Even an imperfect energy strategy is worth pursuing
With the exception of B.C.’s Christy Clark, Canada’s premiers recently agreed to create a new Canadian energy strategy. But what exactly is the purpose of a Canadian energy strategy?
The answer is, or at least it should be, simple: to maximize the benefits of Canada’s energy resources. A new and improved strategy is a critical step toward realizing the ambition of becoming, to borrow a phrase from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, an energy superpower.
This means selling as much of our energy as we can at the highest possible price while maintaining an efficient and reliable domestic energy system to meet the demands of Canadian industry and consumers.
Achieving this depends mostly on the entrepreneurialism, hard work and ingenuity of the private sec- tor, but it is naive to think that governments do not have a role to play, and even more naive to think that Canada will reach its energy potential if those governments don’t find ways to work together.
The dust up between B.C. and Alberta over the Northern Gateway pipeline highlights the value of proactively hammering out common objectives and trade-offs rather than trying to address issues as they arise.
Our friends in Asia must be scratching their heads wondering what is going on. On the one hand, we have a prime minister saying that access to Asian markets is critical. On the other hand, we have the premier of B.C. threatening to stymie the export of oil from Alberta while planning to sell Asia gas found in northeastern B.C.
A Canadian energy strategy will not resolve every potential conflict, but surely we can do better than this.
With that said, it is important to stress that not everyone is going to get what they want from a Canadian energy strategy. This is especially true when it comes to environmental goals. If you want to see the use of all fossil fuels cease as of noon tomorrow, you are not going to like a strategy that seeks to sell more oil and gas.
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, for example, wants something very different from an energy strategy than an engineer in Fort McMurray, or a retiree counting on the earnings from a mutual fund heavily reliant on energy stocks.
Nonetheless, there is lots of room to improve Canada’s environmental performance when it comes to the production and consumption of energy, and a well-crafted Canadian energy strategy can do a lot on this front.
So, what are some of the things that need to happen for Canada to be an energy superpower abroad, while ensuring that Canadians have access to a world-class energy system at home?
First, we need to secure markets. We need to work tirelessly to convince our U.S. cousins to buy our energy while building lasting relationships with potential Asian customers to ensure that we have a range of export options. This will enable us to get top dollar for our energy exports (something we are currently not getting) and avoid putting all our energy eggs in the U.S. basket.
We also have to expand — and quickly before someone else scoops up our potential customers — the pipes, transmission lines and port facilities that transport our energy products to market.
There is no question that we must address the environmental impacts and risks of this infrastructure, but if we put our minds to it, we can.
Second, we need to identify the energy needs of Canadians over the next 50 years and work backward from this to figure out what has to be done to meet these needs. Again, the private sector will do the heavy lifting, but governments have a role to play developing and co-ordinating policies that will facilitate private enterprise.
From environmental regulation and labour shortages to foreign investment and international agreements, governments need to work together to provide the energy sector and consumers with a logical public policy context.
This does not mean that provincial differences and experimentation will disappear. The different parts of Canada need to add their unique strategies to the overall approach. It may not even be possible to get all 10 provinces, the three territories and Ottawa to agree on a meaningful strategy that goes beyond platitudes about balancing energy and the environment.
But even if the effort falls short, forcing ourselves to think strategically will reveal common ground and energize (pun intended) regional co-operation. We at least owe it to ourselves to try.
The Canada West Foundation is developing a western Canadian energy strategy this fall to complement the efforts to draft a Canadian energy strategy.