Why has Canada been unable to achieve any of its climate-change targets? Part of the reason is that emissions in two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan – already about half the Canadian total when taken together – have been steadily increasing as a result of expanding oil and gas production. Declining emissions in other provinces, such as Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, have been cancelled out by those western increases. The ultimate explanation for Canadian failure lies in the differing energy interests of the western and eastern provinces, overlaid on the confederation fault-line of western alienation. Climate, energy, and national unity form a toxic mix.

How can Ottawa possibly get all the provinces moving in the same direction of decreasing emissions? To answer this question, Douglas Macdonald explores the five attempts to date to put in place coordinated national policy in the fields of energy and climate change – from Pierre Trudeau’s ill-fated National Energy Program to Justin Trudeau’s bitterly contested Pan-Canadian program – analysing and comparing them for the first time. Important new insights emerge from this analysis which, in turn, provide the basis for a new approach. Carbon Province, Hydro Province is a major contribution to the vital question of how our federal and provincial governments can effectively work together and thereby for the first time achieve a Canadian climate-change target.

Douglas Macdonald received his Ph.D. from York University and is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Environment, University of Toronto. He has written widely on environmental policy, including the role of business, and is the author of The Politics of Pollution (McClelland & Stewart, 1991).

Douglas Macdonald's profile page

• Commended, 2021 Seymour Martin Lipset Best Book Award from the Canadian Politics section of the American Political Science Association

"Macdonald has written a book of transcendent importance for the development of a genuinely effective climate change plan. His formulation of negotiating scenarios, in particular, offers a constructive path forward, one that moves away from federal-provincial stalemates and the easy agreements that avoid actual solu­tions. And his masterful grasp of Canada's so far lame efforts in this arena is a major contribution to understanding where we have been and where we must go."

<em>Literary Review of Canada</em>