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Ruthless, reckless, damaging: the Hon. Steven Guilbeault is MLI’s Policy-maker of the year

Published

2 years ago

16 minute read

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Heather Exner-Pirot

Guilbeault has treated the fact that Canada is a democracy, a market economy, and a federation as inconveniences to be overcome.

The Liberals have been chided for focusing on communications over substance, for announcing policies rather than implementing them. But there is an exception to this rule: the ruthlessly efficient Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. No one else in Canada has been as influential, and, in my view, no one else has done so much damage.

From an emissions cap to toxic plastic straws, and from Clean Electricity Regulations to the Clean Fuel Standard, Guilbeault has been advancing economy-killing and constitution-defying laws at a frenzied pace.

He was appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada in October 2021. At the time of his appointment, Guilbeault appeared as the perfect villain: a caricature of the West-hating, anti-oil Liberal that has confounded the aspirations of Canadians west of the Laurentian corridor for decades. In the last two years he has disappointed few of his supporters and assuaged none of his critics’ fears.

Dubbed the “Green Jesus of Montreal” by La Presse, the 2001 image of Guilbeault being walked off in handcuffs in his faux orange prison jumpsuit emblazoned with the Greenpeace logo, following a CN Tower-scaling stunt to bring attention to climate change, features frequently in the social media accounts of his more outspoken critics.

The Canadian oil and gas sector has had a rough decade – from the shale revolution that flooded North America with cheap oil, to the COVID-19 pandemic – but it persisted. The sector achieved record breaking production, and royalties for governments, last year. The coming-into-service of TMX and CGL pipelines promises to grant additional export capacity for Canadian hydrocarbons.

But, like the final boss of a video game, Guilbeault is proving to be a formidable challenger to the country’s most important economic sector, even as the country struggles under declining productivity, persistent inflation and an affordability crisis. What Texas, Putin and OPEC could not undermine, Guilbeault is poised to do. This is intended as criticism but I expect Guilbeault would be pleased with the acknowledgment.

In this year alone he has advanced four sector-destroying policies, as part of the federal government’s much derided “pancake” approach to climate policy: stacking increasingly suffocating and incompatible regulations on Canadian industry to meet our Paris Accord commitments.

Carbon pricing schemes have broadly been accepted within heavy industry across Canada, if grudgingly. But with voters unwilling to accept a price per tonne of GHGs high enough to meaningfully address emissions, the Government has had to resort to additional, bespoke, mechanisms.

The Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR) came into effect on July 1, mandating reductions in the carbon intensity of transportation fuels through various methods, such as blending in biofuels. The Parliamentary Budget Officer found that the CFR are broadly regressive, impacting poorer households the most. The four Atlantic Premiers in particular contested the CFR on the grounds they would disproportionately hurt their residents, calling them “unfair and offensive to Atlantic Canadians” and demanding they be delayed. But Guilbeault blamed any price increase on refiners rather than his regulations, saying “there is simply no reason that they need to push costs onto consumers.”

While imploring refiners to decarbonize their product at a loss, Guilbeault also tacked on a ZEV (zero emissions vehicle) mandate to ensure any investments made in clean fuels today would have an ever-shrinking market and timeline to recoup costs. In other words, Guilbeault is asking refiners to invest in cleaner fuels while promising to ban their products before they could make back their money. The final regulations, mandating a 100 percent zero-emission vehicles sales target by 2035, were announced on December 19.

Such a move requires dramatically more capacity in the country’s electricity grid, up to 25% by some estimates. But, unbothered by the laws of physics, Guilbeault went ahead and introduced draft Clean Electricity Regulations (CER) in August. The CER will impose obligations on electricity generation to achieve net zero emissions in the grid by 2035 and will necessarily take large swathes of Canada’s existing generation capacity offline. In practice this means a phase out of coal, which is happening; and natural gas, which cannot realistically happen – particularly in the cold Prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan where hydroelectric generating capacity is limited, nuclear is years away, and intermittent wind and solar are unsuitable. The CER prompted Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to launch a national ad campaign protesting that “No one wants to freeze in the dark”.

More sober western voices have also warned against the CER. The CEO of SaskPower sent a letter  arguing that while the utility was “on track to meet our commitment to reduce GHG emissions by 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030”,  the CER are “not possible from technological, financial and logistical perspectives.” But Guilbeault has remained adamant that there will be no special carve outs for any province.

The crowning achievement of Guilbeault’s economy-destroying climate policies was announced on December 7: an emissions cap, and cut, on one sector only, Canadian oil and gas. The announcement was not made in downtown Calgary, amongst those most affected, but in Dubai at COP28. Such a cap is counterproductive, expensive, and both economically and politically self-sabotaging. There is no limit to the punishment Guilbeault is willing to impose on the energy sector, regardless of the collateral damage to the rest of the Canadian economy.

Guilbeault’s accomplishments do not end at stymying Canada’s upstream and downstream oil and gas sector. It’s been a fractious time for federal-provincial relations, and a challenging one for the Canadian Constitution. On a list that included Danielle’s Smith’s Alberta Sovereignty Act and Scot Moe’s Saskatchewan First Act; and invocations by Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan of the notwithstanding clause; it was not one, but two of Minister Guilbeault’s laws that were declared unconstitutional by Canadian courts this year.

In the first instance, the Supreme Court of Canada determined the Impact Assessment Act – previously known as Bill C-69, or the No More Pipelines Act – to reach far beyond federal jurisdiction, granting Parliament “a practically untrammeled power to regulate projects qua projects, regardless of whether Parliament has jurisdiction to regulate a given physical activity in its entirety.” The vast majority of sections within the IAA were deemed unconstitutional.

Guilbeault doubled down, saying that the federal government would “course correct”, but that it would be unlikely to change the outcome of the IAA process for projects.

Just one month later, the Federal Court of Canada held that the federal government’s labelling of all Plastic Manufactured Items (PMI) as toxic was both unreasonable and unconstitutional. Again, Guilbeault was undeterred, and announced on December 8 that the federal government would appeal it.

It appears that, in Guilbeault’s view, federalism is an inconvenient and unacceptable barrier to accomplishing meaningful progress on climate change. For an ideologue like Guilbeault, the Constitution was not designed for, and is not up to the task of, addressing the existential threat posed by fossil fuels. But that is no reason not to try. He will continue to seek new avenues to restrain industry and the provinces; he will just have to tighten up the language.

No amount of tweaking will prevent the Clean Electricity Regulations and oil & gas emissions cap from facing challenges from Alberta and Saskatchewan. The federal government will rely on its criminal law power to see them through. He has suggested that violating the Clean Electricity Regulations, for example running coal fired plants beyond 2030, would be an offense under the Criminal Code. The joke in the Prairies is that he wants his western counterparts to have orange jumpsuits that match his own.

Guilbeault is seen as a true believer. His mission is to save the planet from climate change, and to save oil and gas producing apostates from themselves. Nothing will persuade him he should moderate his efforts. But I would be remiss not to point out that Guilbeault has shown the ability to tolerate pragmatism in his own Cabinet.

The first instance was with nuclear energy. Long a lightning rod for 20th century environmentalists, Guilbeault has historically been opposed to nuclear. In the Liberals’ Green Bond Framework, released in March 2022, nuclear energy was excluded alongside sin industries like tobacco & alcohol sales, arms manufacturing, gambling, and fossil fuels. After public opinion evolved, and in the face of successful nuclear refurbishments and new reactor developments in the GTA, the Liberal government reversed its decision. Guilbeault duly ate his humble pie, saying in April 2023 that:

“In the past I haven’t been the person who supported the most the development of nuclear energy. But when you look at what international experts like the International Energy Agency or the IPCC is saying, they’re saying, to prevent global temperatures from reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius, to achieve our carbon neutrality targets, we need this technology.”

This could not have been easy, and I applaud him for evolving his views in line with the evidence.

But he was not convinced enough to directly advocate for nuclear technology at COP28. On December 2, 2023 in Dubai, 22 states including Canada signed a landmark declaration committing to triple nuclear energy by 2050. Minister Guilbeault seemed to be everywhere at COP28; but he was not there for that announcement, missing the traditional ‘family photo’ of world leaders signing the nuclear declaration.

Likewise, Guilbeault had to accept with great reluctance the Liberals’ political gambit of exempting heating oil from carbon pricing. Their coalition must combine urban environmentalists and Atlantic Canadian townsfolk to win the next election. In the case of heating oil, the Atlantic caucus carried the day. But Guilbeault made clear it was a ploy not to be repeated, telling the Canadian Press in an interview on November 6th that he would not stand for any further concessions:

“As long as I’m the environment minister, there will be no more exemptions to carbon pricing…It’s certainly not ideal that we did it and in a perfect world we would not have to do that, but unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world.”

Guilbeault is a threat to Canada’s prosperity, and to our allies’ too. Germany, Japan, Korea and others have come asking for more energy exports, only to be told there was no business case. The federal government’s own policies are making it so.

But more to the point his climate policies, committed though they may be, are destined to fail.

It is often said that if you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.

Guilbeault is very far ahead from industry, the provinces, Canadians, and increasingly his own caucus. He is alienating voters who are concerned more about affordability and housing. There will likely be a backlash. As far as Guilbeault has swung the pendulum to the left, it will come swinging back at him and the Liberals the other way. The energy transition is a marathon, and Guilbeault is a sprinter.

One could almost admire Guilbeault’s unwavering commitment to his principles – his willingness to advance his goals in the face of criticism, resistance and alarm. But through his actions, Guilbeault has treated the fact that Canada is a democracy, a market economy, and a federation as inconveniences to be overcome.

Canadians that care about these things will find many reasons to be concerned with Guilbeault’s efforts this year. His impact on the nation’s politics and economy will be felt long after his policies have been overturned.

Heather Exner-Pirot is the director of energy, natural resources, and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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Banks

The Bill Designed to Kill Canada’s Fossil Fuel Sector

Published on November 26, 2025

By

From Energy Now

By Tammy Nemeth and Ron Wallace

REALITY: Senator Galvez’s BILL S-238 would force every federally regulated bank, insurer, pension fund and Crown financial corporation to treat the financing of oil, gas, and coal as an unacceptable systemic risk and phase it out through “decommissioning.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney has spent the past weeks proclaiming that Canada will become an “energy superpower” not just in renewables but in responsible conventional energy as well. The newly created Major Projects Office has been proposed to fast-track billions in LNG terminals, transmission lines, carbon-capture hubs, critical-mineral mines, and perhaps oil export pipelines.  A rumored federal–Alberta Memorandum of Understanding is said to be imminent from signature, possibly clearing the way for a new million-barrel-per-day oil pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s north coast. The message from Ottawa is clear: Canada is open for energy business.  Yet quietly moving through the Senate is legislation that would deliver the exact opposite outcome.

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Senator Rosa Galvez’s reintroduction of her Climate-Aligned Finance Act, now Bill S-238, following the death of its predecessor Bill S-243 on the order paper, is being touted by supporters not only as a vital tool for an “orderly transition” to a low-carbon Canadian economy but also to be “simply inevitable.”  This Bill does not simply ask financial institutions to “consider” climate risk it proposes to re-write their core mandate so that alignment with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C target overrides every other duty.  In fact, it would force every federally regulated bank, insurer, pension fund and Crown financial corporation to treat the financing of oil, gas, and coal as an unacceptable systemic risk and phase it out through “decommissioning.”  For certainty this means to:

“(i) incentivize decommissioning emissions-intensive activities, diversifying energy sources, financing zero-emissions energy and infrastructure and developing and adopting change and innovation,

(ii) escalate climate concerns regarding emissions-intensive activities of financially facilitated entities and exclude entities that are unable or unwilling to align with climate commitments, and

(iii) minimize actions that have a climate change impact that is negative.”

As discussed here in May, the reach of the Climate Aligned Finance Act is vast, targeting emissions-intensive sectors like oil and gas with a regulatory overreach that borders on the draconian.  Institutions must shun financing and support of emissions-intensive activities, which are defined as related to fossil fuel activities, and chart a course toward a “fossil-free future.” This would effectively starve Canada’s energy sector of capital, insurance, and investment. Moreover, Directors and Officers are explicitly required to exercise their powers in a manner that keeps their institution “in alignment with climate commitments.”  The Bill effectively subordinates traditional financial fiduciary responsibility to climate ideology.

While the new iteration removes the explicit capital-risk weights of the original Bill (1,250% on debt for new fossil fuel projects and 150% or more for existing ones) it replaces those conditions with directives for the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) to issue guidelines that “account for exposures and contributions to climate-related risks.”  This shift offers little real relief because mandated guidelines would still require “increased capital-risk weights for financing exposed to acute transition risks,” and the “non-perpetuation and elimination of dependence on emissions-intensive activities, including planning for a fossil-fuel-free future.”

These provisions would grant OSFI broad discretion but steer it inexorably toward punitive outcomes. As the Canadian Bankers’ Association and OSFI warned in their 2023 Senate testimony on the original Bill, such mechanisms would likely compel Canadian lenders to curtail or abandon oil and gas financing.

In plain language, Ottawa would be directing the entire financial system to stop lending to, insuring or investing in the very industries that are central to Canada’s economic future. In addition to providing tens of billions in royalties and taxes to governments each year, the oil and gas sector contributes about 3–3.5% of Canada’s GDP, generates over $160 billion in annual revenue and accounts for roughly 25% of Canada’s total exports.

The governance provisions proposed in Bill S-238 are beyond the pale. Board members with any past or present connection to the fossil fuel industry would have to declare it annually, detail any associations or lobbying involving “organizations not in alignment with climate commitments,” recuse themselves from every discussion or vote involving investments in oil, gas or coal, and make these declarations within a Climate Commitments Alignment Report.  While oil and gas expertise is not banned outright, it is nonetheless ‘quarantined’ in ways that create a de facto purity test in the boardroom.  At the same time, every board must appoint at least one member with “climate expertise”.  Contrary to long-established principles for financial management, while seasoned energy experts would not be banned outright from such deliberations, they would effectively be sidelined on the very investment files where their expertise would be most valued.

The contradictions posed by Bill S-238 are simply breathtaking. The Major Projects Office is promising 68,000 jobs and CAD$116 billion in new investment, much of it tied to natural gas and oil-related infrastructure.  These new pipeline and LNG export projects will require material private capital investments. Yet under Bill S-238 any bank that provides the capital needed for the projects would face escalating, punitive capital requirements along with public disclosure of its “contribution” to climate risks that are to be declared annually in a “Climate Commitments Alignment Report.”   No MoU, Indigenous loan guarantee or federal permit can conjure financing out of thin air once Canada’s banks and insurers have effectively been legally compelled to exit the fossil fuel energy sector.

Current actions constitute a clear warning about the potential legal consequences of Bill S-238.  Canada’s largest pension fund is currently being sued by four young Canadians who claim the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is failing to properly manage climate-related financial risk.  Alleged are breaches of fiduciary duty through fossil fuel investments that are claimed to exacerbate climate risks and threaten ‘intergenerational equity’ with the demand that the CPP divest from fossil fuels entirely. The case, filed in Ontario Superior Court, demonstrates how financial institutions may be challenged in their traditional roles as stewards of balanced economic growth and instead used as agents for enforced decarbonization.  In short, such legislation enables regulatory laws to re-direct, if not disable, capital investment in the Canadian non-renewable energy sector.

In May 2024, Mark Carney, then Chair of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and head of Transition Investing, appeared at a Senate Committee hearing. He lauded the original Bill, calling key elements “achievable and actually essential” to champion “climate-related financial disclosures.”  He noted that: “Finance cannot drive this transition on its own. Finance is an enabler, a catalyst that will speed what governments and companies initiate.” However, the new revised Bill S-238 goes far beyond disclosure.  Like its previous iteration, it remains punitive, discriminatory and economically shortsighted, jeopardizing the very economic resilience that Carney has pledged to fortify.  It is engineered debanking dressed up as prudential regulation.

This is at a time in which Richard Ciano described Canada as a land of “investment chaos”:

“While investment risk in the United States is often political, external, and transactional, the risk in Canada is systemic, legal, and structural. For long-term, capital-intensive projects, this deep, internal rot is fundamentally more toxic and unmanageable than the headline-driven volatility of a U.S. administration.

If the “rule of law” in Canada is meant to provide the certainty and predictability that capital demands, it is failing spectacularly. Investors seek clear title and dependable contracts. Canada is increasingly delivering the opposite. Investors don’t witness stability — they witness a fractured federation, a weaponized bureaucracy, and a legal system that injects profound uncertainty into the most basic elements of capitalism, like property rights.”

Bill S-238 is yet another example of how Canada is imposing unrealistic laws and regulations that contribute to investment uncertainty and that directly contradict policies proposed to accelerate projects in the national interest. While the Carney government trumpets Canada as a future energy superpower that produces and exports LNG, responsibly produced “decarbonized” oil and critical minerals, Bill S-238 would effectively limit, if not negate, the crucial financial backing and investments that would be required to accomplish this policy objective.

Rhetoric about nation-building projects is cheap. Access to capital is what turns promises into steel in the ground. This Bill would ensure that one hand of government will be quietly strangling what the other hand is proposing to do in the national interest.

Tammy Nemeth is a U.K.-based energy analyst. Ron Wallace is a Calgary-based energy analyst and former Member of the National Energy Board.

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Federal major projects list raises questions

Published on November 26, 2025

By

From Resource Works

Once more, we have to shake our collective heads at the (typical) lack of information from the government after the fanfare of announcements, news releases, and video clips.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s addition of seven new projects to the Major Projects Office (MPO) list of ventures to be accelerated came with a vague promise from the MPO.

Now, said the MPO, it will “work with proponents, provinces, territories and Indigenous Peoples to find the right way forward for these projects.”

The new projects include the Nisga’a Nation’s Ksi Lisims LNG project in BC (and its PRGT pipeline), BC Hydro’s North Coast Transmission Line (NCTL) and the related  “Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor,” plus mining projects in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and an Inuit-owned hydro project near Iqaluit in Nunavut.

In all, a federal news release said, Carney’s announcements “represent more than $56 billion in new investment.” That’s in addition to “$60 billion for investments in nuclear power, LNG, critical minerals, and new trade corridors” that were announced in September.

Carney said: “Unlocking these resources . . .  will attract hundreds of billions of dollars in new investment and create thousands of high-paying careers for miners, carpenters, and engineers across the country.”
And it’s all aimed at reducing Canada’s dependence on trade with the U.S. As journalist Thomas Seal of Bloomberg News noted: “The country sells 75% of its goods to the US and projects on the list so far aim to help change that: port developments to ramp up trade with Europe, LNG terminals to sell gas to Asia, and mines to exploit global demand for critical minerals.”

But what does “fast-track” actually mean?

Carney’s Terrace, B.C. announcement raised a so-far unanswered question: What will the addition of these projects to the federal fast-track list mean in practice?

What can, or will, Ottawa actually do to support these projects and help bring them to fruition?

Carney gave no details, but federal officials say the Major Projects Office will coordinate approvals for all components of the projects to accelerate timelines that could otherwise take years.

The MPO is supposed to fast-track resource and infrastructure projects deemed to be “in the national interest.” The new projects have not yet been designated as “in the national interest,” which would qualify them for special treatment in permitting and approvals. Instead, Carney and the MPO used the words “national importance” and “national significance.”

And some of the projects Carney announced are already in progress, and it’s not clear what the MPO could do to move them along.

Does Ottawa plan to give the projects financial support?

The prime minister spoke of Ottawa putting up “huge financing” but, again, gave no further information.

As he listed the additions to the MPO project list, though, the Canada Infrastructure Bank announced a $139.5-million loan to BC Hydro to support “the early works phase” of the NCTL power line.

Does Ottawa see a role for the MPO in negotiating with First Nations and Indigenous peoples that are opposed to one or more of the projects?

PM Carney: “Referring to the MPO, or the Major Projects Office, does not mean the project is approved. It means that all the efforts are being put in place from the federal government in order to create the conditions so it could move forward. But those decisions are taken by many parties, including, very much, First Nations.”

The prime minister’s announcement was the first since the appointment of an Indigenous advisory council that is to help the MPO integrate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UNDRIP, into its decision-making.

Carney added that the “huge financing” he promised is aimed at encouraging Indigenous equity ownership of the projects.

Alex Grzybowski, CEO of the Indigenous organization K’uul Power, sees the North Coast Transmission Line as “a pretty solid investment,” but says First Nations would need to raise $275-$300 million to take equity shares in it.

To help First Nations get there, he calls on Ottawa to provide an investment tax credit, to increase the lending cap of the Canada Infrastructure Bank to $300 million from $100 million, and to provide “a federal loan-guarantee with a provincial backstop.”

Ksi Lisims LNG project

Ksi Lisims LNG is coming from a partnership of the Nisga’a Nation, Rockies LNG Ltd. Partnership and Western LNG.

The $10-billion project in northern BC would have two floating production platforms, producing for export 12 million tonnes of LNG per year. Natural gas for Ksi Lisims would come more than 750 km through the PRGT pipeline.

Ksi Lisims LNG says it hopes for construction to begin this year, with operations to start in late 2028 or 2029. It says it aims to be “net-zero ready” by 2030.

Charles Morven, secretary-treasurer for the Nisga’a Nation, said: “A lot of major work has taken place in the past five years, getting everything put together. This announcement gets us so very close to the finish line.”

And Eva Clayton, Nisga’a president, said: “We’re showing BC, Canada, and the world what Indigenous economic independence and shared prosperity can look like.” She spoke of “meaningful opportunities” for the Nisga’a — and for all Nations and communities in northern BC.

The Nisga’a Nation, a partner in Ksi Lisims LNG and its PRGT pipeline, says it is working with Indigenous communities to strike agreements, including equity stakes in the pipeline. A final investment decision on Ksi Lisims is expected early next year.

Environmental groups have also opposed the Ksi Lisims project, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs cited environmental and climate concerns. But Carney said Ksi Lisims LNG will be one of the world’s cleanest operations, with emissions 94 per cent below the global average.

And the Nisga’a Nation said: “With our co-developers and Treaty Partners we will ensure this project reflects . . . our high standards of environmental protection.”

The prime minister said Ksi Lisims LNG will add $4 billion a year to the nation’s economy. And federal officials say Ksi Lisims could create thousands of skilled jobs, with Indigenous workers among them.

Said Carney: “LNG is an essential fuel for the energy transition. LNG can help Canada build new trading relationships, especially in fast growing markets in Asia. . . .

“Canada will be ready. We’re home to the world’s fourth largest reserves of natural gas, and we have the potential to supply up to 100 million tons annually of new LNG exports to Asia.”

And his announcement led the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers to say: “Canada is on a path to become one of the top five LNG exporters in the world.”

North Coast Transmission Line

The 450-km North Coast Transmission Line from Prince George to Terrace would feed clean hydro power to LNG projects such as LNG Canada and the Haisla Nation’s coming Cedar LNG project, and it would also power mining projects and regional communities.

Carney said the power line could eventually connect with Alberta and support reliability, clean power development and new industrial investment across the West. Carney also spoke the potential for a northwest trade and energy corridor running from British Columbia through the Yukon with future possibilities for connection into Alberta. But, again, he gave no details of any plans.

Later, BC Premier David Eby called the NCTL “one of the biggest, most transformational opportunities” in a century. BC says the power line “will be co-owned with First Nations and will provide BC’s 98% renewable energy to the northwest.”

The BC government says the next major steps for the NCTL include finalizing the route. It says construction is expected to start in the summer of 2026, with phased-in completion targeted for 2032-34.

BC legislation would allow First Nations equity in the project and the province also says it plans to direct the B.C. Utilities Commission to allow the project to proceed without needing to go through the usual hearing process, potentially cutting a year to 18 months off the completion date.

To help First Nations acquire equity in the NCTL, Alex Grzybowski, CEO of Indigenous K’uul Power, says three things are needed from government:

“The first and most valuable thing they could do is provide an investment tax credit. And actually that wouldn’t hit their books for six years, so from an immediate financing perspective, that might be the best. . . .

“The next best thing would be to increase the lending cap for the Canada Infrastructure Bank from $100 million to $300 million, and then we would be borrowing money at below Bank of Canada rates, and we would be able to lend that money into construction, which would lower the cost of construction, it would lower the cost for the ratepayers, and it would increase the benefits for the First Nations. . . .

“The third thing they could do is provide a federal loan guarantee with a provincial backstop.”

BC says the NCTL project is expected to create some 9,700 direct full-time jobs, contribute nearly $10 billion per year to GDP and generate approximately $950 million a year in revenues for provincial and municipal governments. BC says it will also help prevent two to three million tonnes of carbon emissions a year.

The NCTL power-line plan also raises key questions, including this: How will BC Hydro come up with the new power to feed into the line? We have seen estimates such as this: “By 2050, BC may need to double or triple its . . . power generation as transportation, buildings and industry are all or partially electrified. Current output is generated with 32 hydro dams. Can the province build another 32 or 64 hydro plants in under 30 years? Of course not, so where will all that power come from?”

And what will NCTL cost?  The first estimate from BC Hydro is $6 billion, but Hydro’s costs for the Site C power dam finished up at twice what it initially estimated.

A cautious shift from past policies

Once more, we have to shake our collective heads at the (typical) lack of information from the government after the fanfare of announcements, news releases, and video clips.

We naturally wonder if Ottawa’s promises will be matched by performance, but at least we see some much-needed departure from the anti-project policies of the past Justin Trudeau government.

As CEO François Poirier of TC Energy puts it: “The policy environment is becoming increasingly supportive.”

Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute says the new Carney budget shows signs of a better mix of “carrot and stick” than did the Trudeau government. “The last budget was still in the ‘stick’ era. Finally, we’re in a ‘carrot’ era.”

And she adds: “At least under this government, the bad things have stopped happening. And I would say, even with this budget, some of the bad things are actually going away.”

Let us hope so.

Photo credit to the THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick.

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