Avoiding an energy pitfall: Insights from a critical integrated approach of CETA’s implications on energy matters in Canada
Résumé
It is a known fact that there is no energy chapter in CETA. Although CETA targets goods, services, and investments, a prevalent view on energy still limits it to commodity trade. Thus, energy matters appear as mainly residual in the agreement, for a wide range of reasons including geographical contingency, lack of takeaway infrastructures between the two parties, and finally, economic rationale. However, it remains clear that energy was discussed during the CETA negotiations to the point that it became quite a controversial issue, expressed ultimately in the tensions surrounding the European project of a Fuel Quality Directive in 2009. Drawing on a two-year investigation lead in different parts of Canada (Ontario, Québec, Alberta) as well as both a quantitative (text- analysis) and a qualitative (31 semi-structured interviews) protocol, this communication challenges the widely held view that CETA would not have implications on energy matters. The study suggests that it is not enough to think about the absence of an energy chapter as a matter of structure but as a matter of strategy. Thus, the author aims to defend the fact that CETA raises core regulatory questions on energy governance and responsibility patterns in Canada – a particularly challenging concern as CETA is presented as a broader governing tool and a template for future international negotiations. This contribution discusses the limits of a sole textual approach of CETA, showing how energy concerns highly exceed their explicit presence in the written provisions. Then, it pins down a case-study on the predictable effects of CETA on energy systems in Canada, which are mainly of regulatory nature. It questions the governance trends enhanced in CETA and their potential influence on the current breakdown of constitutional energy-related competencies between the provincial and the federal levels. Through this analysis, the author finally suggests a few general recommendations for the development of an integrated methodological way of thinking. The study hopes to produce a transferable model of analysis and to encourage integrated approaches of environmental issues in trade agreements such as waste flows in addition to energy.