Claws are out over national energy plan

How to proceed on a pan-canada strategy divides parties, provinces

Political battle lines are being drawn over a proposed national energy strategy, with industry groups onside and the Conservatives and opposition parties sparring over what it should include.

The sensitivity of the issue was laid bare Tuesday at the House of Commons natural resources committee, with the Liberals calling for a national strategy that factors in greenhouse gas emissions and the Conservatives reminding the opposition about how the 1980s National Energy Program devastated the energy sector.

Canada’s provincial and federal energy ministers promised last summer to collaborate on a broad, market-focused national energy strategy to capitalize on the country’s vast natural resources. They identified a handful of priority areas, such as regulatory reform, improving energy efficiency and developing new energy export markets.

But how the country should proceed on a pan-canadian energy plan remains divisive.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford has trumpeted the need for a national strategy for developing and marketing the country’s energy products. Such a plan could involve greater co-ordination in environmental standards, new infrastructure and getting energy resources to new markets.

While some fellow premiers have endorsed her pitch, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has only offered a lukewarm response so far to Redford’s broad-strokes idea, saying he’s uncertain what she’s actually proposing.

Liberal natural resources critic David Mcguinty on Tuesday highlighted Redford’s call for a national energy strategy, saying she’s raising some important questions about where the country is headed on energy development.

However, what has been absent from the discussion so far, is how greenhouse gas reductions will be factored into any pan-canadian ap- proach, he said.

“Is it possible that we would have a national energy policy or strategy … without addressing greenhouse gases?” Mcguinty told the Torydominated House of Commons natural resources committee.

The Ontario Liberal MP said it’s “kind of a hard thing to understand” why greenhouse gas emissions reductions wouldn’t be included into a strategy when Canada must reduce its emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

“I don’t know how you could talk about energy without talking about greenhouse gases unless you’re in massive denial collectively and don’t want to deal with the elephant in the room,” Mcguinty said, following the meeting. “Harper doesn’t want to talk about it because he’s desperately afraid of putting a price on carbon emissions.”

Saskatchewan Conservative MP David Anderson, the parliamentary secretary to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, warned that un- necessarily interfering in the energy sector with an aggressive national policy could devastate the industry, much like the National Energy Program did in the 1980s.

“The last time that the government got involved excessively in the energy sector it almost destroyed the entire industry and our country, so I think we’ll need to be aware of that,” Anderson said. “It’s obvious when you’re hearing people talk, they are working around the words of national energy policy or program … for a reason. Those of us from Western Canada are still sensitive to that and we need to remember that.”

Indeed, there are a number of challenges Canada must address in any national energy framework.

For example, at last summer’s meeting, the Ontario provincial government disagreed with language in a conference communique that called the Alberta oilsands — one of the largest oil reserves on the planet — a “responsible and major supplier of energy to the world.” The provin- cial Liberal government said it wasn’t comfortable labelling the oilsands as responsible and sustainable.

On Tuesday, Peter Boag, president of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, told the committee his group strongly supports a national energy strategy with a “common vision,” and believes it should consider environmental issues from both energy development and consumer demand. “You can’t have an energy strategy, in my view, that doesn’t deal with the environmental aspects of energy consumption and production,” Boag said.

Mark Corey, an assistant deputy minister with the Natural Resources department, said all levels of government must play a key role in setting energy policies for the country.

While he said governments must look at both supply and demand in addressing environmental challenges, he indicated there’s more low-hanging fruit on the consumption side.