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The question is reasonable enough. During months of campaigning for the leadership of his party and country, Carney advocated for, of all things, an oil pipeline to Quebec. On the other hand, he endorsed an emissions cap on the very fossil fuels inside that pipeline, which critics say amounts to a production cap. This week, he told that exporting more oil and gas is 鈥�an element鈥� of being an energy superpower, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 not the element of it.鈥�

Environmentalists are telling him to . But he鈥檚 not by temperament a single lane kind of guy. As with his book, where value and values were fused into the title Value(s), he looks to reconcile market forces and broader social goals. In today鈥檚 volatile circumstances, his emphasis has shifted toward the economic side of the equation.

Importantly, Carney鈥檚 superpower vision encompasses 鈥�both clean and conventional energy.鈥� He views these, at least for now, as complementary not conflicting goals, as counterweights not competing poles. Early indicators suggest a Carney-led government will seek to shape the emissions reduction lane (values) in such a manner as to enable the expansion of all forms of energy production (value). His choice as energy minister is the very personification of a dual clean and conventional approach in trusted friend Tim Hodgson, who happens to have served on boards of both a power utility and oilsands producer.

Their attempts at striking some kind of 鈥淕rand Energy Bargain鈥� will be helped along by a new resource nationalism afoot in the land. On the emissions side of the ledger are huge investments in projects like carbon capture, methane reduction and electrification, particularly nuclear. Those, along with Indigenous ownership, would be intended to provide the social license to expand oil and gas production, the country鈥檚 greatest generator of badly needed income and export growth.

In play is a critical question of how to go about emissions reduction, either by directly or indirectly suppressing oil and gas production or by trying to decarbonize that production for as long as demand holds up. The sum of Carney鈥檚 energy statements resembles the 鈥渓ast barrel鈥� argument put forward in recent years by some Calgary energy leaders seeking to reconcile the environmental realities of climate change with the economic realities of fossil fuels. For as long as demand exists, they reason, why abandon energy markets and allow that demand to be filled by higher emitting countries extracting a steeper carbon toll on the planet.

Their last barrel is the cleanest available barrel. In order to compete for remaining markets, therefore, Canada must move aggressively not just on carbon capture and methane reduction, but on a rapid scaling up of clean electricity to power oilsands production and the liquification of natural gas (LNG) for export.

The public seems to be calculating energy trade-offs in a different light.

On energy security, for instance, the focus since the invasion of Ukraine had been on how to help allies in Europe and Asia wean themselves off Russian supplies. Suddenly, energy security in Canada has gone domestic. Prime Minister Carney minced no words in either the French or English-language debates in throwing his support behind a pipeline to carry Alberta oil to Ontario and Quebec without having to pass through the United States, as now is the case.

Whether a new Energy East 鈥� or even an Energy Centre to service Ontario 鈥� ever gets built remains to be seen. Former environment minister Steven Guilbeault took it upon himself last week to talk down the idea. Should the politics and economics line up, it will still require, as Carney has acknowledged, a radically sped-up approval process. It was a different era, to be sure 鈥� greater trust in government, indifference to Indigenous rights, lower environmental sensibilities 鈥� but policymakers have taken note that the 3,500-kilometre all-Canadian TransCanada gas pipeline was built in just two years, one-third of it through the Canadian Shield. Faster is possible.

Should it come to pass, the production of more clean and conventional energy will require greater federal-provincial co-operation and private-public sector co-investment. Carney has already indicated his intent to finalize a series of investment tax credits that have been sitting on the shelf, to double loan guarantees for Indigenous ownership and shorten project approval times.

Our highly volatile relationship with our largest trading partner adds urgency. With unemployment creeping up, investment moving to the sidelines, the economy softening and the long-term uncertain, alternatives are badly needed. Nothing spells relief quite like conventional energy. The Bank of Canada has estimated that the expansion of the TMX pipeline alone, not yet at full capacity, added 6.25 per cent to Canada鈥檚 total exports in the back half of 2024. Other economists have credited it for single-handedly adding up to .4 per cent to GDP while helping to diversify trade.

Next up is LNG Canada, which is scheduled to start shipping liquified natural gas this summer. For the first time, Canada will sell both our oil, where we are the fourth largest producer in the world, and our natural gas, where we rank number five, into any market anywhere. On gas, British Columbia and Alberta sit atop one of the biggest mother lodes in the world. By dint of good geology and geography, it happens to be among the least carbon intensive in the world. A spate of energy companies and First Nations stand in queue to add more export facilities.

Such further developments could raise an interesting quandary for a Carney government. If Canadian LNGs displaces coal in Asia, it makes for a big global emissions win. Even if importers only substitute gas from competing suppliers, it still means significant greenhouse gas reductions. The crux of the issue is that while global emissions would go down, Canadian ones would rise. Carbon trading rules contained in the 2015 Paris Agreement were supposed to square the circle. But these measures remain underdeveloped.

Prime Minister Carney happens to be one of the world鈥檚 foremost experts on carbon markets and can be expected to promote carbon credits and trading. His government might have to come to terms with whether Canada puts water in the wine of our Paris targets in the name of better global outcomes. It would be highly controversial, even within his caucus and cabinet, but theoretically speaking Canada could unilaterally subtract the carbon contained in our exports from our national totals. There is some precedent for doing our own thing. Under Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s, Canada defied an international consensus in the Law of the Sea talks and unilaterally declared what later became the standard of a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone. The world eventually followed us.

That still leaves the pesky emissions cap, a policy leftover from the Trudeau government that is stoking national disunity flames and doesn鈥檛 fit easily with a 鈥渂uild baby build鈥� agenda. Among a Carney government鈥檚 options: jettison it as part of a Grand Bargain; negotiate it away in exchange for agreement on in an industrial carbon pricing system; or merely engineer down the impact of an emissions cap while leaning on those investments in methane reduction, carbon capture and electrification to do the heavy lifting on reductions.

When it comes to Canada鈥檚 complex energy landscape, the impulse may be to just build; what鈥檚 clear is that the first thing to build is in fact a policy consensus, both inside the government and inside the country.