Liberals tap former Alberta trade representative to head remodelled Canadian energy regulator

OTTAWA — The Liberal government has chosen former Alberta trade representative Gitane De Silva to head its remodelled energy regulator, after Ottawa introduced controversial changes to the agency last year.

De Silva will replace Sandy Lapointe, who was serving as interim chief executive of the Canada Energy Regulator (CER), according to federal officials. Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan is expected to make an official announcement on the appointment Thursday afternoon.

De Silva was named Alberta’s top trade representative in 2015 by former NDP premier Rachel Notley, after serving for years as deputy minister in the province’s trade department. She now serves as special advisor to electrical utility TransAlta.

De Silva, a long-time Alberta resident, will take the helm of an agency whose regulatory powers were stripped back as part of the Liberal’s Bill C-69, which broadened the application process for major projects such as oil pipelines and sea ports.

The legislation narrowed the scope of the CER to more of a technical advisory role, offloading major decision-making powers to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC), which is controlled by the federal environment minister. It also renamed the agency, which had been called the National Energy Board since the 1950s. Recommendations on major projects had in the past come through the NEB, which falls under the purview of the natural resources minister.

Bill C-69, including changes to the federal energy regulator, was a central piece of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s environmental mantra in recent years, in which he has sought to balance concerns in the battered oil and gas industry with his promise to meet climate change targets.

But the legislation fed some doubts about those efforts, mostly in the West, particularly after Canadian mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. decided to scrap its $20-billion Frontier oilsands mine in February, just days before the Trudeau government was supposed to make a final decision on the project. The Canadian oil sector has for years suffered from a failure to build major pipeline projects, which has reduced prices for crude and caused some investors to flee.

De Silva in her role as NDP trade representative regularly touted carbon taxes and stricter environmental policies, both by the federal and provincial governments.

Soon after the NDP took power in Alberta in 2015, overturning 44 years of Conservative rule, De Silva said the new regime would usher in lasting changes to the oil sector, which has long faced fierce opposition.

“And now my oil-rich, cattle-raising Western heartland, led by an ambitious and unabashedly progressive left-leaning government, is doing things differently,” she said during a 2016 panel discussion at Stanford University.

She also touted the oil industry’s growth prospects, saying crude exports would “continue to fuel provincial prosperity for decades to come,” and regularly spoke to the need for major pipeline projects such as Keystone XL. She said it “couldn’t be any other way” that Alberta would be deeply dependent on oil, given the magnitude of its bitumen and light oil reserves.

Notley introduced an economy-wide carbon tax in Alberta in 2016, which was immediately scrapped by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney after his party won the 2019 provincial election.

De Silva also spoke to broader political issues during the Stanford panel, saying a new consumer tax in Alberta was “one of those political no-go zones,” and assured the audience there was a “willingness” on the part of Trudeau to enter into NAFTA negotiations with the incoming Trump administration.

Her appointment to the CER is likely part of an effort by the Liberal government to placate fears in the West over the future of its oilsands, which have been running high since Bill C-69 was first introduced.

The legislation aimed to reduce application times for major projects, while also including an “early stage” review process designed to quickly identify potential roadblocks for project applicants, among other things.

It became a rallying cry for some oil and gas industry groups, and was deemed the “no more pipelines bill” by some opponents. Kenney repeatedly called on Ottawa to scrap the legislation, dipping into long-held separatist sentiments in the province to justify the criticism.

Some industry groups had raised concerns over the broader environmental considerations under the new Impact Assessment Act, which was introduced as part of Bill C-69, saying they could give anti-oil activists more footing to oppose projects. It also opens up the public hearings process to activists, critics say, which could slow project application timelines.

The new legislation enacted under Bill C-69 came into force in August 2019. A number of major projects, from highway proposals to a liquified natural gas (LNG) facility in Quebec, are currently scheduled to fall under the new review process.