Last May, Natural Resources Canada quietly released a report entitled Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy. The premise of the paper is that Canada sends too much electricity to the United States and must embrace more East-West infrastructure for power distribution.

It fits within the “Elbows Up” strategy of reducing trade with the United States but would disrupt a power system that evolved through provincial management and would require the federal government to tread deeply into provincial jurisdiction.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute drafted a detailed report responding to the plan called The Integration Illusion, and it shreds the federal plan.

To begin with, Canada’s system of electrical generation and distribution is already among the best in the world, and much of that is due to leaving the responsibility to the provinces. With the geographic size of the country and the population distribution, it makes economic sense to break things down regionally. Provinces have built grids based on local need and then have sold excess power to neighbouring provinces or exported it to the U.S. when it makes sense to do so.

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The reason development of large electricity transmission corridors hasn’t often been built across the Rocky Mountains or Northern Ontario is simple: it’s not economically viable.

Provinces won’t expand East-West infrastructure when they will take a loss on such endeavours. That’s why the federal plan is to offer “incentives,” which of course means selective subsidies and putting pressure on provinces in other ways to “encourage” them to build in regions they wouldn’t normally have.

When the federal government offers enticements, it will always come with strings. It will have forced itself as a partner with provinces in a realm that should remain solely in the jurisdiction of the provinces. Once the feds get in, it will become nearly impossible to get them out. And they know it.

If there isn’t a solid economic case to be made for federal intrusion into the provincial power generation and distribution system, it stands to reason that the motivation comes down to control. With federal agencies and regulators integrated into the provincial electrical markets, Ottawa will have a strong new lever to apply if regional governments become uppity.

The Ottawa plan is just another National Energy Program with a thin coat of paint applied to it. Provincial governments must resist this planned incursion as it will be just another incremental erosion of provincial sovereignty in favour of centralized control by a distant government.