Kenneth Green is a senior fellow at the Fraser InstitutePrime Minister Carney recently unveiled his new cabinet, and made some changes in some key policy areas including Energy and Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change and Transport and Internal Trade. What do these cabinet picks tell us about the potential policy focus of Carney’s government moving forward? At the helm of the Energy and Natural Resource portfolio, Carney appointed Timothy Hodgson, a former banker and chair of Ontario’s massive Hydro One electricity utility. A quick search of Hodgson’s previous experience and opinions on matters of energy and natural resource policy comes up rather dry — he is something of a cypher. Acquaintances are quoted in several articles suggesting he has a pragmatic, pro-business orientation, but that is about all we can glean.Still, what we do know is that Hodgson is replacing Jonathan Wilkinson, previously a supporter of highly aggressive greenhouse gas emission reductions, and aggressive regulation in the energy and natural resource policy spaces when part of Trudeau’s cabinet. So, with a mostly blank slate to stand on, and an ostensibly pragmatic banker mentality, we can expect (hope?) that Minister Hodgson blazes a less extreme path forward on energy and natural resource issues, balancing in a more even-handed fashion protection of the environment and natural resources with Canada’s need for economic productivity..Hodgson’s partner on the energy, natural resource environmental policy front will be Julie Dabrusin, new Minister of Environment and Climate Change, replacing uber-environmentalist Steven Guilbeault. Dabrusin was previously Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources in the Trudeau government. The most logical expectation would be to expect she will continue to champion Trudeau-esque policies, tempering any hopes we might have for the potentially more moderate Minister Hodgson as bellwether of Canada’s energy, natural resource and environmental policies.Finally, Carney appointed Chrystia Freeland as Minister of Transport and Internal Trade. Freeland is a strong believer in the climate crisis, an intense regulator thereof, and seems to believe that to save the planet, transportation must be electrified, pedalized and mass-transificated (okay, I made up that last term.) So, anyone hoping for a move away from the green-transportation agenda, away from an all electric-car, mass-transit oriented future, and back to something favouring (or at least not-demonizing) an automobile-centric lifestyle might want to rein in their expectations..Unfortunately, in Carney’s cavalcade of cabinet officials, he did not create a new Minister of Regulatory Reform and Right-Sizing (again, my term.) One of Canada’s biggest public policy illnesses is its plague of regulations. Canada is drowning under a mountain of regulatory red-tape and badly needs a minister with scissors. Canada wants no part of a U.S.-style Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE,) but a Minister of Regulatory Reform and Right-Sizing, akin to what British Columbia had briefly in 2001, would be a policy tonic Canada needs badly.Little is known about exactly where the bulk of Prime Minister Carney’s new cabinet will take us, but the safe betting — in areas of environment, natural resources, climate change and transportation — is that we’re likely to see a continuance of Trudeau-era policies, though promulgated by somewhat more bland and less-obviously-zealous eco-warriors. Time will tell.Kenneth Green is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.
