Conservative leadership frontrunner Pierre Poilievre promised to end overseas oil imports within five years and scrap anti-energy laws hamstringing Albertan oil and gas.

During a speech today in New Brunswick, Poilievre laid out a three-part plan to become energy independent instead of importing foreign oil from “dirty dictators.”

“First, the Poilievre government will support Newfoundland and Labrador’s plan to more than double its oil production,” Polievre began. He added that it would be “more than enough to replace the hundred and twenty-eight thousand barrels a day that Canada has been importing from overseas,” he said.

Second on his agenda is to get rid of Bill C-69, an anti-energy law that has prevented Alberta from starting and completing new oil and gas projects and has been constitutionally challenged.

“We will ban oil from polluting dictatorships. Overseas countries that are run by dictators, that use money from their sales to fund terrorism or abuse their citizens’ rights, and fail to meet our high environmental standards here in Canada will no longer have the privilege to sell oil into the Canadian marketplace,” Poilievre continued.

Thirdly, Poilievre says he wants to create a new national pipeline to transport oil from western Canada to eastern Canada, perhaps by ending Quebec’s anti-Alberta position.

“Obviously, the best option is a national pipeline. But we also have to support alternatives to make sure that one of them succeeds, so I will also support more rail lines and other routes that will allow us to move great Canadian ethical oil from the west to our refineries and markets in the east,” he continued.

Poilievre also took shots at Trudeau for neutering the Canadian economy by relying on foreign oil from dictators like Putin while hypocritically pretending to impose heavy sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Ukraine.

“Justin Trudeau supports oil – as long as it’s foreign oil.” 

Following heavy criticism for his reliance on Russian war oil, Trudeau subsequently ended imports.