Anxiety, Optimism as Throne Speech Chatter Points Toward Faster Project Approvals
With King Charles III set to deliver the Carney government's first Speech from the Throne beginning at 11 AM Tuesday, the rumour mill in Ottawa was warping between anxiety and optimism, as early signals about fast-tracking major "nation-building" projects stoked fears that climate impacts, environmental protection, and Indigenous consent might be shunted aside.
Newly-appointed Energy Minister Tim Hodgson set the tone for the discussion Friday, in what CBC described as a "boisterous speech" to a sold-out business audience in Calgary. "Energy is power," Hodgson told participants. "Energy is Canada's power. It gives us an opportunity to build the strongest economy in the G7, guide the world in the right direction, and be strong when we show up at a negotiation table."
He pledged a two-year approval period for major projects, rather than five, declaring that "I want to be very clear. In the new economy we are building, Canada will no longer be defined by delay. We will be defined by delivery."
Related: Canada's New Energy Minister Tells Oil and Gas Execs It's Time for Some Quick Wins
Hodgson said Canada "will remain a reliable global supplier of oil and gas for decades to come," the Globe and Mail writes, but appeared to emphasize overseas markets that are pivoting swiftly away from fossil fuels. "The real challenge is not whether we produce, but whether we can get the best products to market before someone else does," he said. "It's high time to trade more with people who share our values-not just our border."
But while the Globe says industry executives "have given Mr. Carney's government a laundry list of ways to attract energy capital and boost energy security, from scrapping a cap on emissions to streamlining project reviews," CBC reports that Hodgson "did not make any announcements or signal any changes in government policy beyond what the Liberals had pledged during the campaign." That included pressing the oil sands industry to get moving on the Pathways Alliance project, a $16.5-billion carbon capture hub in northern Alberta that has been stalled while the industry tries to arm-twist more generous subsidies out of the federal government.
"All of us, governments and industry, need to get the Pathways project done," Hodgson said. "This government will not be a government of talk, but a government of action. We need the same from the province of Alberta and the Pathways Alliance."
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"We need to demonstrate to our customers outside the U.S., and to our fellow Canadians, that we are a responsible industry," he added. "And this government believes Pathways is critical to that reality."
Recent independent analyses have indicated that Pathways won't likely break even without "substantial efficiency improvements" and better revenue prospects and would likely be "scuppered" without permanent subsidies. In October 2023, the Regina-based International CCS Knowledge Centre admitted the technology won't be ready to scale up by 2035.
Hodgson previously served on the board of MEG Energy, one of the six companies that make up the Alliance and account for about 95% of Canada's oil sands production.
Some of the concern anticipating deregulatory promises in the Throne Speech traces back to advance briefings the government has provided for key stakeholders, and to a May 26 Globe and Mail opinion piece that put forward several "simple fixes" to speed up approvals. It suggested reducing "regulatory duplication" for pipelines over 75 kilometres in length and for critical mineral and metal mines, in each case by limiting the reach of the federal Impact Assessment Act .
"Both changes could be made easily and immediately by a simple Cabinet order (amending the regulations under the Impact Assessment Act )," wrote Deloitte Canada national infrastructure leader Jordan Eizenga, Aecon Group Executive VP Tim Murphy, and Ian Anderson, former CEO of Crown-owned Trans Mountain Corporation. "They are not complicated, and they do not require changes to legislation."
Among other possible candidates for federal streamlining, "a pipeline operator should not need to undergo another impact assessment to add a compressor station on an existing pipeline. And a railway company should be able to add infrastructure adjacent to its mainline without need for further environmental review," the three authors wrote. As well, "the federal government must designate particular types of projects as being in the national interest where appropriate-fast tracking approval times and reducing budgets."
Vittoria Bellissimo, president and CEO of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, said she was pleased to hear Hodgson commit to delivery rather than delay, a major projects office to speed up federal regulatory reviews, and interconnections through a pan-Canadian electricity grid.
"Next steps for Canada's clean energy industry is to identify projects. The priority will be on nation-building projects, built by the private sector with involvement from Indigenous communities, and on quick wins," Bellissimo wrote on LinkedIn. "Let's do this."
On Thursday, Yukon News identified another nation-building project in the making, reporting that British Columbia and the Yukon are working on a new transmission line that will connect the territory to the North American grid.
And Philippe Dunsky, president of Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors, pointed out that the effort now under way to dismantle the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act could reduce the country's capital flows to clean power by up to US$1 trillion over the next decade.
"Meantime, Canada has been worried about its ability to attract sufficient capital for its clean energy transition needs, including approximately $1 trillion over the coming 25 years to finance new wind, solar, transmission and distribution, nuclear, and other projects. A big part of the concern had been the attractiveness of the IRA," Dunsky wrote on LinkedIn.
"Crisis, meet Opportunity."
But in a release Monday, Nature Canada stressed that nature must be at the centre of federal decision-making.
Related: 95-Metre 'Mega-Banner' Urges Carney to Pick a Path, Choose Renewables and Climate Action
"One Project, One Review by federal, provincial, and Indigenous governments is an important policy objective that can be achieved without reopening the federal Impact Assessment Act ," said Executive Director Emily McMillan. "But the federal government cannot abandon reviews of large development projects with environmental effects in federal authority or give carte blanche to provinces to carry out those reviews."
Similar worries began rippling through the community last Wednesday, after Prime Minister Mark Carney released a single, concise mandate letter to all his Cabinet ministers that listed seven government priorities-including a new economic and security relationship with the United States, a single, strong Canadian economy, lower costs, and more affordable housing-all of which intersect with climate change, but none of which mentioned it.
During the federal election campaign just ended, "the fact that Mark Carney has previously said that climate change was an existential threat demanding meaningful action gave us confidence we were picking a nicer guy with a steady, predictable hand on the wheel-plus, critically, for many of us, a climate plan," wrote Delta Management CEO and Canada's Clean50 founder Gavin Pitchford. "Except now, there's literally no climate plan or clean economy focus listed anywhere in his top seven priorities, as pushed out in the mandate letter to his new ministers this week."
On LinkedIn, Pitchford added that diversifying the economy "means diverse products as well as diverse export destinations. The only thing more volatile than Donald Trump is the market for oil and gas. So why on Earth would we double down on pipelines?" Particularly when the global cleantech market is on track to triple in the next decade, he said, while oil and gas "is expected to greatly decrease over the next 15 years."
But Clean Energy Canada Executive Director Rachel Doran responded to the mandate letter by pointing to the "abundant and realizable opportunities in the clean economy" that governments can tap into.
"The federal government's current focus on building the economy and improving affordability offers clear opportunities and building blocks for a cleaner Canada," she said in a release. "All of Canada's 10 largest non-U.S. trade partners have net-zero commitments and carbon pricing systems, while roughly half of them apply carbon border adjustments on imports and have domestic [electric vehicle] requirements reshaping their car markets. Investing in our supply chains, while growing and leveraging our clean electricity, will be key to building a more globally competitive, and hence resilient, economy-one more able to stand on its own even next to an occasionally unfriendly giant."
Source: The Energy Mix
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