By Christian Leuprecht and Dimitar Lilkov, June 16, 2026
“Wind and sun don’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz.” That message resonates, amplified by the global energy shakeup of 2022–2026. Indeed, no democratic government should be dependent on a Faustian bargain with the OPEC oil cartel or Kremlin proxies drilling in the Siberian tundra. Yet that is precisely the outcome Canadian energy policy has been forcing.
Canada’s contradictory climate strategy
Canada’s European allies are handicapped by energy insecurity and vulnerable to global gas imports, especially after (rightfully) banning Russian supply. Brussels is eyeing possibilities to diversify from the U.S., on which the EU now depends for more than half of its imported LNG, and for which the EU pays a hefty premium. Canadian environmental ideology is driving high energy and electricity prices in Europe that are responsible for the rise of the same right-wing populist extremists that those same Canadian ideologues abhor. Canada’s recent LNG deal with the EU ensures gas exports to Europe while guaranteeing Canadian jobs in one of the world’s lowest-emission LNG operations: British Columbia.
Yet, political opportunists have constructed a polarizing narrative: a black-or-white choice between “good” and “bad” energy sources. That approach is dividing the country, now on the verge of possible disintegration. Forcing an ideological policy choice that risks breaking up the country is necessarily an abject failure.
On the one hand, it ignores the reality that Alberta’s energy surplus effectively subsidizes social services across other provinces, notably Quebec. On the other hand, Quebec is the province most hypocritically adept at refusing to build critical energy infrastructure while extracting resource profits from the rest of Canada, notably Alberta.
For a growing number of Albertans, the jig is up. The political bargain inherent in an equalization formula that disproportionately benefits Quebecers. Those same Quebecers then endorse politicians who leverage the federal government to impose the climate ideology of urban Montreal elites on Albertans. Exhibit A: former Minister of Environment and Climate Change and self-professed activist Steven Guilbeault.
Far from a liability, Canadian energy is a strategic asset to leverage for allied, partner, and global reliability, stability and prosperity. Canada has much to learn from Norway’s attitude and approach.
Energy policy should never be a binary choice forged by climate dogma. Canada’s zealous commitment to decarbonization turns out to be an expensive energy handicap, to the detriment of Canadian prosperity, security, and sovereignty: had Canada not spent a decade stifling the export of hybrocarbons, instead of a massive structural debt it would today have ample fiscal surplus firepower to assert its trade, economic and defence interests. Canada has long been a net exporter of electricity, but at a time when the prime minister is touting a degree of decoupling from the United States, misguided policy has turned Quebec and British Columbia into net importers of electricity—much of it generated by fossil fuels.
High costs, low rewards
Canada has been placing huge financial bets on “climate mainstreaming,” the energy transition, and any number of “green” investment vehicles. Canada’s gamble on clean energy has been costing an average of 1.1 percent–1.6 percent of GDP a year, all of it on borrowed money, at a rough estimate of $35 billion a year. For years, Canada spent as much or more on the energy transition than it did on defence. The Trudeau government’s green bazooka is costing future generations more than that annually in accrued interest alone.
Who has been profiting disproportionately? Canadian renewable energy policies are benefiting Chinese companies, not by consequence but by design, playing into explicit and strategic efforts by China, such as monopolizing electrification and battery metals supply chains and manufacturing processes. It was hardly an accident that Canada intentionally opted to focus on solar and wind: the two energy sources for which Canada is most dependent on foreign—that is, Chinese—suppliers. It is of great benefit to the Middle Kingdom that Canada’s energy policy is subordinating, dividing and deindustrializing the country.
Canada’s climate and energy strategy is self-defeating. Targets the government had set for renewables for 2030 are beyond reach for just about every economic sector. Since 2015, the proportion of renewables in Canada’s energy mix has barely budged. Rather than wind and solar, close to 60 percent of renewable energy in Canada is generated by hydroelectricity—which makes up close to 90 percent of renewable energy—while 27 percent of Canada’s renewables are actually biomass, that is, burning wood and waste.
Decarbonization is linear, not exponential. The energy transition is long, costly, bureaucratic, and constrained by supply and grid limitations. Although decarbonization of electricity looks promising, electricity makes up just one-fifth of Canada’s total energy usage. Even though Canada has one of the cleanest electricity grids internationally, this is only part of the picture.
Fossil fuels are still part of the solution
To avoid stagnation, Canada needs both clean and fossil energy. Canada still depends on fossil fuels for over 70 percent of its energy needs. The transport, industry, heating, manufacturing and agriculture sectors are hard to abate yet essential to our daily lives and economy. Canada’s energy-transition scenarios project that the country will depend on fossil fuels beyond 2050.
While political staffers and environmental lobbyists may have mastered the art of glossy 2040–2050 timelines, they ignore the complex challenge that Canada needs affordable and reliable energy and electricity in the short- to mid-term. To be sure, Canada needs to foster the clean energy transition—but realistically, not dogmatically.
Canada’s digital sovereignty depends not on misguided regulation but on abundant energy supplies for data centres, IT infrastructure and digital stacks. That requires Canada to invest heavily in the grid, especially in electricity transmission and distribution. Nuclear energy is Canada’s best bet to ensure a reliable supply of clean electricity: Westinghouse, Atkins Réalis, and GE Hitachi all provide proven commercial reactor designs.
Canada needs a realistic energy transition while ensuring sufficient conventional supply. To penalize the use of fossil fuels to meet arbitrary climate targets that are impoverishing the country while driving up the cost of living at home, and price volatility, energy austerity, conflict, hunger and authoritarianism abroad is morally reprehensible, strategically irresponsible, and fundamentally un-Canadian. A majority of Canadians have now come to understand this intuitively.
As utopian energy and electricity policy collide with dystopian reality, it’s time for a healthy dose of climate realism.
Christian Leuprecht is professor at the Royal Military College and Queen’s University, Senior Fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, and Senior Research Associate at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies.
Dimitar Lilkov is Senior Research Officer at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies.
