OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to announce the federal government’s long-delayed clean electricity strategy on Thursday, according to senior federal sources.
The strategy -- dubbed the National Electricity Agenda -- will lay out a plan to double Canada’s electricity grid capacity by 2050, sources say, amounting to the biggest buildout of the national grid in Canada’s history.
The plan promises to “keep energy reliable and affordable in the short-term as Canada shifts to cleaner fuels over time.”
It also promises to lower the total paid for energy in 70 per cent of households by 2050. And, it claims doubling the electricity grid will create nearly 30,000 new jobs by the end of 2028, and 100,000 more by 2050.
According to sources, the new plan will be guided by four pillars: building the infrastructure to double the capacity, connect the country’s grids through new and expanded transmission lines, hire staff to build the grid, and make more of the technologies and components needed to power that grid domestically.
The prime minister said in March that the new strategy was imminent, but the federal government has still not released it.
In a report by the Canadian Climate Institute last month, CCI chair Peter Nicholson wrote that research shows Canada will have to double or triple the size of its power grids if it’s to reach emission goals.
“That need will become increasingly urgent as more and more people switch to highly efficient, electric technologies -- like electric vehicles and heat pumps -- to shield themselves from energy price shocks as they get around their communities, heat their homes, or run their businesses,” the report states.
Thursday’s announcement comes as the federal government and Alberta are expected to announce an agreement on Friday on industrial carbon pricing, which is a critical piece of the puzzle in their memorandum of understanding to get a pipeline to the West Coast built.
Sources tell CTV News that agreement will likely include the idea of setting the $130-a-tonne price by 2040, as opposed to 2030.
The previous Liberal government also published a clean electricity strategy in 2024 -- which promised to reach a net-zero grid by 2050 -- shortly before former prime minister Justin Trudeau stepped down.
With files from CTV News’ Vassy Kapelos, Brennan MacDonald, Annie Bergeron-Oliver, and Mike Le Couteur
