Canada finds itself at a crucial inflection level. Rising geopolitical instability and a strained relationship with the US are forcing us to rethink our place on the earth and chart a brand new path to financial, vitality and nationwide safety.
To its credit score, Canada is responding with swift motion and a multipronged strategy. Federal and provincial governments have been working laborious to interrupt down inner commerce limitations and construct one Canadian market, whereas the EU and Asia have been high priorities for the prime minister’s commerce diversification technique. However as Canada deploys billions of {dollars} in authorities spending to rework its industries, redraw commerce flows and fast-track main tasks, we should additionally resolve what sort of nation we need to construct.
The One Canadian Clear Financial system Job Pressure believes Canada can concurrently safeguard its financial system from the commerce and tariff shocks of as we speak whereas setting itself as much as compete for the long run, in the end reaping huge financial benefit from the worldwide vitality transition. There are limitations to realizing this imaginative and prescient, in fact, however lots of them are inside our management.
First, it’s useful to contemplate the federal authorities’s personal One Canadian Financial system Act, used to evaluate main tasks towards 5 standards to find out whether or not they’re within the nationwide curiosity. Clear financial system tasks clearly meet the clear development standards, however importantly, additionally they rating impressively on the opposite 4.
They strengthen Canada’s autonomy, resilience and safety. Canada’s crucial minerals and supplies, for instance, might be key to serving to us safe financial sovereignty and acquire international leverage in commerce relations. And biomass-powered district heating techniques will help rural, distant and Indigenous communities scale back their reliance on diesel, providing a extra vitality safe means of heating houses.
Clear financial system tasks additionally present many monetary advantages to Canada and Canadians. A 2021 projection of Canada’s clear vitality sector noticed its GDP reaching $107 billion by 2030 with 600,000 jobs — and proof suggests that almost all Canadians will see decrease total energy-related prices from a well-managed change to electrical energy. Provinces throughout Canada are already taking motion on this entrance. Actually, there are over 17 gigawatts of procurements, equal to over $31 billion, at the moment underway throughout Canada for wind, photo voltaic, and vitality storage — and this quantity is predicted to develop.
These tasks likewise advance the pursuits of Indigenous nations, collectively the third-largest house owners of fresh vitality belongings throughout the nation, nearly solely in renewables. BC Hydro’s 2024 Name for Energy, for instance, resulted in agreements for 9 wind vitality tasks and a photo voltaic mission which can be nearly all majority-owned by First Nations.
Lastly, clear financial system tasks have a excessive probability of success. Wind, photo voltaic and vitality storage are constructed a lot quicker with decrease value overruns than different vitality tasks. In the meantime, demand for the crucial minerals that feed into these clear applied sciences — lithium, graphite, nickel, and cobalt — will develop two to 5 occasions by 2040. For context, minerals made up 21 per cent of Canada’s complete merchandise exports in 2023.
That’s 5 out of 5 on the federal government’s standards listing.
However limitations do certainly exist, and this activity drive was introduced collectively exactly to determine these roadblocks — and critically, how we are able to clear the best way for Canada to construct up one of the best model of its clear financial system.
Venture proponents usually be aware, for instance, that regulatory approval processes may be prolonged and complicated, usually with overlapping jurisdiction and duplicative necessities. Streamlining processes with the earliest attainable Indigenous engagement is without doubt one of the very important options wanted.
Staff equally face limitations within the clear financial system. A boilermaker apprentice in Northern Ontario might not simply be accepted to work on a hydroelectric plant in Manitoba as a result of variations in apprenticeship necessities. Corporations can battle to seek out wind turbine technicians as a result of there isn’t a separate Nationwide Occupational Classification code for a wind turbine technician, utilized in labour market assessments. These inefficiencies are fixable.
One other one? A scarcity of coordinated electrical energy planning between provinces and insufficient transmission infrastructure means our industries don’t have entry to the clear electrical energy they need and, thus, Canada is extra reliant on US energy. It’s previous time for a “United Canada” grid initiative and extra interregional planning.
And main delays in finalizing clear financial system tax credit have traditionally created an uneven enjoying discipline between Canada and the US in relation to attracting funding. Clear know-how corporations face extra limitations, too, as small- and medium-sized enterprises lack entry to financing and face markets that may be difficult for brand spanking new entrants.
One Canadian firm making grid-management software program couldn’t discover a footing in Canada’s fractured electrical energy markets however received six contracts in two years within the UK. Elevated home commerce and leveraging authorities procurement — together with the numerous spending deliberate for housing and defence — may help Canadian clear development supplies and applied sciences, creating extra pan-Canadian alternatives for native corporations. And people tax credit are lengthy overdue.
The listing goes on — however so does the listing of options. Actually, we got here up with 30 actions federal and provincial governments ought to take instantly or in the long run.
Whereas the U.S. retreats from clear vitality, Canada has a possibility to seize these investments and align with buying and selling companions that understand clear equals aggressive. We can not management each impediment the world places up, however we are able to actually dismantle those inside our personal borders. Our North Star Motion Plan begins at residence, however its future is skyward: a stronger Canada shining on the world stage.
This publish was co-authored by Vittoria Bellissimo and Peter McArthur and first appeared in Canada’s Nationwide Observer.
