Monica Gattinger, founding chair of the Positive Energy Program at the University of Ottawa. Joins Stewart Muir in this election-special Power Struggle podcast.
She says Canada’s energy policies need a “durable balance” of economic and environmental aspirations.
That balance must encompass sustainability, affordability, competitiveness, economic issues, and the security and reliability of energy supply. We also need clear and predictable policy and regulatory frameworks.
ENERGY and CLIMATE
Gattinger, also director of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy and a full professor at the School of Political Studies, notes some shift in public opinion about policies on energy and climate change.
The federal government, she notes, has had climate as a core objective for the last decade, and at one time, “there was pretty broad consensus in Canada in aiming for net-zero emissions.”
However, Canadians are now expressing concerns over energy affordability and the cost of living, and the same is true in other countries. The collapse of public support for consumer carbon pricing in Canada is “a great and unfortunate example.”
Gattinger says that while the level of ambition has weakened, “it’s not zero.” Canadians still care about the environment, still care about climate, and will still be looking for environmental and climate performance of new projects.
(Her Positive Energy Program published in December 2023 a report on net-zero issues: “Energy Projects and Net Zero by 2050: Can we build enough fast enough?” It found the challenge of rebuilding our energy system calls for clarity and predictability of current and future policy and regulatory frameworks; and it found ‘broad consensus that (Canada) lacks the investment environment it will need to build enough fast enough.)
Reducing emissions from the energy system and the broader economy requires new infrastructure, and that Canadians are very open to new infrastructure, including oil and gas infrastructure. But Canada has a major problem when it comes to getting things built.
So, Gattinger says, we need policy and regulatory frameworks that are clear and predictable.
“We’ve got policy and regulatory systems that are not incentivizing investment the way that they need to, and we need fundamental change to make that happen.”
THE TRUMP FACTOR
Gattinger says the federal election is pivotal for Canada. She sees Donald Trump as trying to upend the entire global trading system that’s been built up over decades, and that’s “an existential crisis for Canada,” given that the vast majority of our exports still go to the US.
Back in the 1980s, she recalls, Canada had “a very substantial national debate” about the future of the Canadian economy. In the end, the chosen priority was greater integration with the US. Diversifying trade to other markets, and improving internal trade within Canada, were of lower priority.
To diversify Canada’s exports to other markets we have over the years had “a flurry of free trade agreements, but “that gravitational pull of the US economy has really swamped many of those efforts.”
Gattinger says we need to maintain access to the US marketplace. But we also need to expand internal trade in the country, to diversify our exports to other world markets, and develop policy about Canada’s economic and political sovereignty.
During the election, “My wish would be that we would talk more in depth about the policy plans of each of the parties to help Canada navigate not only the current crisis but its economic future at large.”
INDIGENOUS RELATIONS
On election-campaign promises of energy corridors, economic corridors, ands shovel-ready projects, Gattinger reacts with this:
“I need somebody to explain it to me, like I’m a fourth grader, so I can understand what Indigenous community or nation would be comfortable with the idea of not knowing what the projects are that are going to be inside that corridor, not knowing what the nature of the effects of those projects will be on the environment. How does that constitute informed consent?”
She notes there has been a transformation in the way corporate Canada engages with Indigenous peoples on energy-infrastructure projects. But to get a project across the finish line takes early engagement and time, leading to informed Indigenous consent. And, she says, even co-developing the project.
- Video on Power Struggle’s YouTube: https://ow.ly/fl0150VCK7z
- Audio and full transcript: https://ow.ly/iYrm50VCK5L
- U of Ottawa Positive Energy Program: https://ow.ly/Ep2850VCK8I
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