Alberta commits to 1.2 Billion in new Wind Projects

From the Province of Alberta

Wind projects create jobs, Indigenous partnerships

Private companies are partnering with First Nations to invest around $1.2 billion in renewable energy projects in Alberta, which create new jobs and continue with record-setting low prices for Albertans.

Minister Phillips announces five new wind projects as part of Alberta’s Renewable Electricity Program.

The five successful projects are made possible through the latest phase of the Alberta government’s Renewable Electricity Program. They include investments from Albertan companies, as well as from new investors from outside the province, with companies from Ontario and France.

In total, the new developments will create about 1,000 jobs and generate about 760 megawatts of affordable renewable electricity – enough to power nearly 300,000 homes.

“Our made-in-Alberta plan is working to once again turn Alberta’s renewable energy resources into new jobs and investment in communities across the province, while producing the lowest-cost power available for Albertans. These major private investments in southern Alberta wind projects also bring important professional service opportunities to downtown Calgary and new economic opportunities for Indigenous communities, making it a win-win for all Albertans.”

Shannon Phillips, Minister of Environment and Parks

Three of the wind projects are private-sector partnerships with First Nations, which include a minimum 25 per cent Indigenous equity component that will help create jobs and new economic benefits. Additional opportunities may include skills training and educational opportunities.

“We sincerely thank Premier Rachel Notley and the current government for opening the door for Indigenous partnerships with industry in this program. This is an important first step in economic reconciliation that helps our children and their children prosper alongside other Albertans for generations to come. We’re greatly looking forward to partnering with EDF Renewables, as they recognize and respect the importance of our traditional and ancestral lands. I also want to thank our partners at Indigena Capital, who assist us in empowering our rights and resources by sourcing the capital we need to be able to profit from our participation in initiatives like this.”

Chief Roy Fox, Kainai First Nation

In addition to new local jobs and contracting, the five projects will bring an estimated $175 million in rural benefits over the life of the projects, including landowner payments and municipal revenues.

The weighted average price of 3.9 cents per kilowatt hour for the latest round of projects is just shy of the Canadian record-low price achieved by Alberta in 2017 and continues to be among the lowest in the country, including less than half the price of a recent procurement in Ontario.

“For over 100 years we have produced reliable power for Albertans, and we are pleased to have been awarded the contract to supply Albertans with 20 years of renewable energy. The Renewable Electricity Program contract and the Windrise project enable TransAlta to proudly continue to invest in and grow in Alberta.”

Dawn Farrell, president and CEO, TransAlta Corporation

Each of these projects are expected to begin construction in 2020 and be fully operational by mid-2021:

TransAlta Corporation (Alberta-based) will build the 207-megawatt Windrise project, southwest of Fort MacLeod.
EDF Renewables Canada Inc. (subsidiary of France-based company) will build the 202-megawatt Cypress Wind Power project near Medicine Hat in partnership with the Kainai First Nation.
Capstone Infrastructure Corporation (Ontario-based) will build the 48-megawatt Buffalo Atlee wind farms near Brooks in partnership with the Sawridge First Nation.
Potentia Renewables Inc. (Ontario-based) will build the 113-megawatt Stirling Wind project near Lethbridge in partnership with the Paul First Nation, as well as Calgary-based Greengate Power Corporation.
Potentia Renewables Inc. will build two phases of the Jenner Wind Project near Brooks, for a total of 193 megawatts.

In total, Alberta’s Renewable Electricity Program will support the development of 5,000 megawatts of renewable electricity to reach a target of 30 per cent renewable energy by 2030 while creating more than 7,000 jobs for Albertans.

Support for the Renewable Electricity Program is made possible by reinvesting revenues from carbon pricing under the Climate Leadership Plan. The program is not funded from consumer power bills in any way.

Additional quotes

Government of Alberta:

“This is a historic announcement, showing our government’s true commitment to partnering with Indigenous communities to create new jobs and economic opportunities. First Nations have played a key role in Alberta’s renewable electricity sector, and this is only a first step in a meaningful, long-term relationship of developing green power with Indigenous communities.”

Richard Feehan, Minister of Indigenous Relations

“Alberta isn’t just a proud leader in oil and gas; we’re a leader in renewable energy, too. Once again, these low prices are beyond expectation, showing that our made-in-Alberta plan is getting results. We’re making life better by creating new jobs and attracting investment from around the world, including homegrown Alberta companies.”

Margaret McCuaig-Boyd, Minister of Energy

Support from economic development organizations:

“Calgary is Canada’s energy capital, with the expertise, skills and entrepreneurial spirit to build world-class projects in solar, oil, wind, gas, clean tech and beyond. Our diversity of resources is the definition of true energy leadership and with Alberta offering the some of the strongest opportunities for renewable energy development in North America, Calgary is the location of choice for Canadian and international renewable energy developers.”

Steve Allan, executive chair, Calgary Economic Development

“We’re proud that the first utility-scale wind farms in Canada were built in southern Alberta back in the 1990s, and since then, have been an important source of low-carbon electricity and a key economic driver of our region. Today’s news is another great example of how wind energy development has positive impacts for landowners and communities by providing new revenue, creating new jobs and offering generations of opportunity for southern Albertans and people across the province.”

Trevor Lewington, CEO, Economic Development Lethbridge

First Nations involved in this program:

“The current Alberta government should be credited for fostering relationships between Indigenous communities, industry and non-profit organizations like ours to build opportunities that benefit all Albertans. This program is an important entry point into Alberta’s renewable energy sector, providing much-needed revenue streams and employment opportunities for First Nations while generating economic and environmental benefits for the province as a whole. FNPA is pleased to have been part of the discussions that formed the foundation for where we are today, and we believe the knowledge gained will lead to even greater success for First Nations in the future.”

Guy Lonechild, CEO, First Nations Power Authority

“We share the pleasure of the announcement with our partners, Capstone. This project is a great step for Sawridge First Nation as it helps us move forward in our continued endeavors towards self-reliance, while balancing the need for energy and protecting Mother Earth for our future generations.”

Chief Roland Twinn, Sawridge First Nation

Wind energy sector support:

“With this announcement of five low-cost wind energy projects, it’s clear that wind energy is well positioned to provide the affordable, emission-free electricity needed to meet Alberta’s ambitious renewable electricity targets. It’s also clear from the number of companies bidding into the procurement process that wind energy developers continue to prioritize Alberta as a destination for new investment.”

Robert Hornung, president, CanWEA

“EDF Renewables is very pleased to be investing in Alberta, which, thank you to this government’s commitment, has made the province one of North America’s most competitive and successful markets for renewable energy. We’re proud to be partnering with the Kainai First Nation (Blood Tribe) on the Cypress Wind Project. It will create hundreds of well-paying jobs, invest millions into Cypress County and Alberta’s economy, while generating affordable renewable electricity for Albertans.”

Cory Basil, VP Development, EDF Renewables

“We are excited about the successful collaboration of Potentia and our excellent local development partners. Alberta is an attractive investment environment and we are pleased to invest almost $500 million of capital into these long-term projects. We look forward to continuing to work with the Government of Alberta, the Paul First Nation and our host communities and landowners to deliver clean power to the Alberta grid, along with the jobs and local economic growth that accompany projects like these.”

Jeff Jenner, CEO, Potentia Renewables Inc.

“We are extremely pleased to be investing in Alberta with our partner, the Sawridge First Nation. The development, construction, and operations of the Buffalo Atlee Wind Farm will provide significant environmental benefits, create jobs, drive local economic activity and deliver excellent value to Alberta ratepayers. We look forward to completing this exciting project in Alberta, which has become a destination of choice for renewable energy investment.”

David Eva, CEO, Capstone Infrastructure

Duane Rolheiser

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Contrasting the principle of equalization with the execution

Quebec – as an example – happens to be sitting on its own significant untapped oil and gas reserves. Those potential opportunities include the Utica Shale formation, the Anticosti Island basin, and the Gaspé Peninsula (along with some offshore potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

So Quebec is effectively being paid billions of dollars a year to not exploit their natural resources. That places their ostensibly principled stand against energy resource exploitation in a very different light.

You’ll need to search long and hard to find a Canadian unwilling to help those less fortunate. And, so long as we identify as members of one nation¹, that feeling stretches from coast to coast.

So the basic principle of Canada’s equalization payments – where poorer provinces receive billions of dollars in special federal payments – is easy to understand. But as you can imagine, it’s not easy to apply the principle in a way that’s fair, and the current methodology has arguably lead to a very strange set of incentives.

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According to Department of Finance Canada, eligibility for payments is determined based on your province’s fiscal capacity. Fiscal capacity is a measure of the taxes (income, business, property, and consumption) that a province could raise (based on national average rates) along with revenues from natural resources. The idea, I suppose, is that you’re creating a realistic proxy for a province’s higher personal earnings and consumption and, with greater natural resources revenues, a reduced need to increase income tax rates.

But the devil is in the details, and I think there are some questions worth asking:

Whichever way you measure fiscal capacity there’ll be both winners and losers, so who gets to decide?
Should a province that effectively funds more than its “share” get proportionately greater representation for national policy² – or at least not see its policy preferences consistently overruled by its beneficiary provinces?

The problem, of course, is that the decisions that defined equalization were – because of long-standing political conditions – dominated by the region that ended up receiving the most. Had the formula been the best one possible, there would have been little room to complain. But was it?

For example, attaching so much weight to natural resource revenues is just one of many possible approaches – and far from the most obvious. Consider how the profits from natural resources already mostly show up in higher income and corporate tax revenues (including income tax paid by provincial government workers employed by energy-related ministries)?

And who said that such calculations had to be population-based, which clearly benefits Quebec (nine million residents vs around $5 billion in resource income) over Newfoundland (545,000 people vs $1.6 billion) or Alberta (4.2 million people vs $19 billion). While Alberta’s average market income is 20 percent or so higher than Quebec’s, Quebec’s is quite a bit higher than Newfoundland’s. So why should Newfoundland receive only minimal equalization payments?

To illustrate all that, here’s the most recent payment breakdown when measured per-capita:

Equalization 2025-26 – Government of Canada

For clarification, the latest per-capita payments to poorer provinces ranged from $3,936 to PEI, $1,553 to Quebec, and $36 to Ontario. Only Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC received nothing.

And here’s how the total equalization payments (in millions of dollars) have played out over the past decade:

Is energy wealth the right differentiating factor because it’s there through simple dumb luck, morally compelling the fortunate provinces to share their fortune? That would be a really difficult argument to make. For one thing because Quebec – as an example – happens to be sitting on its own significant untapped oil and gas reserves. Those potential opportunities include the Utica Shale formation, the Anticosti Island basin, and the Gaspé Peninsula (along with some offshore potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

So Quebec is effectively being paid billions of dollars a year to not exploit their natural resources. That places their ostensibly principled stand against energy resource exploitation in a very different light. Perhaps that stand is correct or perhaps it isn’t. But it’s a stand they probably couldn’t have afforded to take had the equalization calculation been different.

Of course, no formula could possibly please everyone, but punishing the losers with ongoing attacks on the very source of their contributions is guaranteed to inspire resentment. And that could lead to very dark places.

Note: I know this post sounds like it came from a grumpy Albertan. But I assure you that I’ve never even visited the province, instead spending most of my life in Ontario.

Which has admittedly been challenging since the former primer minister infamously described us as a post-national state without an identity.

This isn’t nearly as crazy as it sounds. After all, there are already formal mechanisms through which Indigenous communities get more than a one-person-one-vote voice.

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Alberta

Big win for Alberta and Canada: Statement from Premier Smith

Published on April 2, 2025

Government of Alberta

Premier Danielle Smith issued the following statement on the April 2, 2025 U.S. tariff announcement:

“Today was an important win for Canada and Alberta, as it appears the United States has decided to uphold the majority of the free trade agreement (CUSMA) between our two nations. It also appears this will continue to be the case until after the Canadian federal election has concluded and the newly elected Canadian government is able to renegotiate CUSMA with the U.S. administration.

“This is precisely what I have been advocating for from the U.S. administration for months.

“It means that the majority of goods sold into the United States from Canada will have no tariffs applied to them, including zero per cent tariffs on energy, minerals, agricultural products, uranium, seafood, potash and host of other Canadian goods.

“There is still work to be done, of course. Unfortunately, tariffs previously announced by the United States on Canadian automobiles, steel and aluminum have not been removed. The efforts of premiers and the federal government should therefore shift towards removing or significantly reducing these remaining tariffs as we go forward and ensuring affected workers across Canada are generously supported until the situation is resolved.

“I again call on all involved in our national advocacy efforts to focus on diplomacy and persuasion while avoiding unnecessary escalation. Clearly, this strategy has been the most effective to this point.

“As it appears the worst of this tariff dispute is behind us (though there is still work to be done), it is my sincere hope that we, as Canadians, can abandon the disastrous policies that have made Canada vulnerable to and overly dependent on the United States, fast-track national resource corridors, get out of the way of provincial resource development and turn our country into an independent economic juggernaut and energy superpower.”