Laura CarterCommittee staff
Committee Researcher
Opening remarks
I believe so, yes.
Meeting 46 · October 5, 2026 · 11:02–13:09 (2h 7m)
45-17 witnesses · 121 interventions · 15,135 words
The committee continued its energy security study, hearing from industry, Indigenous, utility, academic and advocacy witnesses on electrification, export infrastructure and domestic supply. Appearing were Lisa Baiton of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, James Jenkins of Indigenous Clean Energy, Dave Bowen of Manitoba Hydro, Thomas Walker of Queen's University and Concordia University, Emilia Belliveau and Julia Levin of Environmental Defence Canada, and Michelle Stirling of Friends of Science Society.
Lisa Baiton argued that geopolitical disruptions have made Canada a trusted energy partner, citing LNG Canada phase two, Cedar, Woodfibre and Ksi Lisims, the Trans Mountain expansion and the proposed Pacific link pipeline. She welcomed the productivity mega deduction, Impact Assessment Act amendments and Bill C-39 as improving competitiveness, but said an industrial carbon price adds a cost no competing producer faces and that regulatory certainty must hold across decades. Asked by Mario Simard why record-profitable companies do not fund their own infrastructure, she replied that government and industry partnership makes sense mainly for emerging technologies like carbon capture, and that Canada should keep tariff-free energy trade with the United States while pursuing other customers.
James Jenkins described Indigenous Clean Energy's tracking of over 250 completed medium-to-large clean energy projects and roughly 100 more in planning or construction, with Indigenous equity growing exponentially. He warned that many federal capacity-building programs sunset in March 2027, making the coming budget pivotal, and recommended renewing effective grant programs for early-stage development, investing in Indigenous energy-efficient housing, creating a northern remote communities fund, and expanding skills training and technical support. He highlighted microgrids in Labrador, Nunavut and Yukon, roughly 50-megawatt grid-connected projects, and community-scale efficiency, praising the Churchill Falls arrangement and the Raven Indigenous Capital Partners model for financing deep retrofits.
Dave Bowen said Manitoba Hydro's generation is about 97% hydroelectric but that its recommended integrated resource plan, not yet endorsed by the provincial government, adds up to 600 megawatts of Indigenous majority-owned wind, a battery pilot and 750 megawatts of combustion turbines initially fuelled by natural gas. He stressed that natural gas remains critical for home heat, that Manitoba is winter-peaking with shrinking dependable capacity, and that after three droughts in five years the utility imported record volumes from MISO last January. He noted interties with the U.S. are nearly seven times the combined capacity with Ontario and Saskatchewan, cautioned that additional interprovincial connections need a resolved business case, and identified workforce and capital as the biggest constraints.
Thomas Walker outlined four financial pillars: de-risking private capital through blended finance, public-private partnerships and Indigenous equity guarantees backed by Canada's credit rating; domestic securitization so Canadian banks can bundle efficiency and infrastructure loans into tradable bonds; grid diversification and demand-side management drawing on German and European experience; and reliable climate data. He said Bill C-59 prompted firms producing most oil sands output to stop disclosing transition data and that Bill C-15 left litigation risk and a reverse burden of proof, urging Parliament to pair its sustainable finance taxonomy with a legal safe harbour for good-faith corporate statements. He also cited carbon contracts for difference to hedge future carbon price risk.
Emilia Belliveau and Julia Levin of Environmental Defence Canada welcomed the government's recognition of electrification but objected that the "Powering Canada Strong" discussion paper calls natural gas strategic and essential. Belliveau said gas emissions have doubled in a decade to 40 megatonnes in 2024, erasing half the coal phase-out gains, that gas is now more expensive than renewables with storage, and that proposed clean electricity regulation amendments are an unacceptable rollback; she cited federal modelling showing a near-zero grid by 2035 is achievable at an average abatement cost of $58 per tonne. Levin disputed Michelle Stirling's testimony, arguing fossil fuel infrastructure and tailings harm communities, that over $85 billion in federal support has gone to fossil fuels, and that reliance on gas caused the Texas and Alberta reliability problems rather than renewables.
Michelle Stirling of Friends of Science Society argued net zero is unachievable with current technologies, citing European grid instability, German industrial decline and mineral supply limits, and said interties cannot substitute for dependable generation. She said wind and solar assets last 15 to 20 years and batteries about 10, versus 60 years for conventional plants and 100 for hydro and nuclear, that renewables are heavily subsidized and backed by equivalent dispatchable capacity, and that Alberta's polar vortex showed renewables vanishing while gas could not ramp quickly. Questioned by Simard on funding and scientific consensus, she said the group is member-funded with a research director and consultants, maintained fossil fuels are only partly responsible for warming, and blamed environmental campaigns for damaging Canadian energy investment.
Members also heard exchanges on the investment gap, Indigenous participation, carbon pricing costs for Newfoundland and Labrador heating, and the Churchill Falls project. Procedurally, the chair noted this was the final energy security meeting, with drafting instructions to analysts next, an in-camera session on future studies, the forestry report circulated tomorrow, and an energy export study expected in November.
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Laura CarterCommittee staff
Committee Researcher
Opening remarks
I believe so, yes.
Lisa Baiton
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
Opening remarks
Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to once again appear before you today and contribute to your study. Since the launch of this study, much has transpired, so I'm going to focus my comments today on energy security. First, there are some lessons we can learn from what others globally have been experiencing. Russia's invasion of Ukraine demonstrated that concentrated dependence for energy can become a critical vulnerability. Despite a monumental effort to pivot to other supplies and suppliers, energy security in Europe remains in jeopardy. The U.S.–Iran conflict demonstrates that even resource wealth does not provide strategic autonomy. The gulf states, with their massive energy resources, are in crisis with the closing of their major shipping routes. Countries around the world are learning lessons on the importance of energy security. The response has not been economic separation from other nations and a retreat to domestic supply. The lesson really has been all about resiliency: multiple energy suppliers, alternative transport routes, stronger industries and broader diplomatic partnerships. The future of energy security will…
James Jenkins
Executive Director, Indigenous Clean Energy
Opening remarks
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Indigenous Clean Energy is an independent not-for-profit organization. We support capacity building, career training and mentorship for Inuit, Métis and first nations in the clean energy sector, and our programs are present in every region of the country. Our intent is to ensure that this committee and government are informed of the proven impacts of indigenous participation and leadership in the energy sector and the importance of more efficient and tailored supports for diverse contexts. Our mission at Indigenous Clean Energy is to achieve a collaborative, community-driven clean energy future, led by indigenous peoples. Our vision is an energy future that leaves no one behind. Understanding the co-operative approach of government, the time is now to integrate priorities and supports across jurisdictions and contexts. I would encourage you to review the national survey that we published in May. It is called “Regenerative Energy”, and it highlights the growing and accelerating role of indigenous communities and businesses in ownership of the clean energy sector. We're tracking over 250 medium-sized to large clean energy…
Dave Bowen
Vice-President, Asset Planning and Delivery, Manitoba Hydro
Opening remarks
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear today. My name is Dave Bowen. I'm a vice-president at Manitoba Hydro. Canada's energy transition presents significant opportunities and practical challenges. We must balance affordability, safety, reliability, economic development, indigenous reconciliation, socio-economic impacts and environmental outcomes. These trade-offs shaped our most recent integrated resource plan, or IRP, and the recent general rate applications. Although not yet endorsed by our provincial government, our IRP balances reliability, affordability and environmental and socio-economic outcomes while supporting Manitoba's path to net zero. I'd like to focus on a few areas where Manitoba's experience may help inform the committee's work. The first is clean electricity technologies. Manitoba starts from strength. Roughly 97% of our generation is hydroelectric, providing some of Canada's lowest-emitting electricity, but demand growth and competing objectives mean that the next stage requires a portfolio of technologies. Our recommended plan within our IRP begins with efficiency and demand shifting to reduce…
Thomas Walker
Director, Institute for Sustainable Finance, Queen’s University, and Professor of Finance, Concordia University, As an Individual
Opening remarks
Thank you. Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, thank you for inviting me today. My name is Dr. Thomas Walker. I'm a professor of finance and director of the L. Jacques Ménard BMO centre for capital markets at Concordia University. I also serve on the scientific committee and as co-lead of the Volt-Age sustainable electrification program. Additionally, I serve as director at the institute for sustainable finance at Queen's University. Earlier in this study, witnesses told this committee that doubling Canada's electricity grid by 2050 will cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Governments and taxpayers cannot pay for this alone. The vast majority must come from private institutional investors, such as pension funds, insurers and banks. My written brief outlines four financial pillars to mobilize that private capital, which I will summarize today. Pillar one focuses on the de-risking of private capital through blended finance, public-private partnerships and indigenous equity. Blended finance means using targeted public money to absorb early project risks so that pension funds can meet their fiduciary duties and invest at scale. In March 2026, Parliament…
Emilia Belliveau
Program Manager, Energy Transition, Environmental Defence Canada
Opening remarks
Good afternoon, and thank you to the committee for this opportunity to share the perspective of Environmental Defence on Canada's electrification, energy self-sufficiency and domestic energy future. In general, Environmental Defence welcomes the Government of Canada's recognition that electrification is central to Canada's climate goals and its pursuit of energy and economic sovereignty. Canada's wind energy, solar energy and energy storage sectors will provide the power an electrifying and growing economy needs. However, we are deeply concerned that the strategy as presented risks entrenching Canada's dependence on fossil fuels rather than accelerating our transition away from them. The discussion paper the government released earlier this year, “Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy”, positions natural gas as “strategic” and “essential” to Canada's electricity future. This is wrong on two counts. First, it's wrong as a matter of climate policy, and second, it's wrong as a matter of economics. Canada's electricity sector is already approximately 80% non-emitting, a global advantage we must build on and not squander. The path forward…
Michelle Stirling
Communications Manager, Friends of Science Society
Opening remarks
Thank you for this invitation to speak with the committee. The “Powering Canada Strong” policy paper suggests that building transmission lines between provinces will provide energy security, reliability and affordability. Look at Europe. Belgium physicist Pierre Kunsch wrote in “Decarbonizing electricity in the European Union: A programmed failure demonstrated by the figures”: A full-scale laboratory has existed for about twenty years. It allows you to form an unbiased opinion of what is possible and what is not. Spain and Portugal experienced national blackouts in April 2025 due to grid instability caused by renewables. Norway no longer wants to be the hydro battery of Europe. Germany has lots of wind and solar, but powers the country on domestic coal and on nuclear generation from France. Wind, solar and transmission lines have driven up electricity costs. Due to Germany's expensive electricity and lack of domestic energy, industry is collapsing and moving to the U.S. or China. Net zero is the pursuit of the impossible. Like Europe, Canada's net-zero emission targets cannot be met with current technologies by 2030 or 2050, as clearly stated by professor emeritus Vaclav Smil…
Julia Levin
Associate Director, National Climate, Environmental Defence Canada
Opening remarks
Thank you for the question. I'll take a few seconds and then I'll pass it over to my colleague. I think it's very important that we have a fact-based conversation around the pace of the energy transition and the costs, as well as the realities of the benefits that the energy transition is bringing to our peer countries around the world and the risks that Canada faces if we slow down on this energy transition. The costs include the cost of fossil fuel infrastructure and the cost of the climate crisis. I think we can agree that we are in a climate crisis. As my colleague spoke to, we are seeing that the costs of solar and wind energy—paired with energy storage, paired with flexible grids and paired with the demand side—are vastly more affordable for Canadians. The industrial demand for clean energy is growing, to the point where you can attract foreign investment dollars only if you are supplying clean energy. Canada had a lead there, but with more natural gas on the grid, we are starting to go backwards and that's actually scaring away the foreign investment dollars that this government is keen to attract. I'm glad we are worried about tailings, because the fossil fuel industry…