Canada 2000 review

Canada's energy sector faces a number of specific policy challenges. Each of them is tackled in this report, which provides policy recommendations. The country's constitution limits federal government responsibilities in such a way that to reach national energy policy goals, a process of intensive dialogue and consultation between the federal government and the provinces is indispensable. Balancing the need to reduce emissions, while maintaining energy production and exports, as well as meeting consumption growth is the single biggest challenge for Canadian energy policy in the years ahead. Canada now has the potential to set and achieve more ambitious sectoral efficiency goals. The production of non-conventional oil from oil sands offers great potential, but its environmental impacts must be minimised. New production sources of natural gas will have to be found to sustain domestic demand and export growth. The federal government has a major role to play in encouraging co-ordination between federal, provincial and territorial governments and their counterparts in the US, to increase electricity supply security and benefit from competition. Canada's nuclear energy programme is at a critical point of its history with decisions pending on older plants that need refurbishment.