PESPECTIVE: A Year’s Worth of Canadian Energy Policy in 10 Days – Resource Works

Karen Graham on how a pragmatic new approach from Ottawa may pressure British Columbia…

By Karen Graham

Karen Graham, Chair, Resource Works Advisory Council

By Resource Works
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Between May 7 and 17, Canadians were presented with a head-spinning set of policy changes (by usual government standards) regarding energy production and deployment in this country.

From the startling comments by the head of the International Energy Agency, Dr. Fatih Birol, last week encouraging more production, not less, of Canada’s molecular forms of energy, to the outlines of a National Electricity Strategy, to the elephant in the room, the Canada-Alberta Implementation Agreement, we can read the tea leaves with a higher degree of confidence about where energy policy in Canada is heading under Prime Minister Mark Carney.

As Canadians digest these announcements, one of the most pressing questions is: will Canada’s sub-national jurisdictions respond with aligned public policies, such that baseline conditions necessary for these enormous, usually private-sector, investments will be met?

First, where do we see energy policy going?

On CBC Radio’s The Current with Matt Galloway May 7, Birol asserted “The energy-hungry world needs Canada more than ever, and I believe Canada needs the world. Right now, in the present crisis, the world needs Canadian energy badly, because Canada will not use energy as a political weapon.  The only question I have about Canada is – within your multi-layer governance system – you hear from all the voices, but I hope very much that you will not let this be a barrier in terms of making decisions very quickly.”

Perhaps most significantly, Birol’s final comment provides the longer-term rationale for Canada to prepare now to produce and export more energy: “After this crisis is over, many countries will review their energy strategies and energy partners. Important decisions, strategic decisions will be made, and Canada should be there, ready to position itself as a reliable, major, energy exporter.”

Turning to federal government policy, twin announcements last week from the Prime Minister’s Office introducing the draft National Electricity Strategy and partially implementing the Ottawa-Alberta MOU of November 27, 2025, signal – at long last – a sensible approach that embraces an all-of-the-above approach to energy procurement, together with committing to partnership and ownership options with Indigenous nations.

While most of the focus is on a mooted new crude oil pipeline from Alberta to tidewater in British Columbia, we note the agreement also included provisions, among a GHG pricing mechanism and carbon capture project, for increasing electricity production and stronger interprovincial interties.

That natural gas is included in the Implementation Agreement and draft National Electricity Strategy – together with nuclear energy – as sources for expanded domestic electricity procurement is significant to energy-watchers, for two reasons: it retires the aspirational but unrealistic “energy transition” rhetoric from official Liberal government policy that only non-emitting, renewable energy sources (with ambivalent silence on nuclear) will be acknowledged or permitted; and it sets up an uncomfortable disconnect for British Columbia’s government, whose dirigiste energy policy continues to only acknowledge and permit non-emitting renewable energy sources, and that it is neither ambivalent nor silent on nuclear power: uranium mining and nuclear reactors are not permitted.

As the energy sector and broader Canadian business community (who may also play a role in the production and export of energy commodities) digests these policy signals, they may infer that Canada’s powerhouse energy commodities (oil, natural gas, uranium, coal, adjacent critical minerals, and the technologies around hydro, wind, solar and other types of electricity generation) are again encouraged to be developed. But to rapidly unlock private sector investment, firms will seek certainty that levels of government are aligned – to IEA chief Birol’s concern.

Will Canada’s sub-national jurisdictions respond with aligned energy policies?

It is difficult to see most provinces balking at the National Electricity Strategy, diverse as they are in energy mix and policy priorities. The clear exception is British Columbia. While its Premier David Eby is firing off unseemly comments this week about the Implementation Agreement, his counterpart, and an oil pipeline, it must also be experiencing indigestion contemplating the federal position that natural gas – preferably with abatement to capture GHG emissions – and nuclear reactors are acceptable sources of future electricity in Canada.

While we don’t know that the purist approach taken in the CleanBC plan or energy legislation will survive reality (or even the Eby-Carney meeting this week, taking place after this post was written), we do know that BC Hydro has insufficient power to meet the province’s existing demand. The utility’s recent request for a pause in its Integrated Resource Plan filing (as documented by Energy Futures Institute) signals acute concern that its new IRP – constrained by prohibitions on certain sources – will be insufficient to serve future demand (expected to double nationally by 2050).

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In practice, governments are obligated to provide reliable energy for citizens, a priori to ensuring GHG emissions are eliminated from the remaining 20% of the electricity system. They also badly need the tax revenue from exports of Canada’s energy commodities.  In Birol’s comments and in the two federal documents released last week, I see the beginnings of a more pragmatic approach to deploying Canada’s energy resources, for domestic electricity provision and for export. My hunch is that Premier Eby will experience a change of perspective about domestic use of natural gas, as he had about its export as LNG.

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Karen Graham is the Chair of Resource Works Advisory Council.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, Karen Graham, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Advisory Council as a whole.

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