A new report from the Public Policy Forum (PPF) calls electrification the most important national project of the 21^st century, and provides a roadmap for managing not only the need for greater supply, but also cleaner supply.

The report, titled Project of the Century: A blueprint for growing Canada's clean electricity supply – and fast, says electrification dwarfs the ambitions of previous centuries, including even the construction of the Canadian Pacific railways, the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Trans-Canada Highway.

Electricity demand is forecast to double by 2050; supply capacity will have to grow an astounding 2.2 to 3.4 times of today's volume. While Canada has adopted a slew of policies designed to shift energy consumption toward electricity, most notably in favour of electric vehicles, the report asks, where will all that clean supply come from?

Among the report's key messages:

• Canadians are not prepared for the shock of moving from electricity abundance to scarcity.

• Affordability and reliability of supply must stand alongside cleanliness as fundamental values of the electricity transition, or Canada’s net zero goal will be at risk.

• Provinces are the most important players in electrification, and each has its own unique challenges. Three provinces and two territories have more emissions in their systems than China and Russia.

• Electrification cannot happen without Indigenous partnership as equity owners in projects, and that doesn't happen without easier access to capital on competitive terms.

• Canada lags behind where its need to be to achieve a near-zero grid in 2035 or a net zero economy and society by 2050. Faster policy-making and regulatory streamlining are required.

• Canada needs an industrial strategy that sequences electrification initiatives, putting energy efficiency and transportation first, then industry, then home heating.

• There also needs to be a realistic assessment of how labour shortages and broken supply chains for minerals will affect Canada's energy transition. These are major impediments.

"Electricity is the foundation stone of the energy transition," said PPF President and CEO Edward Greenspon. "Canada has to build the equivalent of one or two more of everything developed over the past century if supply is to catch up with the demand we're already stimulating as well as to achieve our net-zero goals."

The report arose from PPF's Energy Future Forum, a project launched in 2019 to identify practical measures that help Canada meet or exceed its 2030 emissions targets on the way to a net zero future, and that strengthen an innovative economy, deepen shared prosperity and enhance national unity.