Canada vs Climate: Federal Minister of Energy & Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson

David, Sara, and Ed talk to Canada's Minister of Energy & Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson.

Show Notes:
(02:57) Powering Canada Forward

(04:24) Modernizing the energy sector

(06:28) Powering Canada

(07:46) Canada’s Electric Reliability Framework

(11:30) Canadian Climate Institute

(12:17) Mohawk Council of Kahnawake inks deal with Hydro-Québec

(14:24) Governments of Canada, Nova Scotia & New Brunswick Show Progress Toward Phasing Out Coal by 2030

(16:25) Canadian Parliament Passes Bill C-59

(23:29) Canada’s economic competitiveness in a global energy transition

(25:52) How to Overcome Polarization on Climate Action

(32:17) Public opinion about energy transition

(33:47) Alberta’s renewable energy restrictions will throttle a booming industry

(34:11) Hydrogen Strategy for Canada

(46:18) National strategy to protect nature

(49:00) Canada Insures Carbon Price Contracts w/ $7B Funding

(54:07) What does Bill C-59 mean for you?

Produced by Amit Tandon

Follow us on:
LinkedIn
Bluesky
X/Twitter
Instagram

Energy vs Climate relies on the support of our generous listeners
Donate to keep Energy vs Climate going

Produced by Bespoke Podcasts

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

[00:00:00] Ed: Hi, I'm Ed Whittingham, and you're listening to Energy vs. Climate, the show where my co hosts David Keith, Sarah Hastings Simon, and I debate today's energy challenges, highlighting the Canadian context. On June 27th, we recorded a very special live webinar with Canada's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson.

[00:00:25] Ed: The conversation was very timely, given that Canada's federal parliament had only just risen for the summer. It was also revealing of the challenges and opportunities facing the current federal government on climate and energy policy. We covered a lot of topics with Minister Wilkinson, from electrification, affordability concerns, policy resilience, to his government's industrial decarbonization problem.

[00:00:47] Ed: I have no doubt that our EBC audience will get much out of the show. Here it is.

[00:00:56] Ed: Our keen viewers and listeners will know that we seldomly have politicians on the show, but when their press secretaries reach out to us saying, I'd love to get my minister on energy versus climate, who are we to refuse? And especially when it is Canada's energy minister and someone who was formerly a clean tech CEO.

[00:01:17] Ed: The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson is Canada's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. He's been in that position since October 2021. Prior to that, he was Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard and has served as a Member of Parliament from North Vancouver.

[00:01:36] Ed: Since 2015 before entering politics minister Wilkinson had a 20 year career in the clean tech industry, which from my experiences with him and his predecessors definitely gives him a leg up compared to the average energy and natural resources minister. I've always really appreciated his grasp of the interface between business, technology, and policy.

[00:01:58] Ed: While Minister Wilkinson has laid down deep roots in North Vancouver as its MP, he grew up in Saskatchewan. And given that province's abundance of lakes and rivers, and especially in Northern Saskatchewan's shield country. It's not surprising that he is also an avid canoeist. With that being said, uh, welcome Minister Wilkinson to Energy Versus Climate.

[00:02:23] Ed: Thank you very much. Before we jump into it with the minister, Dave and Sarah, what are you both hoping to get out of today's special show? 

[00:02:30] Sara: Um, Really looking forward to a kind of a tour of what's been going on federally, uh, and then relationships with the province and also where politics, uh, meets the challenges of energy and climate.

[00:02:41] David: Yeah, about the same. I'm, I'm thrilled that you joined and, uh, uh, thankful for a lot of stuff that's been accomplished the last few years and your part in it. And I'm kind of excited to hear your speculation about what happens next. 

[00:02:50] Ed: I would say ditto both those comments. All right. Uh, our first topic is electrification.

[00:02:56] Ed: Thank you. Now, uh, Minister, one of our best performing shows that we ever did was in mid April 2023, so a little more than a year ago, with Blake Shafer of the University of Calgary and Sarah's colleague. It was on your government's emphasis on electrification in budget 2023. And, you know, the, the keen EVC listeners know that all paths to net zero require electrification of big parts of the Canadian economy.

[00:03:22] Ed: And that means that Canada must, on average, grow system capacity at a rate that's varying from three to six times, uh, faster to 20 20 50 compared to the previous decade. And that's in order to support the rising electricity demand that comes from net zero. Now the caveat is, the last decade has been sort of historically slow for the electricity system capacity, or growing it, because principally of energy efficiency advances.

[00:03:49] Ed: So, It's not impossible, there are times when the system has grown that quickly, but, uh, still it's a big challenge. Now, Minister Budget 2023 really bet big on powering the Canadian economy with, uh, low carbon electricity, and you did that through the usual means, through grants, through low cost capital, through tax credits, through the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

[00:04:12] Ed: We'd love to know now, more than a year out from you, So what's working? What isn't working? What have you learned so far? And going forward, most importantly, what changes in your approach do you need to make? 

[00:04:24] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: It is critical for us to actually see the build out of grids that are clean, but are reliable, affordable, and ultimately can actually provide abundant power in every province and territory.

[00:04:36] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: That's not just important in terms of reducing emissions. It's also important to enable us to have a strong, robust, competitive economy going forward. I mean, it's Some of the recent announcements like the, uh, the location of the battery plant by Volkswagen in St. Thomas, Ontario, the choice was made because of the clean grid relative to the United States.

[00:04:54] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: So it is a competitive, uh, advantage. And, and so it's not just the environment, it's also the economy. It's also, as you said, I, I would say it's the biggest challenge facing us, um, in terms of being able to, to scale at the pace that The climate that will demand us to do and, uh, and it's something that actually takes time.

[00:05:12] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: You don't just build a generation facility overnight. You don't build all of the transmission lines overnight. I do think that the measures that we have put into place, uh, both sticks and carrots have been very important. So the smart renewables fund that we have, the investment tax credits, which actually for the first time, the federal government is actually willing to pay for a portion of all the capital, including for public utilities, which is quite new for us, the pre development money that we are putting into it.

[00:05:37] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: But it's also the regulatory tools to try to encourage provinces to take action. We see the power of that through the phase up goal, which has now happened in Alberta. Um, and people said that that could not be done. So, uh, so I think there's a lot of progress and I would say many of the provinces actually are developing roadmaps to enable them to get where they need to go.

[00:05:56] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Ontario has done a lot of work, Quebec has done a lot of work. We are doing a lot of detailed work with Nova Scotia and Brunswick. We are seeing way more activity on the part of the provinces, in part because they see the competitive opportunity. There are challenges, there's no question about that. Um, It has taken us longer to get the investment tax credits into law, um, such that people can actually start to take advantage of them than perhaps we had hoped.

[00:06:17] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: We don't have all of the provinces working on plans that actually show how they're going to get to where they need to get to by 2050, but we have more and more each and every day, and, uh, and I think that, uh, we are going to continue to encourage, uh, the remainder of the provinces. But it isn't their own best interest.

[00:06:33] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: I've got 

[00:06:34] Ed: a quick follow, well hopefully a quick follow on question. It's about intertised long distance transmission, so maybe there's nothing quick about that. I've got a question there and then David and Sarah I'm sure will jump in. So, on long distance transmission and intertised, we know that they're critically important.

[00:06:48] Ed: And in fact, Uh, the Canadian Electricity Advisory Council just submitted its final report. It's got a big recommendation around how to construct a framework to support inter regional electricity transmission projects. It calls upon you at the upcoming Energy and Mines Ministers Conference to work with your provincial colleagues.

[00:07:06] Ed: I gather you're co chairing with, with Brian Jean, Alberta's Brian Jean, Minister of Energy, to jointly develop that framework. And I know that your government has one of those investment tax credits that really is. You know, there for crown corpse and utilities and promises to draw upon for transmission and interties.

[00:07:25] Ed: It's, it's a ferociously difficult topic we've talked about on this show before. When you've got inter provincial politics, you've got fed provincial politics, and you'll sit next to Brian Jean, so there's no secret that that can be strained. You've got fiefdoms, all these barriers. So how specifically is progress going on interties and long distance transmission?

[00:07:46] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: First of all, the federal government has to recognize that the electricity grids are the purview of the provinces. And so this has to be something that the provinces are actually interested in. We can't force provinces to do this, um, nor should we. We went through a bit of an exercise on this, what was called the Atlantic Loop.

[00:08:01] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Where initially that came from the province of Nova Scotia, this idea of tying all the Atlantic provinces together with Quebec. But it became something the federal government was interested in. At that time, a year and a half or two years ago, many of the provinces were to less interest. Um, for a whole range of different reasons.

[00:08:17] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Some of them were actually quite good reasons. And so it became abundantly clear to us that you, you're sort of pushing a string of less interest. Provinces actually want to do something, but I would say increasingly there are reasons as to why, especially regional interties. I'm not sure that it's the same net necessarily.

[00:08:33] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Actually, regional enterprise actually make all kinds of sense, you know, in a way that's different from the way we thought about it before. We used to think, for example, about the Atlantic loop of taking hydropower from Quebec and providing it to Atlantic Canada so that they could be carbonized. Well, that made sense until Quebec became short Power.

[00:08:49] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: That was a bit of a different conversation, but there are ways in which you could use the resources. For example, the wind resources in Nova Scotia, onshore, offshore, with the big hydro battery in Quebec to help to balance a lot of these kinds of things. So we started that. We're actually working with Nova Scotia, New Brunswick on an intertie.

[00:09:08] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: We see that as the first phase of a broader Atlantic system, Ontario and Quebec. To their credit, I have been working on this themselves. They have different profiles in terms of peaks, and so they actually see strengthening either ties there as giving them more flexibility about how they manage their systems.

[00:09:25] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: The other big chunk though, is Western Canada. And, uh, and there's talk about Western Canada for a long time. And some of the similar things would apply where you have a big hydro battery in British Columbia and another one in Manitoba. You have lots of opportunity for things like wind in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

[00:09:41] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: There's lots of synergies there. And until recently, there's been not a lot of interest. But I would tell you that some of the provinces, and Premier Smith in particular has talked to me about this a number of times, increasing interest in thinking about how you might be able to do this in a way that would benefit all of them.

[00:09:56] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: In that context, we are very interested in engaging that conversation, and I'm sure we will talk about it at the Energy Alignment meeting. But it has to come from the provinces. The federal government cannot tell the provinces that this is something that they must do. 

[00:10:09] Ed: Yeah, it has to come from the provinces and we still need a federal champion though to encourage those provinces.

[00:10:14] Ed: And when you talked about Western Canada, we've got, it's interesting because you have these hydro rich provinces in Manitoba and British Columbia and these provinces that have federal phase out the thermal production or phasing it out. And yet there are different political stripes, you know, NDP governments and those two, and then, uh, right of center governments in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

[00:10:32] Ed: Um, Sarah, you, you recently hosted in Banff a big electricity camp and you had electricity geeks and nerds and, uh, specialists from all over the country attending. What, what are your thoughts? And you can comment specifically on transmission in your ties or just generally in response to what the minister said, 

[00:10:49] Sara: Sure.

[00:10:49] Sara: Well, I mean, I'll, I'll talk maybe about transmission because it was definitely woven throughout the conference in a few different places. One, you know, we certainly heard about the challenges in the U. S. as well that really arise from kind of the fiefdoms and the, uh, in that case, um, Ari Pesco at Harvard talked about kind of the unwillingness, basically, of utilities to give up control over the regions that they are controlling and therefore, uh, For you know, transmission line sort of leads to that.

[00:11:14] Sara: Of course, the States is a slightly different situation in that they have a longer history because of the, uh, interprovincial sort of commerce on those transmission lines. They have a longer history of getting involved in the transmission system down there. But I do think that there is, you know, this idea of kind of how much the federal government can push versus what the provinces can do.

[00:11:35] Sara: There's an interesting space, I think, maybe in the middle a little bit of, you know, obviously you can't force provinces to do things that they don't want to do, but when it comes to building sort of infrastructure, you know, how much of that is really needs to be completely asked for by the provinces versus the federal government, you know, can bring that infrastructure and provinces can kind of do what they want with them, right?

[00:11:55] Sara: And Andrew Leach, among others, have sort of made that point of, you know, you could do. Yeah. Build this and say, whoever, whoever wants to use it can, can use it. I understand, obviously, politically there's, there's challenges with that. You know, when I look at cases and I mean, in Texas, you're talking about within a specific region, but there, a lot of the ability and advances they had in integrating more renewables came because they basically just built transmission lines where they knew they needed to be.

[00:12:17] Sara: And then generation came. And then also the other thing I'll just mention. Was, uh, we heard from a First Nations chief that has recently signed a, a deal with Hydro Quebec, um, for joint ownership of the transmission line that will pass through their territory, Grand Chief Skydeer. And that was really, I think, a very important part of the conversation and really a message that she had that I think was really interesting was that it's not just about First Nations participation, but really leadership in these projects, right?

[00:12:42] Sara: And that is kind of core to that economic reconciliation piece. So I think there is a lot of opportunity. I think people are talking about transmission lines a lot more than, you know, at least I remember in, in recent years, but I think we need a bit of a final push to kind of get over the hump there.

[00:12:56] Ed: Yeah, David, I mean, here, we've been talking about East West ties or Canadian regional ties, but when you're talking about Western Canada, the region includes the Western United States as well. And I know you've talked a lot about the importance of North South ties too. 

[00:13:09] David: Yeah. I mean, Minister Wilkinson already said it exactly right.

[00:13:12] David: We have this unusual hydro batteries in Canada, compared to the size of our economy, perhaps the most in any large developed economy. And as North America decarbonizes, those ought to be worth money. And I think the question is, what actual role can the federal government play in making that real? So thinking back to just Alberta, BC, I get why there's some kind of resistance in Alberta to the idea that if there was a big tie, of course, the British Columbians would want to buy low and sell high.

[00:13:39] David: That's, that's what arbitrage is. But the point is arbitrage works, markets work, and doing that would actually from kind of econ 101. would actually improve the net welfare on both sides and it'd be good for both fundamentally you have a hydro battery just as minister Wilkinson said right beside a place with really good wind and solar resource.

[00:13:58] David: So the question is how specifically for the kind of federal government do it? So you said Mr. Brooks completely correctly. You can't force it, but you can do specific things. I'd like to hear a little bit more. I mean, after all the government did support building a pipeline, which helps oil to move from, from, uh, here to BC.

[00:14:17] David: I'm in Alberta today. Uh, why can we not build, help have federal money, help build a electron pipeline? Obviously electrons don't really move that helps power move back and forth between the two. 

[00:14:28] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: There's a basis to that comment, but there's a limit to the, to the analogy, which is, uh, the electrons actually have to fit in some measure once they are transported into the existing grid.

[00:14:39] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And the grid is owned by the provinces. So there needs to be a conversation with the provinces about how this is actually going to work, but. I would point back to the work that we did on the Atlantic Loop, where we actually brought a number of different financial resources to the table, including the Canada Infrastructure Bank and a range of other things in a package that actually paid for a significant chunk of the transmission that would have been required on the Atlantic Loop.

[00:15:05] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: The provinces obviously would have to contribute as well. But that could, could be a model for how we could do that in other parts of the country, which is bringing a number of different tools, including the investment tax credits, but including a number of other things to support the work that needs to be done.

[00:15:19] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: But in the case of Alberta and British Columbia, we obviously would need British Columbia and, and, uh, and Alberta at the table saying, yes, this is something we are interested in doing. And as I said, in my comments, my conversations recently with Premier Smith, um, have been quite positive in that regard.

[00:15:35] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And so I do think that there is an opportunity here. 

[00:15:38] David: Can the federal government help in, in encouraging a structured market? I mean, you know, again, econ one on one says if, if there really is a public benefit there anyway, government shouldn't need to put money in. Government should help to clarify or structure the market that enables private investment to flow to the opportunity.

[00:15:55] David: So are there rules? I mean, I'm not saying the federal government should take over electricity markets, certainly not, but federal governments have ways that it could encourage more efficient markets between the two or transparent. 

[00:16:05] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Yeah, I mean, I think there certainly are things you could do. You do have to remember, though, and you would be well aware of this, David, that there isn't really a private market in British Columbia, for example.

[00:16:15] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: It is a public utility with public transmission. So that utility has to be part of the conversation because they own pretty much all of it. 

[00:16:22] Ed: And Minister, so it was, I think, at the beginning of this week, I got, um, an email from your government saying that the CCUS, the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Investment Tax Credit is, is finally live.

[00:16:36] Ed: And I think there's some of the, those clean energy or clean electricity ITCs that have gone live too, meaning past Royal Ascent and now, you know, uh, proponents can actually tap into them. I first had a conversation around, uh, tax credit for carbon capture, including direct air capture. with your predecessor, Seamus O'Regan, in February 2020.

[00:16:56] Ed: So here we are and now we're at late June 2024. It just seems like it's taken a really long time and at a time when we actually want to move pretty quickly. Why is it taking so long and there are things, are there things you can do to help speed things up? 

[00:17:11] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: So I mean the particular issue that you raise, um, may not be necessarily transferable to all, uh, to all of the other issues.

[00:17:20] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: The tax credit, when you were talking to Seamus about it, I mean, Canada didn't have any tax credits that were like this. It was a very novel idea for the Department of Finance that we would go down the pathway of either a production tax credit or investment tax credit. The Americans are quite good at that.

[00:17:36] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Comfortable with that, but that's not the way we've done it in Canada. We've typically done it through funding pots like the speedy innovation fund and convincing not the minister, but the department of finance, that this was a good idea, um, certainly took some time and I will tell you, Michael Xavier, who's now the head of, uh, hydro tech was very important in that conversation.

[00:17:53] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Once we made that decision, um, which was in budget 2023, we've been in the process of actually putting these into place. I would tell you future tax credits will take less time, I think, because we are now a lot more familiar with how to actually put these, um, down. But they do have an impact, like the CCUS tax credit was actually got royal assent just very recently at a I'm sure you saw the announcement by Adco and Shell yesterday, which is a CCUS project in Alberta.

[00:18:18] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Um, more generally, yes, we need to move faster and government needs to move at a pace that it has not necessarily been moving, uh, before. That is also true of the provinces and certainly true of the regulators. I remember having a conversation with one of Canada's big mining companies. They wanted to elect a new governor.

[00:18:34] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: By all of their heavy duty vehicles at their minds, um, in British Columbia. And they went to BC hydro and they asked about how to actually pull transmission down to give them the power that they would need. And they were told it was at least eight years. Well, that can't be true. Like we have to be able to move at a pace.

[00:18:49] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: is faster. We are certainly looking at that internally. You probably saw the announcement from us a couple weeks ago on regulatory permitting issues, which is all about making those systems more efficient. But we also internally in our own processes have to move at the speed that the transition and the climate change demands.

[00:19:05] Ed: Fair enough. Now I'm just declaring to everyone who's listening in and to my, my, uh, to David, Sarah and you, Minister, I'm going to be the turd in the punch bowl during this webinar. I'm going to move us through quicker than we would normally like to go because these are rich topics, but I will do that unabashedly.

[00:19:20] Ed: So I'm going to move us to the next topic, what we're calling the industrial decarbonization problem and what we mean by that. And it might be now, so it's less of a problem and congrats on those, those capture project announcements that came out this past week. It's, that's huge. But over the past eight and a half years, The federal government has created, and I won't claim which, which bureaucrat coined this term, but has created a teetering stack of policy regulatory pancakes.

[00:19:46] Ed: And from OBPS, clean fuel regs, clean electricity regs, what you're doing on methane, oil and gas emissions cap, all those ITCs we talked about, even, uh, carbon contract for difference, uh, differences through the Canada Growth Fund. So there's a lot there and industry, and I would say with, you know, Oil and gas sort of at the head of that parade has really complained about overlap, complexity, and inefficiency.

[00:20:11] Ed: And as I say, you know, today's, this week's announcement is notwithstanding. So far, we haven't seen the big industrial decarbonization announcements coming out on the scale that I know you and your cabinet colleagues and your deputies and other bureaucrats have hoped for like two to three pancakes ago.

[00:20:29] Ed: And, you know, the latest pancake says being the CCFD policy, which we covered last season, and that's whether it's for first of a kind projects or, or, or for proven technology, like a lot, like a mean based capture. And we've heard your bureaucrats are trying to figure out why, and they're trying to solve for that problem and they don't want to push the stack over.

[00:20:47] Ed: And start again. So what do you tell your bureaucrats when they ask you that very question? Why isn't the industrial decarbonization money moving? 

[00:20:56] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Well, I guess I would challenge a bit of what you just said in your question. So I think it is moving, um, and it's moving in different sectors, perhaps at different Paces.

[00:21:06] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: If you actually look at heavy duty industrial emissions or heavy industrial emissions, absent the oil and gas sector, they are actually down and you see progress steel where they're moving towards electric arc furnaces in aluminum, where they're looking at green aluminum kind of opportunities through technologies like elicits.

[00:21:22] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: You saw the phase of cool, which actually in Alberta has happened now. Um, fully you've seen significant reductions in methane associated with the regulatory processes that have been put into place. I doubt that industry actually complains very much about the multitude of carrots that are actually out there.

[00:21:37] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: It's typically more on the sticks, on the regulatory side. And the sector where we haven't seen the progress that we actually are going to need to see going forward, honestly, is the oil and gas sector. That is the one sector, one of the only sectors in the economy where emissions are going up, not down.

[00:21:52] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: That is largely because production is going up, not down. And so we need to see progress with respect to, to those things. And so we have put in place an industrial carbon price. We have put in place the investment tax credits, the carbon contracts for differences, but we need to ensure that there is sufficient motivation or requirements for the sector to be participating in reducing their emissions.

[00:22:13] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And that's why the 75 percent methane reduction regulation is going to be very important. And that's why the cap on oil and gas emissions is very important. And I would just say with respect to the capital and gas emissions, the level that we are asking the industry to achieve is what the industry has told us they can't.

[00:22:31] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Um, at the end of the day, we do need to see movement forward in transportation, where the car companies will also tell you it's too fast. We do need to see movement that is in line with what science tells us we actually need to do. We need to be thoughtful about how we do it. We need to support the industry in terms of doing it.

[00:22:48] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: But I will tell you, Michelle's announcement yesterday should be a big wake up call for others. Like Michelle was saying, the economics work. 

[00:22:55] Ed: Um, Sarah. So I remember you were a part of a Canadian Climate Institute panel. Where the minister and his colleague Minister Guilbeau spoke last November, I think it was, tackling this very topic with Dan Wicklum, the Transition Exceller, Chris Stevenson Baker of the Pemin Institute, and Mark Cameron of the Pathways Alliance, whom we know.

[00:23:14] Ed: What is your take on the problem, Sarah? And you can comment specifically, if you want, about the oil and gas cap. 

[00:23:21] Sara: I guess I'll start briefly with that, which is, I mean, I think just as the minister said, you know, this is sort of testing the, the sincerity of the claims and, and commitments of the oil companies.

[00:23:32] Sara: If they're, you know, if we don't see a lot of CCS deployed with this level of support, then I think it's also reasonable to, you know, come to the conclusion that the companies themselves just don't see a business case for it. The comment that you made about the tax credits being sort of a new approach for Canada.

[00:23:47] Sara: is interesting and I think it's a good step in the right direction, right? Like I think I've been critical historically of Canada's approach to, you know, so called industrial policy where they're compared with the U. S. because that's always comparative to there, but there's a much more sort of hand picking of, you know, These are the plants that we want, or these are the projects that we want to have happen.

[00:24:06] Sara: And of course, a tax credit that anybody can access, it looks very different from that. And that's important, I think, both because, you know, you find and you create a lot of opportunities for investment to come in. But it also, Puts you sort of one step away from the risk of industry capturing some of these funds to do the things that are sort of in their nearest term interest, right?

[00:24:26] Sara: And I think that is, you know, if you compare again, the, the U S IRA and, and sort of where and into what that money has flown versus Canada. What's sort of interesting is that I think that we have a real challenge in terms of like in Alberta, a lot of what we talk about as this future decarbonized industry is the decarbonized oil and gas sector.

[00:24:46] Sara: And we're not seeing the same kind of investments in the province like you see in, you know, red states in the US that are getting, you know, battery plants or solar plants or other kinds of things. And I mean, obviously the parallels are, are strained. And I know that historically we're not, you know, the same kind of manufacturing province here in Alberta.

[00:25:04] Sara: But I think that is come somewhat because of this like strong sort of incumbent industry direction over those funds. And so policies that, that remove that a bit and fundamentally also, I mean, it requires a very competent, strong public service, right. And that kind of investment that the U S has made doesn't talk about, but, you know, actually has this huge, uh, industrial state that, that I would argue we don't have here in Canada.

[00:25:29] Sara: So what do all those points come together to mean? I think it's. Having that tax credit is actually a big step towards future progress. But I would argue we actually need to do more to sort of bring, uh, opportunities for other kinds of industries to come into places like Alberta and not just be thinking about decarbonization of the oil and gas sector as the, as the future opportunity.

[00:25:50] Ed: So let's talk topic three, affordability, and more importantly, affordability blowback. So it seems like there is growing resistance, and especially to the visible costs of decarbonization. Even though we know that there are costs, an awful larger cost of not doing anything on decarbonization, but I look at your home province as one example, Minister, so the B.

[00:26:10] Ed: C. Conservative Party's leader, John Rustad, is, you know, shooting up the polls, and he's questioning whether or not Not the science of climate change, at least as explicitly, but whether or not we can afford to invest in climate change mitigation. And as they say, he's rocketing up the polls. And we, those of us here in Alberta, saw even progressive Alberta NDP leadership candidates, you know, most of them disavowed themselves of their previous government's consumer carbon tax.

[00:26:36] Ed: We're seeing other examples like that around the world. So, what do we need to do here in Canada? To try to avoid the kind of politicization, if it is avoidable, of, or, of, or, or avoid, uh, climate just falling into like this partisan divide. 

[00:26:52] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: We need to perhaps de emphasize the part of the conversation where it's just talking about reducing your greenhouse gas emissions, your CO2 emissions.

[00:27:02] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And talk a little bit more, well, significantly more about how this can help. You as a consumer, as a business, uh, from an affordability perspective, but also how this conversation is about opportunity. When we talk about making investments through the green buildings program, for example, in the context of helping to green the building sector in this country, we have historically talked about that in terms of reducing CO2 emissions.

[00:27:27] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: But for most folks who are actually making these kinds of retrofits, it actually produces their energy bills. So that's kind of what people are actually most concerned about these days in affordability challenges that exist. Um, so I think governments have to reframe that conversation into a conversation about how affordability can actually be driven by climate action.

[00:27:46] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: I would also say we need to talk far more about opportunity. I often say to folks, like, there's a chunk of people, maybe 20 25 percent of people in this country that are motivated by their fear about the impact of climate change. Often community organizations, young people, etc. There are 10 15 percent people in this country who actually don't believe climate change is real or they, uh, they don't think it's very important.

[00:28:08] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: But most people actually are in the middle where they actually think it's important. Government should do something about it. But they want to know they're going to have a job tomorrow. They want to know their kids are going to have a job two years from now, that their standard of living is not going to be significantly different from what it is today.

[00:28:23] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And that's a conversation about opportunity. And the best example of this in this country is the government in Ontario, Premier Ford's government, which is when they came to power, I'm not sure anybody would describe them as climate champions. Bye. Over time, what they have realized is for the Ontario economy, they actually need to double down on figuring out how to be relevant in the context of the climate conversation because they need the electric vehicle manufacturing plants and the battery plants, and they've got critical minerals, and they're interested in hydrogen, and they're interested in nuclear technology, not only in Ontario, but exporting it around the world.

[00:28:59] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: You need to talk to people about the opportunity set. And I think. That can bring folks, different political stripes together better than simply talking about. David, you're looking pensive. 

[00:29:10] David: Man, this is a hard one. So of course, it makes sense to talk about opportunities. I agree. And finding ways to somehow link or flip the concerns about affordability to climate action.

[00:29:22] David: I'd love it if that could happen. But stepping back from that, I'm also worried about building distrust among the public in what elites think on this. I think that a bottom line, simple fact is that cutting emissions, certainly cutting emissions, the kind of pace we're talking about will cost money. And if politicians, I'm not trying to single you out, but if politicians and experts run around too much telling people that it's all win win, people hear that, but they know it costs money.

[00:29:50] David: And then they just know that people can't be real. There's a way that they just sort of build distrust in the system. So I guess I wonder, do you, do you worry about that as well? And how to, Find ways to message that actually highlight the genuine places where there really are some synergies, but without falling into the trap of just saying, essentially, it's all easy.

[00:30:10] David: It's all win wins. Of course, you're not saying that directly, but if that's what you mostly message and people know it actually costs a lot of money, then there's a disconnect and people sense those disconnects. 

[00:30:19] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Yeah, I think that's true. Although I, you know, you and I may disagree a little bit on how broad the synergies are.

[00:30:24] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: I think they're broader than a lot of people think there. There certainly are areas where investments are going to be required. And in absent those kinds of investments, the cost actually will trickle down. The electricity grid is a good example of that. And that's where governments need to step in and try to ensure that they are addressing those, those real ability concerns.

[00:30:42] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And often that's going to have to be on the backs of the taxpayer, not on the back of the ratepayer. So, so there are some of those areas and governments are going to need to be proactive in terms of doing that. But the alternative to that obviously is very challenging and it's very challenging, not just from an environmental perspective.

[00:30:56] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: It's going to be very challenging from an economic perspective, um, because at the end of the day, countries and provinces and territories that make the decision that they're not going to participate in this conversation and that's where we're going to fall behind. And I, I often say to people, it's not just fall behind the United States, who is acting the Europeans that are acting the Japanese that are acting.

[00:31:16] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: It's actually looking at folks like China, who are our, Direct competitors like China is now the number one developer and employer of renewable energy technologies, the number one manufacturer and employer of electric vehicle technology. It controls most of the critical mineral value chains around the world.

[00:31:32] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: That doesn't happen by chance. That is a very strategic bet on the energy transition to ensure that it is going to be a major player on a go forward basis in areas that are going to create jobs and economic opportunity. And Canada needs to Participate. And that's part of the argument. And that's part of the conversation we need to be having generally across across the board.

[00:31:52] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And that's an argument that I actually think can convince conservatives as much as it can liberals or democrats 

[00:31:58] David: agreed, although there are obvious risks there. None of this is easy. And the risk is that that inevitably heads down the road to increasing protectionism. And if you believe that free markets really promote growth, you've got to face the consequences of that protectionism.

[00:32:13] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: The geopolitics that we are facing in this world are not, um, completely free trade politics. You can bemoan that from an economic perspective, but that's just the reality of this multipolar world that we have entered. 

[00:32:27] Sara: You know, I think I agree a lot with you. And I mean, we even heard very early on in the season from Professor Melanie Thompson.

[00:32:33] Sara: Thomas that, um, the, like when you pull Albertans, the ones that are most open to change are the ones that believe that the future in oil and gas is really more questionable, right? And totally independent of what their own jobs are. And so whether it's about, you know, what the future demand or prices are of oil and gas or how fast China is moving.

[00:32:53] Sara: Those feel like really important sort of facts or at least general different scenarios that we need to agree on. And yet that's the part, Demi, that also seems like there's a real lack of sort of willingness to even consider those, those future scenarios. So as you're thinking about, you know, talking to kind of Canadians across the country and maybe Especially those in places like Alberta, you know, is that message getting across or, or who does that messenger need to be?

[00:33:17] Sara: Is there, it feels like there's a lot of pushback of, you know, we could just go back to how things were, you know, 10 years ago, if all this Canada climate action went away and, you know, life would be good. 

[00:33:27] Ed: And if I could piggyback on to that question, you know, let's face it, the cost of decarbonization in the oil and gas sector in particular is expensive and it's hard to get around it.

[00:33:36] Ed: And that's to your earlier comments around industrial decarbonization. That's partly why we haven't seen the same progress in the oil and gas sector as we're seeing in, say, cement or steel or chemicals. 

[00:33:49] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Well, I guess a couple of things. I mean, one on the cost of decarbonization and the other on the opportunity set.

[00:33:54] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: So on the cost of decarbonization, I agree with you in part. Some parts of the decarbonization and gas sector are expensive. Some are not. Methane, for example, the methane reductions are actually cheap. Even when you get up to the 75%, they're not that expensive. And that's a big chunk of the emissions in the oil and gas sector.

[00:34:10] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Um, certainly CCUS, much, much more expensive. There's no question about that. And so you've got to kind of segment it. But I would say that there are enormous opportunities. And I do speak, every time I go to Alberta, I talk about this. There is a massive opportunity for low carbon hydrogen. The Japanese are begging us to ship them hydrogen that is produced through the reformation of natural gas.

[00:34:30] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Capture the carbon and use sequestered biggest issue. There is how do you transport it? And we are in the process of working through that, but that's, that's a long term future for natural gas from Alberta in a low carbon net zero world. The same thing is true with things like petrochemicals, like Dow just invested 12 billion in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta in the world's first net zero petrochemical facility, where they're actually using hydrogen to generate their electricity because they can't use the electricity off the grid.

[00:34:58] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: The future for oil is not as robust for sure, as you start to actually have the deployment of more and more zero emission transportation, but there is about a third, almost a third of the oil market that's used for non combustion applications like, you know, solvents and petrochemicals and building materials like carbon graphite and a whole range of things, if you can actually get production emissions to zero.

[00:35:20] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: So there are opportunities in Alberta. There's also new opportunities around things like critical minerals and critical minerals processing, which are manufacturing jobs. Like there are opportunities. You've got to be able to have that conversation, but I actually say even in Alberta with a government that doesn't always see eye to eye with the federal government at the present time, those are some of the opportunities that Premier Smith increasingly is talking about.

[00:35:44] David: Oh, and I just quickly jump in with some skepticism about large scale hydrogen exports. I mean, you said you're working on the transportation side. But I don't know, I've been in this energy analysis game for 30 years or so. There's sort of basic facts about why hydrate is hard to move as a fuel that are fundamental physics.

[00:36:00] David: There's been actually remarkably little change in 30 or 40 years. We know why hydrate is inherently hard for pipeline and ship transport, and I don't see it changing. And we know the roundtrip efficiency issues. So I don't know. I think I get why it politically feels just great to imagine that Alberta can magically decarbonize its natural gas and send hydrogen overseas.

[00:36:20] David: I think, A, it's extraordinarily unlikely that hydrogen will move long distances as an energy carrier. That's very different from being used locally to make things like steel or ammonia. And B, I think, Even if you built that infrastructure and the market really began, and to be clear, the market isn't there yet.

[00:36:35] David: People aren't actually paying real money in any substantial form. I think that solar hydrogen would likely rush the Alberta thing kind of a decade or two later, and then you would have built something that didn't last. 

[00:36:46] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Well, I just want to respond to that day. And David, you and I've had this conversation perhaps before, but I used to run a hydrogen company.

[00:36:53] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: It's an area that I actually know pretty well. And, and I spent a lot of time on the hydrogen conversation, not only with Canadians, But also good countries around the world. And I would just definitely disagree with you that some elements, there are some actual customers, um, that you probably will hear about in the coming days or, or in the coming months.

[00:37:10] Ed: Great. We're always open to being proven wrong. And I am going to move us to the next question. We're going to try to keep it short and then open up to audience Q and a. This has, and I don't want to use the trite word legacy, um, let's say policy resilience because, you know, this week, let's be frank, Minister, it's, it's been a bad week for your government with the, the by election results in Toronto, St.

[00:37:33] Ed: Paul, and the Conservative Party of Canada has been pretty open about wanting to roll back a bunch of what your government has put in place. And in fact, David Starr and I just heard last week from a couple insiders who remain nameless about the rollback script. They say it's been written. Were Pierre Poliev and the Conservative Party of Canada to win the next election, whenever that might be, the latest October 2025, they're going to get rid of the clean fuel regs, retail carbon tax, the oil and gas emissions cap, they'll replace the clean electricity regs, something more flexible, they'll reduce the stringency of the output based pricing system, but keep it intact, soften methane regs, etc, etc.

[00:38:12] Ed: It's going to be a year of shock and awe. And that would be a huge blow to your government's climate legacy. What can you and your government do to try to lock things down in the next year and a bit? 

[00:38:25] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: There are a few things, but, but I would also say we live in a democratic, um, country and, and, uh, and governments that are duly elected by the Canadian public have the ability to make Policy choices.

[00:38:36] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: I would say that increasingly, I think market forces are actually going to continue the momentum in terms of a lot of the things that that we have been working on, and I think that even the investment community in terms of where they're actually going to allocate capital are going to put pressure on on companies to continue the work irrespective of what governments say must be done from a regulatory perspective.

[00:38:58] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: I think many of the pieces that we put into place increasingly probably will survive. I think the investment tax credits, I think industrial pricing, I think a range of those kinds of things will survive in part because there are premiers like Premier Houston, who's a Conservative, or Premier Smith, who are supportive of those kinds of things.

[00:39:14] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: I think there's a broad consensus. I would say there are some pieces of legislation, um, that, that are forcing functions. So the Net Zero Accountability Act, the, uh, the Sustainable Jobs Act, both of which require, action plans every five years telling Canadians exactly how they're going to do it. Now you can get rid of legislation, but that's a very public thing to do, to actually cancel an existing law, and I think that will be a bit of a forcing function.

[00:39:39] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: But I would say ultimately to Canadians, this is going to be a choice that they're going to have to make at the ballot box. Like, ultimately, there are a number of issues on which people will make their, uh, their decisions with respect to who they vote for. For those who actually care about the climate issue, at the present time, they have the choice between somebody who actually effectively has a climate plan, which is just let the planet burn, and an economic plan, which is just pump oil and gas, or a government that has actually invested enormous amounts of time, energy, and financial resources in ensuring that Canada is actually taking the steps to do the things that science simply tells us we must do.

[00:40:17] Sara: Yeah, I think that You know, often when we see new governments coming in, the new policies sort of, it's more about change going forwards, right? I think a lot of the things that previous policies have enabled will and can continue. When I think about something like, you know, renewable growth in Alberta, the challenge is that you don't get the next tranche that we obviously need because, you know, while we're on a better track, we're not.

[00:40:37] Sara: We're not kind of where we need to be and where we need to go. And, and certainly I will be looking in the, you know, run up to any election for a real debate and understanding of what the climate plans are from different sides. Right. And I think that that is really critical that, you know, we have an honest conversation about how, you know, what, what is a real plan.

[00:40:55] Sara: And I think the good thing is that, you know, we're now at a point where. There are maybe questions around the edges, but like we have a pretty good understanding of what needs to be in a climate plan and what if it's missing is, you know, is not enough there too. So in that sense, I think we're better off than, you know, we were 10 or 20 years ago where there was a lot of debate more around what kinds of things need to happen.

[00:41:16] Sara: So in an honest conversation, I think it's possible to, you know, be more clear on, is this at least a real thing? 

[00:41:23] David: I can't help but worrying about, about messaging that kind of projects a kind of overconfidence that in fact is part of the cause of some of the political populist blowback we've seen. So you said science tells us what to do and I, but of course science can't determine targets.

[00:41:39] David: These are inherently political trade offs between the distant future and the now, um, science needs to and should inform what we do, but these are the choices about how fast the kind of missions are. fundamentally and ought to be political. And I think there's maybe a way in which there's been a little too much messaging that, you know, just do what science says.

[00:42:01] David: And this kind of win win messaging that I think is actually helped to generate or fuel is maybe a fair word, some of the populist blowback, because it kind of dodges the core conversations that you actually, we need to have about how fast to move and what the trade offs are. 

[00:42:17] Ed: Yeah, I'm actually, I'm going to get to a listener question that we received in advance because it, it gets to how governments make their political decisions around climate change and develop their platforms.

[00:42:28] Ed: So this comes from Chris Barrington, uh, and this is for you, Minister. How far into the future do federal energy or climate scenarios go? And then, you know, how are they used? Do they use, uh, do you use a range of narrative trajectories? And additional context, as I understand it, the DOE or NREL, the Department of Energy, or National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US, at least until very recently, had no really optimistic scenario for renewable, uh, electricity penetration in any of their electrical grid simulations.

[00:42:58] Ed: I don't think that's the case in Canada, but yeah, stepping back, tell us about how you and your officials use climate or energy scenarios. 

[00:43:07] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Well, I mean, probably the best example. I mean, yes, we do. Um, probably embedding it fully is something that's only we've been doing relatively recently. So the Canadian energy regulator, for example, released a number of net zero scenarios last year.

[00:43:24] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: which essentially look at both the projections externally in terms of where they actually see demand for, uh, for things like oil and gas, but also model, um, how this, this translates in terms of where we're going in Canada. And there are a number of different scenarios to try to actually model different sensitivities.

[00:43:41] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: In terms of climate related planning, it's on a rolling kind of five year basis where you look at, uh, What are you trying to actually focus on and accomplish? We have a 2030 target right now. Um, it now will become a 2035 target within the next couple of years. And we will need to have a plan that shows how we're actually going to achieve.

[00:44:02] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: the number in 2035 with the objective being of getting to net zero by 2050. So, uh, yes, there's a lot of work that gets done in there. No, it's not never perfect because it's all projections and modeling about the future. And, uh, and as David, uh, has, has said a couple of times, part of that depends on the choices that you make.

[00:44:21] Ed: Okay. We got a meaty question next from a listener. So, Lynn, go ahead, and you can ask your question to the minister. 

[00:44:29] Listener Lynn Oliphant: First of all, Jonathan, I'd really like to say that I really appreciate having a minister that's knowledgeable in depth, as you are, in terms of the ministry they handle. It's wonderful to have that.

[00:44:43] Listener Lynn Oliphant: My question is, given The complexity of the climate crisis, and it's intertwining with many other environmental crises that we face. Can we solve these in a way that doesn't involve reducing the scale of the human enterprise? We've got 8 billion people and counting, uh, on the planet, and, uh, with many of them, billions of them, uh, living at a fairly low standard of living and wanting to increase their standard of living, is it possible to actually do this without addressing the scale Of our resource usage and energy usage.

[00:45:24] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: The answer may be a little bit different depending on the environmental issue that you were talking about. I do believe that, uh, and David probably will disagree with me here, but I do believe that you can address. Climate issue in a manner that doesn't significantly affect global GDP, but it may have different impacts in different parts of the world.

[00:45:44] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: I actually think in some respects, the prize of renewable energy is actually an enormous opportunity for many developing countries to actually build out infrastructure that can enable development in a way that they haven't been able because they don't have to have the infrastructure. This is far more distributed.

[00:45:59] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: In Canada, I actually think there are enormous opportunities. There are some opportunities that will be smaller, and there are some that will be massively bigger, um, like critical minerals, like nuclear power. I, I probably am a little bit more pensive about the biodiversity crisis, which is the second great environmental challenge that we face in this country and around the world, which is, you know, We simply are going to have to allocate more space if we want to stop the decline of biodiversity, more space to effectively wilderness that is almost, you know, fully off limits from, from industrial development.

[00:46:34] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: You know, if you think about things like caribou in this country, they need undisturbed habitat. And if you are going to actually stop the decline in caribou, it requires set asides that actually are not going to be used going forward. And so that is true in. Virtually every country around the world and stopping the decline in biodiversity, which obviously is linked to climate change, but is not solely about climate change, um, is something that is going to require us to think differently about which areas we use for what purposes.

[00:47:01] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: The last thing I would say is, from a resource utilization perspective, we, we, given where we're at in terms of global population and everything else, we are going to have to It's far more find ways to be more circular about the utilization of resources. Like we can't just be throwing things away anymore.

[00:47:17] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: We are going to have to be far more cognizant of how we take things back that we see as waste right now and turn them back into useful products. 

[00:47:26] Ed: That really, I mean, that can be solved through political decisions. If you go to Japan, I mean in mid Tongan, Japan, in the context of hydrogen, you know, it is far more circular and that's as a result of legislation from the early seventies.

[00:47:39] Ed: Yeah. Thanks. You know, you want to get rid of your vacuum cleaner, you need to get a permit to get rid of that vacuum cleaner, put it out in front of your, your house, and then it goes back to the manufacturer, uh, who is required to reuse as many of those parts as possible. And yet it seems we don't have anything like that imperative here in Canada with all the space that we have, and i.

[00:47:56] Ed: e. the landfill space. That's all right. I jumped in. I know, Sarah, you want to jump in, too. 

[00:48:00] Sara: No, that's okay. I just wanted to add one other sort of observation that is probably really hard to say from a political sense, but I'm not a politician, so I'll say it. When it comes to GDP, and especially in a country like Canada, uh, you know, there is certainly a portion of the population for whom I don't think we need to see more consumption, right?

[00:48:15] Sara: And people might be, might even be happier with less consumption. Consumption, right? We look at metrics like things like fast fashion and the degree to which consumption of clothing, for example, has, has increased really dramatically in the past decade or so. So I think this is also honestly part of thinking about a, you know, sustainable future is understanding when we've reached sort of consumption saturation for, you know, those of us lucky enough to be in the portion of the population who have all of our basic needs met as well, too.

[00:48:44] Sara: I 

[00:48:44] David: mean, historically, there's no question we can do decoupling because we have seen big economic growth while we have reduced the absolute amount of many pollutants, lead and metals and air pollution. So there's no question that we can do it for climate. The question is how hard it is to do. And the question is what the actual trade offs are, not that it stops growth, but that it will slow growth is, is I think more and administer things less.

[00:49:05] Ed: I'm going to move us to the next question, and we touched upon it when we mentioned carbon contract for difference policy. So Mike Hill asks, or states, there's more comment, and then Minister, you can, you can comment on it in response. I think the elephant in the room when considering whether a project, and this is an industrial decarbonization project, will get to FID, final investment decision, is whether a new federal government would continue on the path to 170 a tonne of an industrial carbon tax.

[00:49:33] Ed: So that concern caused your government minister to come up with a CCFD mechanism. But frankly, uptake has been slow. You created the Canada Growth Fund. It's managed by PSP Investments. They're doing their best. But there have been relatively few of these signed. And it seems that there's a big need out there, and moreover, the pot of money you set aside, well, it's impressive, uh, 15 billion, I think, is for the growth fund.

[00:49:59] Ed: It's impressive, it's still a drop in the bucket if you consider just the viable capture projects in this country. How do you bridge that gap? 

[00:50:09] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Well, I would say, uh, I am, uh, perhaps a little more optimistic than the questioner. I think the Canada Growth Fund, in its initial, now that it's been established, has actually been looking to create a few models that can actually then Inform more template type approaches to, uh, to carbon contracts for difference.

[00:50:28] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Um, they announced another one, I think just yesterday in Ontario and, uh, and I think you probably will see more from them coming forward relatively soon in terms of, uh, the carbon contracts for difference. We have been very clear, actually, in the last budget, to the extent that they utilize the 15 billion.

[00:50:45] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: We will recapitalize to enable more work to be done on the CCFDs. I think you're going to see more and more of this, um, in terms of creating some level of certainty around the price. Um, and there are a number of different ways that the Canada Growth Fund can do it. But I do think you're going to actually see this accelerate.

[00:51:02] Ed: And Minister, so that 15 billion, just to pick on one point, Why did you require it to be Repaid to the government of Canada in the future and that seems like it's it's forced some real Conservatism that a pension fund is only too willing to do in its investment Because they are required to return that capital to a future government.

[00:51:21] Ed: I think it's 20 35 I can't remember the exact date as opposed to say 15 billion. Yeah, go out, make these projects happen. This is a good use of public money. 

[00:51:30] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Well, by and large, it's, it's, there are different tools for different purposes. Um, there certainly are tools that are actually just dispensing money.

[00:51:37] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: The investment tax credits are a good example of that, where you essentially just get it as, as cash, bulldozer cash. The CCFDs are meant to be a tool to help create some level of certainty. And we wanted to ensure. From a fiscal perspective, it actually worked, but we also wanted to ensure there was some level of discipline.

[00:51:54] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: So, um, so that was the decision, and I think it actually is working the way that we actually had hoped it would. David, 

[00:52:00] Ed: you had a question for the Minister about solar radiation management, and I want to make sure we fit it in. 

[00:52:06] David: Well, I was thrilled that Energy and Climate Change Canada's science strategy, the 2024 to 2029 strategy, actually explicitly says that the ministry should conduct scientific assessments on climate, altering technologies and their impacts and fund research.

[00:52:19] David: So I guess, especially for assessments, which I think are the most important thing in this, uh, you know, reasonably conflictual topic, any specific plans, understanding that you're not You know, Mr. Natural Resources, not climate change, but any specific actions you can point to that go towards actually implementing that recommendation.

[00:52:37] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: So as you correctly noted, I am no longer the minister of environment and climate change. So I have to be a little bit careful about what I say about what my colleague is actually going to or not going to do. But we certainly recognize that this is an area where, you know, the government needs to be aware of what's going on, needs to try to understand.

[00:52:54] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And model some of the potential impact as you and I have actually talked about some of these technologies in the past, not for a while, but we have talked about in the past, and certainly I am very keen on negative emissions technology, like the carbon engineering work that you have, uh, you know, you initiated the geoengineering stuff.

[00:53:10] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: I think we need to actually be thinking about, we need to be looking, we need to be modeling. I am still a bit nervous myself about intervening in some of these natural processes. processes in that direct way. Um, it may be that the real world gets to a point where we need to do more in terms of that. I certainly hope that's not true, but, but, uh, but we do need to be continuing to do the work and Environment Canada is, um, is certainly up to speed on that.

[00:53:34] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And I hope that they've been talking to you. 

[00:53:36] David: Well, I hope, I mean, to be clear, I absolutely agree. And I share your nervousness about doing it. I think that's not the question now. The question for your Ministry of Environment Canada and the Canadian government and future Canadian governments is triggering assessment processes that are trusted to begin to just put more information in the public domain that helps us make these decisions.

[00:53:55] Ed: Hey, Minister, we are short on time and we don't want to keep you too long, but I do want to squeeze in one more question if we can, and then we'll wrap. So Bill C 59 introduce key amendments to the competition act to address greenwashing and that actually caused the pathways alliance to suspend its advertising and if you notice when you watch game seven and you saw the feed they've got the cgi on the boards that pathways alliance it was still there but it used to have sort of a little blurb or a slogan about you know it's What is trying to do with decarbonization that was gone.

[00:54:31] Ed: I I'm trying to understand like the whole point of bill C 59. So you're here on the show. You tell us what's the point and is it working? 

[00:54:40] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: Well, I mean, the, the, the point is, is just as it is with, with other products is that, you know, people should be. Telling you, telling consumers the truth, um, that, that they should be, uh, not actively or intentionally misleading people about the claims that, uh, that they are making about their companies or about their products.

[00:54:59] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: And in that context, um, I think the, the issue that Pathways Organization and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have raised, they think there is a lack of clarity on what is, what is meant by an internationally recognized methodology for establishing this. So I would just say. The Competition Bureau will issue guidance on the provision after a period of public consultations.

[00:55:21] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: It's very common in terms of how this kind of thing works. There is no magic here. And so I would say I, I'm not sure if people are serious about what they are saying in terms of the claims that they are making, uh, why folks are upset. I just don't understand that people should tell the truth. Yeah. 

[00:55:41] Ed: Fair enough, Sarah.

[00:55:42] Sara: Yeah. I just observed there's similar sort of debates, uh, playing out in other places too, and in California, there's a lot of fight about, um, offsets in particular. And I mean, there you have sort of folks in the offset industry, as I understand that I'm a step move, but, you know, almost going so far as to say, if we have to like tell the truth about what these offsets are, there won't be a market for them.

[00:56:01] Sara: Um, so, you know, I think that's, uh, I don't know, you know, that this is I'm just commenting on the California situation, but, but I think it's a, you know, it's very important that coming back to kind of the point we were talking about before of, you know, can the population understand and, and really understand what a real climate plan is and what real climate claims are.

[00:56:20] Sara: I think that's really critical because, you know, otherwise it really, you know, Both, you know, leads to kind of people believing things that are true that are not true, but it also undermines real action that certain groups are taking as well, too. And I think that that's, um, that can be quite harmful. 

[00:56:35] Ed: I love that, Sarah.

[00:56:36] Ed: Like, if we can't tell the truth, we won't have a market. There's a forestry company I don't know that they 

[00:56:41] Sara: put it exactly like that, but, you know, essentially. 

[00:56:44] Ed: And I would point people to last weekend's Globe, the report on business. There's a great story about a forestry company and your province minister that, uh, yeah, had its knuckles wrapped around offsets that sold.

[00:56:56] Ed: On behalf of all three of us and our producer, We want to really thank you so much for taking time out of a very busy schedule to come spend this More than an hour with us and and give us the latest view from from auto on from your perch As minister of energy and natural resources. We're very grateful.

[00:57:15] Ed: Thank you very much I hope you will consider coming back at some point in the future. And it was a good enough experience to warrant that. 

[00:57:23] The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson: It was great. The only thing that I was disappointed about was I didn't realize my press secretary asked for me to be on here. I thought you asked me. So. 

[00:57:32] Ed: Sorry, Carolyn.

[00:57:34] Ed: I hope that wasn't a career limiting comment of mine. Yes. Yes. Yes. She's a fan minister and we hope you're a fan now too. All right. Thanks very much. Thanks for listening to energy versus climate. The show is created by David Keith. Sarah Heasing Simon and me, Ed Whittingham, and produced by Amit Tandon, with help from Crystal Hickey, Serena Gibson, and Talia Grinnell.

[00:57:58] Ed: Our title and show music is The Wind Up by Brian Lipps. This season of Energy vs. Climate is produced with support from the University of Calgary's Office of the Vice President, Research, and the University's Global Research Initiative. Further support comes from the Troche Family Foundation, the North Family Foundation, the Palmer Family Foundation.

[00:58:18] Ed: And our generous listeners sign up for updates and exclusive webinar access at energy versus climate. com and review and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. This helps new listeners to find the show. That's it for us for season five. We'll be back at the latest at the energy disruptors conference in Calgary on October 1st, with a special live taping of energy versus climate.

[00:58:42] Ed: See you there. And in the meantime, on behalf of David, Sarah, our producer Amit, have a great summer everyone.