those top performers.

More tellingly, she observes a “real rotation out of tech into energy from the kind of the generalist investors.” For the first time in recent memory, Canadian energy stocks are looking favourable because of their “long life assets” and “huge reserves.” She notes that “you’re seeing them even exceed the valuation of American energy companies, which was very unusual historically.”

The methane gap and regulatory pancaking

While the economic winds are shifting, Exner-Pirot warns that Canadian policy remains “divorced from the reality on the ground.”

A primary concern is the federal government’s aggressive methane regulations, which she describes as an attempt to squeeze blood from a stone after the “low hanging fruit” of emissions reductions has already been harvested.

The discrepancy in cost projections is staggering. While Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has estimated mitigation costs at roughly $48 a tonne, industry groups suggest the real cost of the final increments of reduction could be significantly higher. The Canadian Gas Association estimates it will cost “them $3,000 a ton to mitigate.”

“The last 10 or 20 or 30 per cent of emissions from a sector is going to be more expensive and harder than you limiting the first 10 or 20 or 30 per cent,” she explains.

She argues that Ottawa’s “pancaking of the regulations”—layering special sector-specific rules on top of an existing industrial carbon price—risks pushing companies past the point of competitiveness. In a global market, this does not stop production; it simply triggers “carbon leakage,” where investment flees to jurisdictions with lower standards.

The nuclear renaissance and the uranium unicorn

If there is a story that excites Exner-Pirot, it is the nuclear renaissance currently unfolding. Canada, already a “preeminent nuclear producer,” sits atop a strategic goldmine in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin.

“It is the world’s richest uranium field,” she notes, describing drilling samples that return 50 per cent uranium as “unicorn levels.”

As the world recalibrates toward energy security and base-load clean electricity, Canada’s market power in this sector is unmatched. With new mines moving through the approval process and 2025 marking a record for nuclear-produced electricity, Exner-Pirot views uranium as “probably our most strategic resource because we just have so much market power with it.”

Moving beyond the hewers and drawers myth

Perhaps the most persistent myth Exner-Pirot seeks to bust is that a resource-based economy is a low-tech one. She points to the fact that during the last boom, Calgary “had the highest per capita number of engineers in the entire world.” The resource sector is not a “defect to be remedied,” but a “cutthroat and ultra competitive” environment that demands constant innovation.

“I don’t think what we knew about natural resources, you know, in 1910 or 1930 is a good way to drive our economic policy today,” she says.

Unlike services or tourism, extractive resources provide the royalties that fund the Canadian quality of life. “Royalties are so important to provincial budgets,” she notes, providing a high quality of life for residents that they otherwise would not have.

As the conversation concludes, Exner-Pirot remains optimistic because she believes economic factors will eventually override contrary political ones. In a world of scarcity, Canada holds the cards. The question remains whether the country has the ambition—and the pride—to play them.

“The cards are lined up so well for Canada in this moment,” she says. “And I really feel like what was missing was that ambition and that pride in our resource sector.”

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Ian Biana is a writer for Resource Works, a non-partisan organization that champions responsible resource development in British Columbia and Canada. Reach Ian at [email protected].

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