This article was published by The Energy Mix on May 15, 2025.
Anxiety about new fossil fuel pipelines, optimism about clean energy infrastructure, and at least conditional confidence in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s climate credentials were all part of the reaction after Carney introduced his new Cabinet Tuesday, then appeared to endorse new pipeline development in an interview with a national television network.
At Rideau Hall Tuesday morning, Governor General Mary Simon presided over the swearing-in ceremony for a 28-member Cabinet plus 10 secretaries of state, including:
• Environment and Climate Minister Julie Dabrusin (Toronto—Danforth);
• Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson (Markham–Thornhill);
• Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Steven Guilbeault (Laurier—Sainte-Marie);
• Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson (Vancouver Fraserview–South Burnaby);
• Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy Minister Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour);
• Industry Minister Mélanie Joly (Ahuntsic-Cartierville);
• Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty (Abitibi–Baie-James–Nunavik–Eeyou);
• Arctic Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand (Churchill–Keewatinook Aski);
• Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty (Northwest Territories);
• Emergency Management and Community Resilience Minister Eleanor Olszewski (Edmonton Centre);
• Transport and Internal Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale).
In a statement shortly after the swearing-in, the Prime Minister’s Office said the government’s “primary focus” will be on the economy, and on Donald Trump’s tariff war and annexation threats.
“Canadians elected this new government with a strong mandate to define a new economic and security relationship with the United States, to build a stronger economy, to reduce the cost of living, and to keep our communities safe,” the statement said.
“We have to address and come to a new arrangement with the Americans,” Carney told media. “But our primary focus is on the economy, and our primary focus is on the Canadian economy.”
Clean and Conventional Energies
Hours later, Carney took a different tack in an interview with CTV chief political correspondent Vassy Kapelos, emphasizing an “all of the above” energy mix with room for oil and gas, pipelines, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and nuclear development.
“When I talk about being an energy superpower, I always say in both clean and conventional energies,” he said. “Yes, it does mean oil and gas. It means using oil, our oil and gas here in Canada to displace imports wherever possible, particularly from the United States. It makes no sense to be sending that money south of the border or across the ocean, but yes, it also means more exports without question.”
Carney added: “We need to do multiple things at the same time in order to build this base so that we are creating wealth and competitiveness, better lives for Canadians for generations. So we’re going to be very ambitious across a range. That’s why we’re not asking for one nation-building project. We’re asking for nation-building projects, and we are going to move as rapidly as possible on as many of them as possible.”
That could include pipeline development, building out CCS projects to help get oil and gas to market, and specific changes to measures like the federal Impact Assessment Act and the former Trudeau government’s long-delayed cap on oil and gas emissions, Carney told Kapelos.
“We will change things at the federal level that need to be changed in order for projects to move forward,” he said. “The test is, Canadians deserve results, not rhetoric and not talking past each other.”
Carney’s Quebec lieutenant, former environment and climate minister Steven Guilbeault, put some boundaries around those statements a day later, arguing that Canada should maximize the use of existing pipelines before talking about building more, The Canadian Press reports. He pointed out that the taxpayer-owned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which cost years of controversy and $34.2 billion to build, is still operating below its full capacity.
“So I think before we start talking about building an entire new pipeline, maybe we should maximize the use of existing infrastructure,” Guilbeault told media. “And, the Canadian Energy Regulator, as well as the International Energy Agency, are telling us that probably by 2028-2029, demand for oil will peak globally, and it will also peak in Canada.”
“Canada’s oil and gas sector has indicated no desire to build new pipelines under the current regulatory environment,” CP notes. But “following the election, 38 Canadian oil and gas CEOs wrote to Carney calling on him to repeal the assessment law and scrap the emissions cap regulations.” During the federal election campaign, Carney said he would stand behind an “emissions cap, not a production cap,” while speeding up federal technology investments to help bring down oil and gas sector emissions.
‘Pick a Lane’
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was quick to criticize the Cabinet announcement, homing in on veteran Toronto—Davenport MP Julie Dabrusin’s appointment to the environment and climate portfolio. “I am very concerned the Prime Minister has appointed what appears to be yet another anti-oil and gas environment minister,” Smith said in a statement Tuesday. She described Dabrusin as a “self-proclaimed architect of the designation of plastics as toxic”, a “staunch advocate against oilsands expansion, proponent of phasing out oil and gas,” and a former Parliamentary secretary to Guilbeault, as well as former environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson.
“Fire, meet gas,” agreed Smith’s chief of staff Rob Anderson.
Climate Action Network-Canada countered that Carney has some choices to make, after a campaign in which he endorsed the emissions cap while pledging to strengthen the country’s industrial carbon pricing system, introduce investment tax credits for clean energy and technology, and make Canada a “world leader” in CCS.
“We’ve heard Mr. Carney, in particular during the election campaign, adopt an ‘all of the above’ approach to energy and refusing to pick a lane between a cleaner, safer, renewable powered future and doubling down on the volatile fossil fuel status quo,” said CAN-Rac Executive Director Caroline Brouillette. “I think that in 2025 we don’t have the luxury of not picking a lane, both from an environmental side of things but also from an economic side of things.”
Adam Scott, executive director of Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planetary Health, agreed.
“I dislike the word ‘balance’ with respect to climate, as it falsely implies equal value for the causes and solutions to the climate crisis,” he told The Energy Mix in an email. “New fossil fuel export infrastructure such as pipelines or LNG terminals are not in any way compatible with a credible climate alignment plan for Canada. Nor would government action to subsidize locking in new fossil fuel infrastructure provide a long-term benefit in improving Canada’s economic competitiveness. On the contrary, Canada’s over-reliance economically on oil and gas is a significant fiscal liability as the industry goes through certain structural decline through the energy transition.”
In a media interview Tuesday, Mark Winfield, co-chair of York University’s Sustainable Energy Initiative, called the Cabinet announcement a “potential downgrading” for climate and environment, with several climate hawks shifting from portfolios like housing and energy to the back benches. “On the whole I think we are left at best unclear on where we stand on climate, energy transitions, and decarbonization,” he told The Mix Wednesday. “The emphasis on nuclear, pipelines, and CCS was pretty clear in the [CTV] interview,” and “I think this goes back to how do we define ‘clean’ in this context. It is not clear where renewables fit at this point.”
Meeting the Moment
Claire Seaborn, a former chief of staff to Wilkinson, said the government is mainstreaming the climate and energy transition, not diminishing it.
“I do not see this Cabinet as a downgrade,” she told The Energy Mix. “In fact, I see it as meeting the moment on climate, which is all about building major projects. Back in 2015, the conversation was about whether climate change is real, and commitments. In 2019, it was about net-zero and carbon pricing. Right now, the conversation on climate change is actually about building. This government is very pro-building, and that actually makes it very strong on climate action.”
Seaborn said she saw strong climate commitments in Carney’s election platform and on the campaign trail, even if he didn’t speak the words in the CTV interview. Fernando Melo, federal director – policy and government affairs at the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, agreed that “if you look at the Liberal Party platform, there were quite a few mentions of renewable electricity and electricity storage in there—including in the proposal to make Canada an ‘energy superpower’. Not being mentioned in every media interview doesn’t worry me or CanREA’s members.”
“That said,” he added, “we will hold the government accountable for its promises to our sector and will continue to push for the speedy introduction of legislation that would finalize and improve the Clean Economy Investment Tax Credits, among other critical policies.”
It’s also “great to see a few fellow cyclists at the Cabinet table.” Melo said.
Regardless of the specific choices it makes, “you’re going to see this government recognizing that the world is moving toward low-carbon and net-zero, and that can take many forms,” Seaborn said. A pipeline can carry oil, gas, captured carbon, or green ammonia, so “when you say ‘pipeline’, that is entirely consistent with the fact that Mark Carney knows we are moving toward net-zero.”
Normand Mousseau, scientific director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montréal, said he couldn’t see the sense in that approach.
“I still don’t understand what the deal is with pipelines,” he told The Mix in an email. “As far as I know, there are no private sector projects on the table, and the last pipeline the federal government constructed cost upwards of $34 billion.”
He added that he’s puzzled “that other infrastructure linked to decarbonizing Canada, such as interprovincial links, massive storage, etc., have not been mentioned. I think that we need a clear message from PM Carney that he intends to bring Canada on path to its 2050 climate objectives, especially because we are still far behind what is needed to reach our 2035 goal.”
The ‘Climate-Literate PM’
There’s little doubt that the new prime minister understands the stakes in the climate emergency and the broader directions to address it. It isn’t yet clear what path he’ll choose.
“Prime Minister Carney is the most climate-literate PM we’ve ever seen, and maybe the most climate-literate leader among industrialized countries,” said Aaron Freeman, principal of Toronto-based Pivot Strategic Consulting. “However, decisions on specific climate policies are going to be made within the political frame that he has placed himself in. There’s a narrative and political coalition that he’s built, and many of the issues we care about are going to be settled according to these parameters.”
Freeman suggested looking to the template language in the forthcoming ministerial mandate letters for early hints at how portfolios like sovereignty, trade, housing, and economy could become focal points for climate and energy transition strategy.
Freeman and others pointed to Dabrusin as one of the strong environmental champions in Cabinet. He added that Hodgson—who led Ontario power utility Hydro One, sat on the board of oil sands producer MEG Energy, and previously worked with Carney at the Goldman Sachs investment banking firm—brings cross-cutting expertise to the energy and natural resources portfolio.
“Taken together, these two appointments are reflective of Carney’s ‘all-in’ energy strategy,” he wrote, “a strategy that may not end up being significantly different than Trudeau’s framing on energy, except perhaps incrementally in terms of emphasis.”
One veteran observer speculated that Hodgson’s power sector experience may outweigh his oil sands exposure—making him a trusted ally that Carney can count on to sustain momentum toward a national renewable power grid while the PM focuses on issues like trade and sovereignty. Shift Action’s Scott said he would withhold judgement on the government’s clean energy commitments until he sees the mandate letters.
“I hope Tim Hodgson will draw on his considerable governance expertise in a variety of positions to see that the best long-term interest of Canadians lies in a rapid investment and buildout in the clean electrification of our energy systems,” Scott wrote. “‘All of the above’ energy policies are an abdication of leadership from both an economic and climate perspective in 2025.”
“Electricity is the pillar of the transition to net-zero,” Mousseau agreed.” So, having somebody who understands this sector is crucial, even if energy is under provincial jurisdiction.” Hodgson’s knowledge of the oil and gas sector might also “give him leverage to push for decarbonization,” Mousseau added, but only “with a clear message from PM Carney.”
Climate Across All Portfolios
While much of the early reaction on the new government’s climate priorities focused on Dabrusin, Hodgson, and Carney himself, there’s also growing recognition that a climate focus will spread right across the federal system. “Every minister in some way will have to acknowledge and respond to the reality of climate change. every minister, whether it’s in their region or their programs,” Seaborn said. “That’s just the reality of climate.”
Scott agreed that climate action “is inextricably required to address the real-world concerns and needs of Canadians on housing, affordability, economic productivity, trade, and sovereignty. Climate does not exist as a standalone priority, it must be integrated in all policy.”
Those realities make Canada’s existing climate policy mechanisms “only a small part of what is required,” he said—so that the government’s housing strategy, for example, “must integrate efficiency, adaptation, and electrification to ensure Canadians have access to affordable, comfortable, climate safe housing. It’s not optional.”
Melo agreed that “the electrification of Canada’s homes, transportation, and industry reduces the need for energy transported through the U.S. or from other countries, especially if that electricity comes from locally generated renewables. Building new energy-efficient homes with integrated solar and storage will help Canadians reduce their energy bills, which in turn supports affordability.” And “investments in productivity, industry, and innovation can help onshore the production of critical components for the energy transition.”
Connecting to needs and issues outside the climate space is also essential because “the climate crisis is frankly not top of mind for most Canadians,” Melo added. “Canadian sovereignty, the economy, and the cost of living/inflation are the issues that are keeping people up at night. Not putting these issues front and centre in messaging and actions is a great way for a new minority government to find itself losing public support quickly.”
Jackson Wyatt, founder and CEO of modular housing manufacturer CABN, said half of the Cabinet will be involved with housing strategy in one way or another. “It’s energy. It’s waste and water. It’s municipal alignment. It’s a solution for Northern communities and First Nations.” Meeting those challenges will mean “expedited deployment of funds to address the problem quickly,” rapid upskilling for trades, and “ making sure we maintain our standard of healthy living and sustainability,” all by building “Canadian homes with Canadian materials for Canadians,” he said.
Shauna Sylvester, founder and lead convenor of Vancouver-based Urban Climate Leadership, cited incoming Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson as one of the Cabinet members who will be “deeply committed to bringing a climate lens to their portfolios.” But “I’m holding off assessing Prime Minister Carney’s approach to climate until I’ve had a chance to hear and see more,” she told The Mix. “I think we need fewer pronouncements and more action, so I’ll be evaluating this government on their actions.”
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