Yesterday’s memorandum of understanding between New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island marks an important step towards setting electrons free in Atlantic Canada, and towards realizing the potential of an electrified economy in Canada.
The timing is right for getting serious about regional collaboration. Between Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy, the recent National Energy Corridor Agreement, and the collaborative framework being developed by the Atlantic Energy Collective, there is an increasing recognition of the need for provinces to share in the opportunities — and the costs — of building an electrified future.
The MOU’s commitment to “ensuring reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity” builds on the vision of an electrified economy announced by the Federal government in Powering Canada Strong and echoed in Electrifying Canada’s own work. That vision requires at least a doubling of the size of Canada’s grid — and increasing collaboration, including steps towards a joint electricity market for Atlantic Canada, will be vital for managing that growth and keeping the system reliable and affordable.
The benefits of interprovincial electricity collaboration are widely known. As the MOU states, “enhanced regional cooperation offers opportunities to improve affordability, optimize investments, and strengthen system efficiency and resilience.” But political, market, and regulatory challenges have made those opportunities difficult to deliver in practice.
This new agreement represents a genuine effort to overcome those barriers, unlocking exciting opportunities for further collaboration and economic development. Expanding and enhancing our clean electricity system will provide a foundation for economic growth that can support high-quality, high-wage jobs in the region. The benefits extend to households, too, with an expanded grid supporting the electrification of home heating and transportation, lowering energy wallet costs across the Maritimes.
To that end, we commend the MOU’s commitment to acting quickly on developing a Maritime Regional Resource and Transmission Roadmap, along with an analysis of the costs and benefits of regional coordination, and options for a Maritime Independent Electricity System Operator. Delivering these important pieces in Fall 2026 recognizes the urgency of the challenges involved.
Similarly, the goal of developing a roadmap that “provides optimal benefits for all parties, respects provincial policy objectives, and supports the continued economic value of regional and international electricity exports” is exactly the right direction to take, and the commitment to “focus on near-term implementation actions” by Spring 2027 will be essential to overcoming the inertia that has long plagued interprovincial planning. The MOU’s stated support from the federal government will also be invaluable in realizing these ambitions.
At Electrifying Canada, we are excited to see momentum building for this work. We will continue to help bring these planning efforts to reality through our work with the recently launched Atlantic Electricity Cooperation Initiative, and we are proud to be partnering on similar efforts across Canada, especially in the Western Transmission Catalysts project from the Indigenous Power Coalition.
We are quickly seeing regional collaboration advance from a distant goal to a strategic necessity and a concrete reality. It’s time to set electrons free.
