The agreement was announced following the premiers’ annual summer conference, which was held this year in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
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The plan is so provincial and territorial governments will co-operate on any issues involving energy and lower the carbon footprint.
In advance of Friday’s agreement, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall made it known he was unhappy with the strategy’s drafts, which he said compromised the economic benefits provided by Alberta’s and Saskatchewan’s oil developments, in favour of environmental concerns.
But Wall says he was won over by a chapter of the strategy concerning the movement of oil across the country.
“But my point coming into this meeting, is what I would like – and not just from a document but from all of us as Canadians – is to reflect on the fact that we have this great resource”. We ought to use our own oil and add value it to it here and export it to countries other than the United States.
While Wall changed his tone on Friday after his more aggressive stance earlier in the week, he still defended the oil and gas industries as the meetings wrapped up. But while it had originally been meant to help expedite the approval of energy infrastructure developments that were of national interest and scope, the Canadian Energy Strategy being discussed this week at the sounds like a much different document.
The council’s national chairperson, Maude Barlow, noted the irony of Alberta experiencing one of the country’s largest pipeline spills while the strategy opened the way for tar sands pipelines such as Kinder Morgan and Energy East. “We are working with all of Canada’s premiers to finalize this strategy because we know that to power our economy and reduce emissions, we need a broad, long term, co-ordinated plan of action”.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has repeatedly attempted to gain legitimacy for her tough-on-oil initiatives, such as raising royalties and promoting more refining and upgrading in the province, by claiming she’s merely following on the footsteps of the province’s beloved late premier, Peter Lougheed.
“Oil and gas are not four letter words”, he said.
The Premiers, including Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, Newfoundland Premier Paul Davis and Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, added their names to a giant prescription form, prescribing federal leaders a healthy dose of phamacare. “Those follow from a solid framework that recognizes you have to have an integrated strategy”, and the talks over an energy strategy, including environmental principles, have been “increasingly a very valid framework” for energy policy, she said.
The “Canadian Energy Strategy” is the result of years of work by the premiers, as part of their ongoing project to set up the closest thing to an alternative national government they can put together.
“Our province, with Ontario and B.C., are particularly advanced on that”.
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“It’s almost like we have become embarrassed that we have this energy asset, and we ought not to be”, he told reporters on Thursday. One government official said nothing in the strategy will help build Energy East, Trans Mountain or any other pipeline project.
