The U.S. is ‘eating our lunch’ when it comes to the green transition: Raitt
Left to right: Sonya Savage, former Alberta Energy Minister; Hon. Anne McLellan, co-chair Coalition for a Better Future; Hon. Lisa Raitt, co-chair Coalition for a Better Future; Mark Cameron, Vice-President Pathways Alliance; Megan Leslie, former NDP MP
The United States is eating Canada’s lunch in the transition to a net-zero, green economy, says Coalition for a Better Future co-chair Lisa Raitt.
“The U.S. passed four major pieces of legislation that allows them to eat our lunch: Infrastructure Act, IRA, Chips Act, and then they did something on the debt ceiling. And that has opened the door for Canadian investment and worldwide investment to flood into that market,” Raitt said during a Canada 2020 panel discussion on net-zero ahead of the UN climate change talks. “I would submit that that is not a Congress that's necessarily not polarized. And they got that done, and we can't get it done here.”
Raitt was speaking on a panel with fellow Coalition co-chair Anne McLellan, former Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage and Pathways Alliance Vice-President Mark Cameron. The panel was moderated by former NDP MP Megan Leslie.
She noted that polarization in the climate change discussion prevents collaboration and progress on moving forward on solutions together.
McLellan agreed, saying hard work, relationship building and collaboration are key to ensuring Canada grows sustainably.
“This country has 13 provincial and territorial jurisdictions, and one Government of Canada,” she said.
“This isn't glamorous. It is about doing the hard work, building the relationships, talking about what we agree on – and then take off the table the things we agree on. Then, let us take our time and focus on the areas of disagreement: Why do we disagree? And what are the possible compromise solutions to deal with that disagreement? If you don't operate that way, you may not get to where you need to go. And if you don't do that, chances are failure is going to be your number one option.”
Leslie said the public “likes collaboration a lot more than politicians,” and that there needs to be consensus around the need to address climate change. She said, for example, that “in healthcare, we debate, but we have a consensus, and we need to build that kind of a consensus on climate and energy.”
She added that developing thoughtful climate policies means strengthening our democracy and strengthening our political institutions.
“Can it not be a way forward for us to turn the temperature down here in Canada?” she asked.
Savage also agreed with the need for collaboration. Alberta is not against transitioning to net zero, but the provincial government wants to implement policies to get there that make sense for the province, she said.
“From my province’s perspective, we need to reach net zero because it's the way to diversify the economy. It's not only about big climate objectives, but it’s industrial policy to build new businesses and hydrogen and biodiesel, carbon capture, and more renewables. It's about building the economy,” she said.
“We have the same objectives to get there; we need to step back and start to collaborate. Now, our Constitution makes it a little more difficult that everybody gets stuck in constitutional corners on what are the rights that you do or don't have? But we've got to get beyond that and just move forward with what we share in common.”
Raitt called on former politicians to speak to their former colleagues in government and opposition now about being more collaborative in their work. “We all work together outside of politics. We need to help people who are now sitting in positions in politics, to understand the importance of actually collaborating more,” she said. “This is a defining moment in our country. We are charting the prosperity now. The decisions are that important and that big.”
Ministerial working group opportunity to ‘get more stuff built’: Labour Minister O’Regan
Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan told McLellan in a fireside chat later in the day that he’s excited about his new role as the chair of the Ministerial Working Group on Regulatory Efficiency for Clean Growth Projects.
“I've never seen civil servants so excited. I'm very happy to see that. … PCO is driving this, they are very excited about the opportunity,” he said.
The ministerial working group has a mandate to “coordinate government efforts to grow the clean economy and meet net-zero commitments by ensuring an efficient regulatory framework to support the development of clean growth projects.”
He said the nice thing about a working group, compared to a cabinet committee, is that it’s more hands-on.
“It's a little more roll up your shirtsleeves. Everybody calls each other by their first names to get down to business. So it’s my style.”
I have a number of tools under the Canada Labour Code, but back-to-work legislation is toxic.
Seamus O’Regan, Minister of Labour and Seniors
He also spoke about how his role is to streamline processes, permits and assessments to get projects off the ground faster. “It's like, look, let's sit down and let's deal with a number of these things together,” he said. “There are so many communities in this country, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, who want to participate and want more natural resource development. We’ve got to meet them halfway.”
McLellan also asked O’Regan about his priorities around labour and supply chain stability.
O’Regan said businesses and unions should be able to resolve labour disputes at the negotiating table. Adding that he wants to ensure the economy and supply chains aren’t affected if discussion breaks down at federally regulated, unionized workplaces.
“I have a number of tools under the Canada Labour Code, but back-to-work legislation is toxic,” he said. “It's a nice quick fix but everyone here is savvy — if you know the federal government is going to sign off on something, why would you put your best game in?”
O’Regan said that’s why he’s reviewing Section 106 of the Canada Labour Code to prioritize labour stability going forward.
Global net zero transition creating economic opportunity: Energy Minister Wilkinson
Accepting the realities of climate change and ensuring they shape “the fundamentals of our country’s economic strategy” are essential if Canada is to “seize the enormous economic opportunities that can be created to transition to a net-zero economy,” said Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.
“Today I want to talk a little bit about how we are building a better Canada through the thoughtful and strategic development and implementation of a green economic plan for the present and for the future,” Wilkinson told the Canada 2020 audience later in a keynote speech.
“It is also rapidly transforming the global economy and global finance in ways that are creating enormous economic opportunities for those who approach transition to a low carbon future in a thoughtful, determined and focused manner,” he said.
Climate change is altering our world's natural environment in a myriad of different ways.
Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources
Wilkinson said the global energy transformation that is well underway is both an environmental imperative for protecting the future of the planet, but also an economic opportunity “on a scale not dissimilar to the industrial revolution.”
After his speech, Raitt, a former Natural Resources minister, had a one-on-one conversation with Wilkinson to discuss his role and the challenges of bridging the gap between climate change and the economy.
She asked him why “energy” was added to his title, joking that she and McLellan, also a former Natural Resources minister, were “very jealous” because they only had “natural resources” in their titles.
“It was really intended to reflect the fact that energy is so fundamental to the conversation we're having around the world these days, whether it's around energy security, around the energy transition,” he said, noting that Canada was the only G7 country not to have an “energy” minister.
“It really needed to connote how central it is to all the work that we're doing across the board in almost every area of the economy.”
When asked how the government decided to exempt home heating oil in the Atlantic provinces, Wilkinson said it was all about affordability.
“Energy poverty is a real challenge for people,” he said. “Heating oil is different from other ways of heating our homes in the sense that it is, on average, more than double the cost of natural gas, and in some provinces, is three to four times.”
He explained that it is a temporary measure to help people now, while also investing in heat pump grants.
“It was a way to go at what is a critical issue from an affordability perspective in a manner that actually will help long-term affordability and will actually help us with the climate challenge because, of course, heating oil is far more polluting.”
In an earlier panel discussion moderated by Leslie, Raitt said that speed is essential to getting projects done. “The time of debating is over, frankly, and now it’s implementation, it’s execution. And I will give you an example of one thing that everybody agrees on – provinces, feds, industry investors, Indigenous: That is federal guarantees on Indigenous loan projects. One, why are we still having the debate? Why is that not something that's already submitted in stone that is actually going out into the market so that we can find the investing money that's actually going to make sense to make these projects?” she said.
Raitt broached the issue with Wilkinson as well, asking if the loan guarantees would be prioritized.
“We've been working on a program for Indigenous loan guarantees now for quite some time. And we actually appointed an expert group about a year ago to do a lot of the work external for the department to help us think our way through this,” he said. “There are examples out there. The Government of Alberta in particular, has done a lot of work in this area that has their own loan guarantee program. I am very optimistic that we will be able to move this forward.”
