This article supplied by Troy Media.

 By Bill Whitelaw

Canada’s energy policy is being shaped by politicians who don’t actually understand how energy works. That’s not just embarrassing. It’s dangerous

Canada’s energy future is being held back by a critical obstacle: our elected officials don’t understand energy.

At all three levels of government, most politicians lack even a basic grasp of how our energy systems function. That ignorance isn’t just a knowledge gap—it’s a leadership crisis. Energy systems are evolving rapidly, and our leaders are ill-equipped to manage the complexity, tradeoffs and consequences involved. With few exceptions, their understanding is superficial, shaped more by talking points than substance.

By “energy systems,” I mean the complex web of technologies, infrastructure, markets and regulations that generate, distribute and manage power—from oil and gas to hydro, nuclear, wind and solar. These systems are deeply interconnected, constantly changing and central to every aspect of modern life. Yet the people making decisions about them often have little idea how they actually work.

This shows up frequently in public life: dodged questions, scripted answers, vague platitudes. Many politicians skate across the surface of issues with the thinnest understanding. The old adage “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” perfectly describes Canadian energy politics today.

Decisions about energy directly affect household utility bills, climate goals, industrial competitiveness and grid reliability. Yet politicians tend to be tethered to the dominant energy source in their own region—oil and gas in Alberta, hydro in Quebec, nuclear in Ontario—without grasping how those systems connect or conflict. Canada’s energy landscape is fragmented, with each province operating under its own regulatory framework, infrastructure constraints and political pressures. That makes coordination difficult and systems-level thinking essential.

This isn’t a left-versus-right issue. It’s not oil and gas versus renewables. It’s a national failure to understand the integrated systems that power our lives and economy. Canada is, functionally, energy illiterate, and our elected officials reflect that reality. We flip a switch, pump gas, turn up the thermostat and rarely ask how or why it works, or what it costs in environmental or economic terms.

Take the Clean Electricity Regulations as one example. Introduced by the federal government to drive Canada’s electricity grid to net-zero emissions by 2035, the CERs require provinces to sharply reduce or eliminate fossil fuel-based power. But in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where coal and natural gas still dominate, those regulations landed with a thud. The federal government failed to account for regional infrastructure limitations, market structure
differences and technology readiness. The result? Immediate backlash, legal threats and political gridlock—not because climate action is unwelcome, but because the policy was crafted in a vacuum of systems-level understanding.

Adding to the problem is the dominance of bureaucrats and political handlers in shaping what passes for energy messaging. Speeches are often a patchwork of statistics and sanitized clichés, stripped of nuance or depth. Many politicians simply deliver what they’re handed, guided more by risk management than insight. The result is policy that’s disconnected from the realities it aims to change.

A handful of elected officials do have real-world energy experience, but even that is often narrow, based on one role or one sector. It rarely translates into the kind of broad, integrated knowledge needed to lead across multiple interdependent systems. The risks of this fragmented thinking are immense.

What’s needed is mandatory education—an energy information and insights toolkit for anyone seeking public office. This shared curriculum would cover how electricity and fuel systems work, the economics of energy markets, climate dynamics, environmental trade-offs and public policy principles. It should be grounded in both natural and social sciences and structured to develop systems thinking, so that decisions are informed by how energy technologies, markets and governance truly interact.

Imagine if thousands of politicians—urban and rural, left and right, federal and local—learned from the same textbook. Politics wouldn’t vanish. Disagreements wouldn’t disappear. But the debate would shift from tribal talking points to informed discussion.

And for once, Canada might start moving forward on energy, not with noise or paralysis, but with purpose.

Bill Whitelaw is a director and advisor to many industry boards, including the Canadian Society for Evolving Energy, which he chairs. He speaks and comments frequently on the subjects of social licence, innovation and technology, and energy supply networks.

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.

Garry Clement: Politicians even appeared to benefit from the relationships cultivated with Chinese officials and members of Bliss and Wisdom

Editor’s Note:

This opinion column by Garry Clement analyzes a deeply reported investigation into the land acquisitions and foreign affiliations of the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist group in Prince Edward Island. Clement argues that the federal government, law enforcement, and Canadian officials have failed to confront what he sees as a growing national security risk—including strategically significant purchases of critical agricultural land.

His warning is underscored by a recent CBC/Radio-Canada investigation, which examined Bliss and Wisdom’s extensive land holdings, financial networks, and reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department—allegations the religious group denies.

That probe featured findings from Clement, former CSIS officer Michel Juneau-Katsuya, and publisher Dean Baxendale—all co-authors of the forthcoming book Canada Under Siege, which devotes entire chapters to these Prince Edward Island land dealings.

Readers should understand a crucial piece of context: Clement, a former senior RCMP officer, and Michel Juneau-Katsuya were central figures in the joint RCMP-CSIS Sidewinder investigation of the 1990s. That probe examined how the Chinese Communist Party was infiltrating Canada’s economy—most notably through massive and suspicious real estate acquisitions in Vancouver and Toronto. Parallel investigations, including the RCMP’s Project Sunset, examined Beijing’s growing influence over Vancouver’s ports and critical infrastructure. Yet despite their explosive findings, these intelligence probes were buried or gutted. Now, more than two decades later, the same warning signs are surfacing in pastoral Prince Edward Island—and once again, the threat is being ignored.

OTTAWA — When our investigative team began looking into the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist organization’s activities on Prince Edward Island, we expected a quiet story of land development and foreign investment. What we uncovered instead was a chilling portrait of political complacency, potential foreign influence, and the fragility of democratic accountability in Canada.

Over the course of our work, we tracked millions of dollars in unexplained cash inflows from Taiwan and mainland China, funneled through Canadian banks and into real estate and development projects across PEI. These were not obscure transactions—they were significant and frequent enough to raise alarms in any functioning system of democratic oversight.

And yet, those alarms never sounded.

Neither local politicians nor federal leaders lifted a finger. Some even appeared to benefit from the relationships cultivated with Chinese officials and members of the Bliss and Wisdom organization, whose quiet influence grew in tandem with land purchases and political access. The very leaders entrusted to safeguard transparency and public interest were, at best, disengaged, and at worst, complicit.

The RCMP, for its part, has thus far declined to launch a public investigation—a silence that is deafening, particularly in light of recent national debates about foreign interference in Canadian politics. How can we claim to take such threats seriously if a clear case of questionable foreign financial involvement in one of our provinces is allowed to pass without scrutiny?

What made this investigation even more revealing was the contrast between institutional inaction and the commitment of ordinary citizens. Residents of PEI, concerned about unchecked land acquisitions, foreign influence, and environmental stewardship, were the first to sound the alarm. They provided testimony, documents, and moral courage. They believed that Canada’s democratic institutions should still function as intended—on behalf of the public, not in service to silence or convenience.

In a time when democratic erosion often feels like a faraway problem, PEI is a case study of how it happens at home: not through coups or grand conspiracies, but through the quiet neglect of responsibility, the normalization of secrecy, and the sidelining of civic duty.

Our investigative team did what governments refused to do. We followed the money. We asked hard questions. We connected the dots. And while we do not claim to have all the answers, we believe this is precisely the kind of work that institutions—law enforcement, media, elected officials—should have done long ago.

Democracy doesn’t collapse overnight. It erodes when those in power forget who they serve. But it also endures, stubbornly, through the vigilance of citizens who refuse to look away.

It is time for accountability—not just from those involved with Bliss and Wisdom, but from the public servants who allowed this to happen under their watch.

Former senior RCMP officer Garry Clement consults with corporations on anti-money laundering, contributed to the Canadian academic text Dirty Money, and wrote Canada Under Siege, and Undercover, In the Shady World of Organized Crime and the RCMP