The Green Party of Canada welcomes the federal government’s launch of consultations on a National Electricity Strategy.
A modernized, decarbonized East-West-North-South electricity grid that connects provinces and territories from coast to coast to coast has long been a key pillar of Green Party energy policy and was central to the party’s climate action plan Mission: Possible. The return of federal support for home energy retrofits, another policy Greens have championed for decades, is also good news. Overall, today’s announcement is a welcome shift after more than a year in which the Liberal government has too often delivered Conservative policy in everything but name.
“In order to provide stability and financial relief for individual Canadians and their families, affordability and lowest-cost generation must be at the centre of the government’s strategy,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. “That means choosing wind and solar, the cheapest sources of new electricity available today, over the expansion of high-cost nuclear power. It makes no sense to ask Canadian taxpayers to pay billions more for nuclear when wind and solar can deliver cleaner power at a fraction of the cost.”
May also called for distributed generation, the production of electricity at or near the point of consumption, to be treated as a central pillar of the strategy rather than an afterthought.
“We must make it easier for Canadians to generate their own renewable electricity at home and in their communities, on rooftops across the country,” May added. “Any serious national electricity strategy must include distributed generation.”
One aspect of the government’s announcement that does raise serious concerns for Greens is the proposal to loosen clean electricity regulations to accommodate more natural gas. There is nothing “clean” about energy generated by burning fossil fuels, and this concession undermines the entire strategy.
Greens are also concerned about the pace of overlapping federal consultations. Stakeholders are still working through two major discussion papers on energy corridors and infrastructure released on May 8, which carry a thirty-day consultation window. Further energy policy announcements are expected tomorrow.
“Real consultation requires the time and space for Canadians to be heard,” May said. “Flooding the zone is incompatible with that process.”
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