Energy strategy ongoing: Carr

Almost two years ago, the first assignment given to Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr was to produce a national energy strategy.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in his mandate letter to Carr in November 2015, asked that the strategy include plans to ensure energy security, encourage conservation, promote renewable energy development and create a smarter electricity grid.

It was supposed to help cut down confusion about how Canada can meet its Liberal-mandated greenhouse gas emissions goals while continuing to build pipelines or transition the energy sector to cleaner, renewable fuel sources without damaging the economy.

This week, Carr hosted a major energy conference in Winnipeg, complete with some of the world’s foremost minds on energy, and billed by the minister as a big stop on the road to getting that strategy off the ground. But, he says now, that road will actually have no end.

“This was a very important milestone along a path that has no stop signs,” Carr said, when asked when the strategy will be unveiled.

There will be no “unveiling” says Carr because there is nothing to unveil.

There will be many things to talk about with Canadians, he says, as the government mulls over the “treasure chest of creativity and good ideas” gleaned from the two-day Generation Energy conference.

Those ideas will “lead to important policy announcements and a vision for the future of developing Canada’s energy resources,” said Carr, but people shouldn’t expect one document that will explain that vision.