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Three Flawed Premises behind the June 30, 2026 ‘Forward Guidance on Canada’s Energy Future’

July 5, 2026

Listening to the PM’s ‘Forward Guidance’ statement June 30 on Canada’s Energy Future, there seemed three flawed premises, underlying the statement.

  1. What Canada does on climate change has no impact on the Global stage. The Prime Minister’s statement both abandoned Canada’s national commitments under the Paris agreement and effectively committed Canada to a path that will see its GHG emissions increase dramatically though oil sands and LNG expansion, and the growing role of fossil gas-fired electricity generation acknowledged in the May National Electricity Strategy. In reality these steps send very clear signals to the world regarding Canada’s commitment to climate action. The irony in relation to the this summer’s emerging round of wildfire evacuation orders in Canada speaks for itself.
  2. Oil sands bitumen production can be made ‘clean’ and globally competitive. The reality is that oil sands bitumen is high energy and GHG emission intensive and relatively low grade product, with limited markets due to the need for specialized refining capacity. In the long term it is unlikely to be able to compete with production from sources that are able to produce high quality liquid crude through conventional drilling and production. Those producers are far more likely to be the last ones standing in a world moving away from fossil fuels for climate and energy security reasons. LNG exports represent a different set of challenges, but remain relatively high cost and impact, due to extraction via fracking and fossil gas-fired liquification processes. Their long term prospects are highly dependent on global market trends.
  3. A nuclear-based electrification strategy will provide comparative advantage in energy costs, energy security and advance decarbonization through electrification. Nuclear energy remains one of the the highest cost electricity sources, with little realistic prospect for improvement in foreseeable future. The high electricity costs flowing from the federal government’s nuclear based strategy will undermine affordability, competitiveness and decarbonization.