Rethinking Lifestyle

The think tank, Clean Energy Canada, recently reported that Canada’s green energy sector now employs more people than the oil sands enterprise. It claims that 23,700 persons are now employed in the green energy industry compared to 22,340 whose work relates to the oil sands.

Merran Smith, director of Clean Energy Canada, says that “Clean energy has moved from being a small niche or boutique industry to really big business in Canada.” This is a reflection of what is happening in many other places around the world where 6.5 million persons are involved in the clean-energy sector.

Some of this development in Canada has been accelerated by supportive energy policies in provinces like British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. But Smith wishes for more. “Every major industrial sector in Canada – from the aerospace industry to the oil sands – has gotten off the ground with support from the federal government. But in the clean-energy sector, the federal government is really missing in action.”

This lack of support makes the growth of the green energy sector all the more astounding. And, given the fact that most of the investment in this industry comes from abroad, it makes one wonder why Ottawa doesn’t see the potential that outside investors do.

The report acknowledges that Ottawa has done some things like supporting clean-energy research, encouraging the elimination of waste and discouraging the use of coal. But it suggests that Ottawa could do more. “Ottawa should create tax supports for renewable technologies, pump infrastructure money into new electrical transmission lines and clean energy projects, and put a price on carbon.”

As it is, oil and gas industries are the ones getting substantial subsidies from the federal government. If green energy in Canada has been able to come from behind more or less on its own steam, as this report suggests, one wonders where it might go with some federal subsidies. A modest proposal would be to shift at least a portion of the oil and gas subsidy to the green energy sector.

I think it is clear to most Canadians that our future lies with the production and use of green, renewable energy. Most of us, including government officials, are by now convinced that the use of coal as an energy source can no longer be justified. That is why we are in the process of shutting down coal-fired electrical facilities. It’s not that we are running out of coal, but rather that we have come to the realization that the burning of coal creates too much pollution.

And yet, when it comes to oil, especially when it originates in the oil sands of Alberta, one gets the impression that industry and government believe oil will continue to be our main source of energy indefinitely. The reality is that we are undergoing a quiet revolution that is moving us toward greater use of green energy. Like coal, oil will one day be relegated to the back burner. And that day may be closer than we think.