Tanker carrying LNG Canada's first export of liquefied natural gas to Asia, June 30. In Canada, Alberta and B.C. produce 98 per cent of Canada’s natural gas.Robin Rowland/The Globe and Mail

Mark Ogge is principal adviser at The Australia Institute, a public policy think tank in Canberra.

For decades, the populous eastern states of Australia had an abundant supply of low-cost gas. That all changed in 2015 when a few corporations started exporting vast amounts of liquefied natural gas, exposing Australians to high global gas prices. The result was a tripling of wholesale gas prices in the country, and a huge transfer of wealth from Australian households and businesses to the handful of gas corporations to which we had given control of our resources.

The gas corporations convinced our governments that if they were allowed to develop the vast onshore reserves in the state of Queensland for export, we would experience enormous economic benefits, while gas prices would remain low.

None of it was true. Instead, large areas of our beautiful country have been transformed into industrial gas fields and we now have expensive gas, rolling gas shortage fears and few economic benefits.

It appears Canada may be making the same mistake.

Prior to 2015, the wholesale price of gas in the country was under $4 a gigajoule (all figures in Australian dollars unless otherwise noted). Gas producers couldn’t ramp up prices because of the laws of supply and demand; we had an ample supply of low-cost gas for the limited domestic market.

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