On July 16, 2026, the Pembina Institute assembled Alberta-based practitioners, each representing perspectives within the energy system, for a roundtable discussion with the Honourable Julie Dabrusin, Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Nature and Corey Hogan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. Participants included individual companies, industry associations, civil society and post-secondary institutions serving construction, banking, the utility sector, workforce development and Indigenous communities. With perspectives from across the energy system, from the use of energy in buildings, transportation systems and industry, to the interface with the electricity system through distribution and transmission, to utility scale generation including renewable energy and decarbonizing oil and gas, the roundtable discussion centred around implementing the Government of Canada's electrification strategy, growing energy efficiency, electrification, and Canada's electricity system for the benefit of all Canadians. The conversation focused on actions that accelerate adoption and build trust in technologies and systems.
Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy is core to our country’s clean energy pathway. It is also an affordability and climate strategy. The federal government has set in motion regulatory change and investment to advance the goal of doubling Canada’s supply of electricity. This discussion focused on advancing the two equally ambitious complementary goals of doubling energy productivity and doubling Canada’s final energy consumption supplied by electricity.
Alberta has an enormous opportunity to effectively partner with the Government of Canada and other provinces to advance buildings that are affordable to heat, cool and insure and a modernized electricity system that integrates the use, transportation and supply of energy that is affordable, reliable, resilient and safe.
Our Nine Big Takeaways
- Build Trust: Accelerating adoption of new technologies, operating practices and economic models requires trust in technologies and systems. Governments and industry must work together to clearly communicate the benefits and plans. From building retrofits to local energy resources and transmission towers to renewable energy, innovation brings change.
- Trust Starts at Home: Whole-building retrofits are the business case that makes electrification more affordable and achievable while delivering the resilience needed to protect Canadians from increasingly frequent and costly extreme weather events. Targeted program funding that addresses upfront costs and systemic barriers for small-to-medium business and single and multi-family residents, such as the Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative (DRAI), must be maintained.
- Energy Efficiency is the First Fuel: Support distribution utility system operators to implement demand-side management and efficiency measures, with a focus on ratepayer benefits. The role of the federal government includes facilitating national guidelines and providing stackable program funding that creates a seamless customer experience while funding project elements and hard-to-serve customers that do not meet utility requirements.
- Support Indigenous Leadership: Ensure flexible and consistent funding models for Indigenous focused programs and ensure that federal funds are available for operational support.
- Local Matters Too: Infrastructure investment in the provincial utility system is needed beyond interprovincial major projects, to transmission within provinces, distribution system modernization and electric vehicle charging. Utility system development needs to balance taxpayer and ratepayer responsibilities to maintain affordability while delivering on larger impacts, such as energy sovereignty and economic development.
- Execute for Ambition: The electrification strategy is a welcome directional vision, but there remains significant uncertainty on core planks, including the Clean Electricity Regulations and growth of demand electrification to meet a doubling of supply. In short, the government’s ambitions are positive but currently are far beyond the policies implemented or even in development to meet those ambitions.
- Share the Risk: Government funding is limited and deliberately targeted to stimulate demand and share risk. Conduct federal funding allocation audits to identify current gaps or overlaps in federal funding that could be directed to more useful and underfunded areas. For example, Canada Infrastructure Bank funding supports should prioritize projects that are not able to access commercial bank financing and allow for aggregation.
- Stable Pricing is Key: Ensure a stable carbon pricing framework that investors can bank on and that can provide for widespread investment in electrification and efficiency that delivers decarbonization.
- Enable Implementation Infrastructure: Supply chains that leverage Canadian advantages and workforce development that deliver quality, local jobs are essential to implementing Canada’s electrification strategy. Include investment in local supply chain and workforce development in each industrial strategy and major project.
