Ottawa floats new options for electricity rules that drew ire of Alberta and Saskatchewan

The federal government is considering significant updates to its proposed regulations aimed at reducing emissions from electricity generation to net-zero.

The move comes after months of consultations with Canadians, the government said, but also follows strong opposition from politicians in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

A draft version of the Clean Electricity Regulations was initially released last August. The regulations function as a set of rules for transitioning Canada's electricity grid to net-zero starting in 2035.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault told CBC News it was always the goal to strike the right balance when it came to the first set of draft regulations.

But Ottawa remained open to comments from provinces and experts, he said, adding the revisions weren't precipitated solely due to pushback in Alberta and Saskatchewan. 

"I wouldn't say that the options that we're proposing in today's document are the result of the actions or comments of one particular jurisdiction over others," he said.

"I mean, we've held webinars with more than 500 people, we've had 75 different bilateral meetings, 18,000 submissions were made. So what we're putting out today is a result of everything we've heard, and not one particular company, individual or even province."

Last November, Alberta invoked its Sovereignty Act for the first time over the draft regulations. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the 2035 target unachievable. Guilbeault has also referenced the 2035 date as a deadline.

Yet, under the prior draft regulations, exceptions would have allowed for significant amounts of emissions from electricity generation into the 2040s, and even into 2050 and beyond.

But even with those provisions, Alberta had concerns. 

Unlike most of the rest of the country, Alberta gets most of its electricity from natural gas. Prominent Alberta economists like Andrew Leach and Blake Shaffer argued Ottawa would need to be flexible in developing the electricity regulations given Alberta's unique makeup.

WATCH | Alberta invoked Sovereignty Act over net-zero electricity grid regulations: 

In January, Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal minister of natural resources and energy, also told the CBC's Aaron Wherry that he didn't feel as though Alberta was questioning the need to green its grid, just the pace of doing so.

"We probably have a view that it can go faster. And so we've been trying to actually understand and look at how we might be able to address some of their specific concerns," Wilkinson said at the time.