Power for the people: Why Canada needs a national energy strategy

Jean-Yves LeFort
The Hill Times, February 4, 2008

What kind of energy superpower has no policy to direct and develop its own resources, has to import half of its own energy needs, cannot guarantee resource access to its own citizens, and tolerates environmental disasters on its own territory while energy corporations rake in record profits?

Auditor General Sheila Fraser told the parliamentary committee on natural resources this week that the federal government lacks a clear nuclear strategy.

But the recent fiasco over the Chalk River reactor exposes a much bigger problem: our government has allowed the market to set the energy agenda in Canada with little consideration for the public interest or the environment.

Recent developments make it very clear that Canada needs more than a nuclear strategy; it needs a national energy strategy.

Canada is falling prey to an energy gold rush as years of pro-market policies have left our government unable – or rather unwilling – to protect our environment and manage our energy resources.  As a result our energy resources have been flowing out of the country – mostly to the United States – with little or no direction from our governments.

The tar sands in Saskatchewan and Alberta show how much our governments have bowed to corporate pressure. Although very lucrative for oil companies, the tar sands are very costly to the environment. Tar sands development destroys enormous tracts of land, clears forests, and consumes 26 per cent of Alberta’s groundwater. In addition, local physicians have sounded the alarm about unusually high rates of cancer in communities close to the tar sands.

To make matters worse, a plan for a “fivefold expansion” of the tar sands under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, is contributing to a rapid and uncontrolled expansion in the area. It is generally acknowledged that emission increases for the tar sands will prevent Canada from keeping its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, let alone achieve the reductions needed to truly address global climate change.

Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s “free market” approach to energy resources and trade deals like NAFTA and the more recent Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), have undermined public control over our country’s energy supplies.

The Harper government appears unwilling to intervene, leaving Canadians to pay the high environmental and societal costs of unfettered growth in the energy industry.

In nuclear energy, as Sheila Fraser told the parliamentary committee this week, "there has been a lack of clear strategy by several governments." Both the current Conservative government and the Liberals before them have failed to even approve Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s corporate plan for several years.

Meanwhile, nuclear power is being sold as the “cleaner, greener” energy, and has received a strong surge of interest in recent months. The Harper government recently joined the U.S.-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which seeks to “bring about a significant, wide-scale expansion of nuclear energy.” Part of the deal may require Canada to take nuclear waste from the U.S. At the same time, the government is also looking at privatizing a portion of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the Crown Corporation that oversees production of nuclear materials in reactors across the country. The government has been in talks to sell a share of AECL to U.S. industrial giant General Electric Co. Informal meetings have also been held with French nuclear company Areva SA. All this is happening as if privatization were the only logical avenue for nuclear development and tragically, without any apparent strategic plan.

Uranium mining is another energy sector where corporate interests have taken precedence over local concerns. With uranium prices soaring to all-time high we are seeing a surge of interest in uranium mining across the country. Saskatchewan is the main location of mining, but projects are also being studied near Sharbot Lake and Highlands East, in Ontario, as well as in Nova Scotia where the provincial ban on uranium mining is put into question as Tripple Uranium Resources Inc. prospects in the province. Local residents in several communities have raised serious environmental and health concerns with the extraction process but Nova Scotia Premier Rodney Macdonald has said the province would consider reversing the mining ban if large deposits are found.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper likes to call Canada an “energy superpower.” What kind of energy superpower has no policy to direct and develop its own resources, has to import half of its own energy needs, cannot guarantee resource access to its own citizens, and tolerates environmental disasters on its own territory while energy corporations  rake in record profits? Without a Canadian Energy Strategy things will only continue to get worse.

Our federal government needs to understand once and for all that the market is not a substitute for sound public policy.

Jean-Yves LeFort is the energy campaigner for the Council of Canadians

On February 2, Canada’s first national day of action on energy, in over 30 communities across Canada, activists will be holding events to raise awareness and demand a national energy strategy. To see a list of participating communities, visit: http://www.canadians.org/energy/action/February2.html