TORONTO — Rachel Doran, executive director of Clean Energy Canada, made the following statement in response to the 2026 federal budget:
“Today’s federal budget provides significant investments in electrifying Canada’s economy and households, but further work will be required to establish the concrete goals needed to fully realize a generational opportunity.
“Prime Minister Mark Carney has called Canada’s electricity grid the ‘new iron spine’ of Canada’s economy, one that will create a backbone for growing industries while helping Canadians power their homes and cars with efficient electricity more insulated from geopolitics.
“To that end, the 2026 budget includes $4 billion over 10 years to support electricity infrastructure expansion, renewable energy, and priority electricity sector projects across Canada while also extending the clean electricity and clean technology investment tax credits out to 2040. Critically, the budget also provides much-needed support to advance intra- and inter-provincial transmission, including by expanding the clean electricity ITC to the highest-voltage intra-provincial electricity transmission lines and investing in cost-benefit frameworks that will help overcome decades of impasse and actually make new interprovincial transmission lines a reality.
“This budget rightly recognizes that ‘nations that master electricity will own the 21st Century’ and commits more than $50 billion to expanding our electricity system. This build-out will be a central driver of economic growth for Canada and the world in the coming decades, and we must be positioning ourselves strategically to capture that value. It will therefore be essential that the federal government deliver a robust clean electricity supply chain strategy that maximizes opportunities here at home while also capturing the rapidly growing export opportunities where Canada is positioned to win. We welcome the additional domestic content bonus for the clean electricity and clean technology ITCs as part of this approach.
“Canada should, however, be wary of losing its current clean electricity advantage. While last year’s budget already foreshadowed moves to provide greater flexibility for natural gas, the prime minister noted an intention to ensure Canada’s grid did not get dirtier. Budget 2026 makes this point even more stark, suggesting that Canada’s sovereignty depends on ‘switching to energy we generate and control, with prices that are set here.’ Meeting this challenge means ensuring any further expansion of natural gas in our electricity system is a measure of last resort, only when clean energy resources are unable to meet our needs. The reforms to the Clean Electricity Regulations must reflect this—or they put our clean electricity advantage at risk.
“On affordability, while the budget reiterates the gas tax holiday extension announced in September as a key way the government intends to help Canadians save money on gas, an investment of $587 million over five years to support over 55,000 new EV chargers across the country will go further toward unlocking long-term cost-savings by helping more drivers switch to EVs. Our previous analysis found the gas tax holiday was saving drivers only about $17 a month—far less than the $200 a month many EV drivers save.
“Similarly, the previously announced $2 billion National Heat Pump Rebate Program is a great step forward to help Canadian households benefit from the efficiency and cost savings of an electric heat pump. Many Canadian households can save by switching to a heat pump, especially with furnace oil prices now reaching unprecedented levels. The budget allocated to this program is part of the government delivering on a key piece of its electricity strategy, in which it committed to retrofitting one million homes.
“Finally, critical minerals are the ‘new oil’ of the energy transition, and trade partners like the EU are looking to Canada to help build resilient supply chains in support of the global energy transition. With this in mind, we welcome the new investment in the Critical Minerals Strategy and the extension of the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit and Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credits. We encourage the government to follow through on targeting investment toward midstream processing and value-add production to truly safeguard global supply chains and ensure Canada reaps the full value of this opportunity.
“At a fundamental level, Budget 2026 offers a new framework for climate progress: build, switch, transform, and innovate. We welcome the focus not only on building clean electricity supply, but also on electrifying homes and businesses, increasing efficiency to avoid costs for Canadians, and utilizing our expertise to build the grids of the future. But while moving from plans to action is critical, without concrete goals, Canada risks trading a climate plan with an accountability metric to one that is a list of actions without a final destination.”
