National Post

In search of Canada’s next energy plan

MINISTER’S CHALLENGE: BLENDING CLEAN AND GREEN WITH OLD RELIABLE

- Claudia Cattaneo Comment

As the point man on Ottawa’s goal to push the country toward cleaner energy production and use, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr isn’t backing down from decisions on oil pipelines or from planned regulatory reforms, no matter how divisive.

But Carr also sees the need for greater national consensus on what the energy mix should look like in the future, and he’s hosting a major meeting of energy leaders in Winnipeg next week to help make that happen.

The effort is worthwhile if it helps move past the polarizati­on and politiciza­tion that’s occurred so far — some of it the result of the federal Liberals’ own decisions to prioritize climate change objectives at the expense of the energy economy, particular­ly oil and gas.

“It’s been a very long time — and no one can actually remember when — since Canadians came together to talk about their future energy mix,” Carr said in an interview.

“I am hoping t hat what will emerge is a plan for the future of Canada’s energy. We have ideas of our own, but we think this is the perfect time as we continue down the transition to invite some very clever and dedicated Canadians and people from around the world as we sort out all the challenges ahead.”

The Generation Energy Forum will be held in Carr’s hometown on Oct. 11 and 12, the culminatio­n of six months of engagement with more than 200,000 Canadians about their visions for the future of energy.

Participan­ts include internatio­nal experts such as Jeremy Rifkin, adviser to the European Union; Fatih Birol, executive director of the Internatio­nal Energy Agency; and Eldar Saetre, CEO of Statoil; provincial energy minister sand Indigenous leaders, representa­tives of all areas of the energy sector, from oil and gas to renewables and hydropower.

The plan is to talk about solutions that go beyond vested interests, for example on what the role of government should be when it comes to the production of renewable energy, as well as on the protection of older forms of energy production and transporta­tion.

The discussion is unlikely to bear directly on decisions already made because too much work has already gone into them and tight deadlines need to be met, Carr said.

Among those is the federal government’s approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline, which is being challenged in federal court in Vancouver this week by First Nations, environmen­tal groups and the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby.

Carr said his government is satisfied that extra consultati­on with Indigenous communitie­s done for the project will satisfy the court.

“We believe that that pipeline should be built,” he said. “We believed that when we made the announceme­nt, we believe it still, and … that the jobs created, the expansion of export markets, the higher prices, all made it into a decision that we thought was in Canada’s interest and we stand by that decision.”

Carr is also standing firm on the Energy East pipeline. Proponent TransCanad­a Corp. is due to announce in days whether it will continue working on the $ 15.7- billion project, after the National Energy Board said it would expand its review to include upstream and downstream climate-change impacts.

Carr i nsisted the project would be studied in the same way as other pipelines, and that the federal government offered to pay to assess greenhouse-gas emissions so that TransCanad­a wouldn’t be “out of pocket.”

But he suggested the business propositio­n might have changed for Energy East now that Trans Mountain, Keystone XL, and Enbridge’s Line 3 have been approved, and it will be up to the company to make the call on whether to continue to pursue a permit.

Meanwhile, permanent reforms to the NEB as well as to environmen­tal assessment processes are coming in the next few months, he said.

“This is complicate­d and important and we want to get it right,” he said.

The reforms will provide greater predictabi­lity to investors about what the regulatory system will look like and how long it will take to complete reviews, Carr said. They will also spell out what’s needed to properly consult with Indigenous communitie­s.

“We believe that if we have a credible process of regulation and if we have economic opportunit­ies that are apparent to Canadians, if we have discharged to meaningful­ly consult and accommodat­e Indigenous peoples, we have a much better chance of finding the ( right balance for Canada) than if we fall down on any of those three pillars,” said Carr.

The proof will be whether energy investment returns, instead of moving to less complicate­d jurisdicti­ons.

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Jim Carr

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