Liberal leader Mark Carney is receiving limited praise for putting clean electricity at the centre of his plan to make Canada “the world’s leading energy superpower”, amid uncertainty about his simultaneous commitment to “conventional energy” and continuing concerns about red tape blocking local climate projects.

In a statement in Calgary Wednesday, Carney listed energy security, trade diversification, and long-term competitiveness as the three cornerstones of his party’s energy platform in the April 28 federal election. “Canada has a tremendous opportunity to be the world’s leading energy superpower, in both clean and conventional energy,” he said, while reducing climate pollution at the same time. “We can lead the energy transition while ensuring affordable energy at home and building the strongest economy in the G7.”

The statement called for Ottawa to “secure Canada’s energy and electricity sovereignty” by:

• “Working with provinces and territories to build out an East-West electricity grid, in a historic nation-building project, to secure Canadians’ access to affordable, reliable, clean, Canadian electricity”; while

• Investing in Canada’s “conventional and clean energy potential” to “reduce our reliance on the United States and build trading relationships with reliable partners.”

The announcement touted measures to:

• Support clean energy and critical mineral projects with a new First and Last Mile Fund meant to “kickstart the clean energy supply chain”;

• Fast-track clean energy projects of national interest, as identified by federal, provincial, and territorial governments and Indigenous peoples, with a single regulatory review process “that uphold environmental standards and Indigenous consultation”;

• Double the federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program to $10 billion;

• Continue the current government’s suite of clean energy tax credits and reinforce the Canada Growth Fund, “including by supporting carbon contracts for difference”;

• Establish a new major projects office at the federal level with a mandate to issue decisions within two years instead of five.

Choose Our Partners Carefully

Carney told media in Calgary the plan would call for Canada to “choose its partners carefully, and work with those who share our values,” iPolitics reports. “Ignoring climate change,” he said, is “not only morally wrong, but economically wrong.”

But “to build the strongest economy in the G7 we need to develop both clean energy and the lowest carbon conventional energy,” he added.

The Liberal Party news release and backgrounder [pdf] ran long on language about clean and community energy, short on support for fossil fuels, and contained not a single nod to pipelines. But the references to conventional energy still raised some consternation with climate hawks.

“We’re glad to see the Liberal Party highlighting that investing in clean electricity capacity is critical for our sovereignty and economy,” Climate Action Network Canada Executive Director Caroline Brouillette said in a release. “The sun and wind are free, abundant resources that Donald Trump cannot weaponize—so let’s make use of them and build out the supporting infrastructure for a national East-West electricity grid.”

However, ‘conventional energy’ is “a euphemism for continuing the status quo approach of expanding fossil fuels,” which means “pipelines going across Indigenous lands, many billions sunk into stranded assets, and climate harm caused by increased emissions that will come back to hurt us in the form of floods and wildfires,” she added. Carney and the Liberals “must be clear: fossil fuels are making us more vulnerable. Renewables are our path to security. An all-of-the-above approach simply does not work.”

Climate Red Tape

On the same day as Carney’s Calgary announcement, The Atmospheric Fund published a call to streamline the rules for getting local clean energy projects built. “While North American banks are busy cutting red tape for the fossil fuel industry, wouldn’t it be a better time to shine a light on regulations that are impeding business in the cleantech sector?” asked Evan Wiseman, TAF’s senior manager of climate policy.

“In this current, chaotic moment, cities, provinces, and the Canadian government are united in looking for ways to cost-effectively and quickly scale domestic and local economic development,” he added. “Regulators can unlock significant job growth and efficiency by removing barriers to clean energy technologies. Further, they can create jobs, build up local supply networks, and insulate our energy sector against international forces beyond our control.”

Wiseman said TAF began meeting with construction trades, manufacturers, and heat pump and solar installers before Trump launched his economic war on Canada (and most of the rest of the world). Those discussions explored the “rabbit hole” of red tape obstructing the clean energy transition.

“We identified municipal bylaws, provincial legislation, and utility processes that were created decades ago, long before heat pumps or [electric vehicles] were on the market. None of them were intentionally set to impede climate action—but all of them are now slowing it down.”

As examples, the post lists municipal zoning bylaws, Ontario’s wind power moratorium, and local utility rules that block rooftop solar—all of which would presumably warrant attention in tandem with a Carney-led bid to fast-track project approvals.

Winning the Carbon Tax Vote

Meanwhile, heads may have been turning (or worse) at Conservative Party of Canada headquarters after polling showed that Carney, not CPC leader Pierre Poilievre, is receiving voters’ thanks for eliminating the former Trudeau government’s controversial consumer carbon tax.

In new polling from Abacus Data, 55% of respondents “cited Carney as the leader who should get the credit for doing away with the price on carbon on April 1, compared to just 28% who said Poilievre brought about this goal by pushing for it,” veteran political columnist Susan Delacourt writes for the Toronto Star. “What this poll shows is that Carney is reaping much of the advantages of scrapping the levy, and far less blame for being associated with the government that introduced it.”

“This data will make some Conservatives’ heads explode,” Abacus CEO David Coletto told Delacourt.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail:

• Canadian scientists are sounding the alarm in a leading international journal after Poilievre promised to “end the imposition of woke ideology in the allocation of federal funds for university research” if he forms the next government. “I think this is the first time a politician in Canada has crossed that line to officially say they want to interfere to control research topics,” Madeleine Pastinelli, president of Quebec’s university professors’ union, told the journal Science. “It could be a very terrible time for us.”

Evidence for Democracy has launched a non-partisan Vote Science website “to try to put science, research, and evidence-informed decision-making at the centre of the campaign,” Science writes.

“If we look south of the border, we can see examples of how the ideological perspectives can become really perverse in different ways,” said E4D Executive Director Sarah Laframboise. “I think when we use this ambiguous language to shape scientific research it opens the door to ideological interference in what should be a rigorously independent system.”

• Policy Options is out with an analysis by Emma Starke, a senior research associate and PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University, and Katya Rhodes, an associate professor at the University of Victoria, concluding that a Conservative government would likely increase Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“Our analysis of the party platforms for the April 28 election shows that GHG emissions would fall by 2035 under the Liberal approach—even with the removal of the unpopular but effective consumer carbon tax,” they write. “They would rise under the Conservative plan to axe existing performance regulations along with the carbon tax.”