Canada needs to level the playing field with clean technology investments, otherwise the talent behind our county’s green ambitions are heading to the United States, according to Derek Evans, president, chief executive officer and director at MEG Energy Corp.
Evans said both the federal and provincial governments need to come together to “figure out how we level the playing field” with green technology.
Last year, the Biden administration announced the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill focused on health care, clean energy efforts and fighting inflation.
Evans said this act has “created an unlevelled playing field” for clean technology and it could cost Canada its green ambitions, if the government doesn’t act soon.
“If we don’t level that playing field (with clean technology) in Canada and have an equal level of subsidy, those jobs, those opportunities and most importantly that intellectual capacity that we need so desperately to continue to drive our green ambition here, is going to go to the States,” he said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Friday.
However, Evans is optimistic that a clean technology announcement by the federal government could be on the horizon.
“We fully expect that in the budget of April 2023, that we’re going to see some acknowledgment of that (clean technology incentives), and how the federal government is going to make that happen,” he said.
REGULATORY AND FISCAL INCENTIVES ARE ‘ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL’
Evans said he plans to continue investing in Canada’s energy sector.
However, he added that it’s “absolutely critical” for oilsands producers to have the right regulatory and fiscal incentives.
“You can be assured that we’re planning to put our dollars right beside the federal government’s and the provincial governments’ in ensuring that we’ve got the social license to continue to operate not only the oilsands, but the conventional side of the business ; and to have a positive impact in our country, but also hopefully in terms of the products that we export that are net-zero as we drive forward,” Evans said.