JASPER RESEARCH SEMINAR 2025 – PAPERS OVERVIEW
All times are in Mountain Time (MT).
THURSDAY, JUNE 12
8:15 AM – 9:00 AM
THE IMPACT OF CANADA’S NEW SUPPLY CHAINS ACT ON THE ENERGY INDUSTRY AND INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS
Presenters: Gina Murray (Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP), Michael Dixon (Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP), Shaun Wrubell (BluEarth Renewables)
Child and forced labour are pervasive issues globally. The statistics are a stark reminder of the prevalence and economic impact of modern slavery. As of 2020, there were approximately 160 million children worldwide engaged in child labour, with almost 80 million involved in hazardous work. Economically, forced labour generates illicit profits estimated at more than USD 35 billion annually. Canada and the United State’s importation of goods at risk of being produced through child and forced labour is approximately USD 20 billion and USD 170 billion respectively, highlighting the breadth and depth of the exploitation of vulnerable populations. The G20 nations, representing 75% of world trade, play a crucial role in this market, often driving demand for goods produced under such conditions.
Given the increasing emphasis on sustainable investing from investors, the public and the government, it is unsurprising that issues of modern slavery are becoming increasingly relevant to, and having broad impact on, business operations. One such impact is recent legislative reform designed to enhance transparency and accountability in supply chains, particularly concerning global human rights impacts. In 2024, Canada’s Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act came into force, becoming the latest international development in this area. It has broad application in the Canadian marketplace to both public and private companies, including in the energy, electricity and renewables markets. As a transparency regime, Canada’s new legislation is one part of the global approach seeking to address human rights issues in supply chains. It requires reporting by energy, electricity and renewables companies about the risks and compliance controls of modern slavery and human rights violations in their supply chain, down to source materials.
Moreover, as governments move towards legislating due diligence reporting standards with increased penalties, energy, electricity and renewables companies must be prepared to adapt to the evolving regulatory requirements, including being aware of the various compliance strategies and best practices in this area. This rapidly changing environment with new, untested and often unclear legal concepts and requirements will present significant opportunities and challenges for the industry.
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9:15 AM – 10:00 AM
ALBERTA’S ELECTRICITY REGIME OVERHAUL: IMPLICATIONS OF THE CURRENT AND EVOLVING REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT FOR POWER GENERATION
Presenters: Jessica Kennedy (Bennett Jones LLP), Jackie Gow (Alberta Electric System Operator), Scott Poitras (Alberta Electric System Operator), Vincent Light (TransAlta Corporation), Brandon Leitch (ATCO Group)
Alberta’s electricity market is undergoing major regulatory and policy changes that will reshape power generation opportunities and risks. Historically, Alberta’s energy-only market and congestion-free transmission planning enabled significant renewable energy growth. However, concerns over reliability, affordability, and grid integration have prompted a regulatory regime and market overhaul. This paper examines the evolving regulatory landscape, commercial implications, and emerging trends in Alberta’s power sector.
Following an overview of the current framework and recent shifts affecting the electricity system and driving the need for reform, three key developments are discussed. First, the Alberta Utilities Commission’s (AUC) Renewables Inquiry and related initiatives have led to stricter regulatory measures affecting generators, such as new visual impact assessments, land use restrictions, and reclamation requirements. These aim to balance development with environmental and social considerations but introduce new compliance challenges.
Second, the Restructured Energy Market (REM) introduces fundamental shifts in market design to better incentivize the generation attributes required for reliable system operation. Notably, the REM contemplates the introduction of a mandatory day ahead market, a market-based congestion management mechanism, shorter settlement, and an updated pricing framework.
Third, Alberta is changing its transmission policy, moving away from the zero-congestion planning framework and adjusting how certain transmission costs are recovered. Key changes include introducing an optimally planned transmission standard, a cost causation principle for ancillary services costs, and a non-refundable transmission reinforcement payment for generators.
From a commercial perspective, these regulatory shifts may impact project economics, financing strategies, and power purchase agreements. Market saturation, net-zero policies, and regulatory uncertainty will shape contract structures and pricing. Additionally, Alberta’s power sector is seeing growing interest in data center development, creating new demand dynamics. Emerging technologies, such as small modular reactors and battery storage, will also play a role, with evolving regulations to accommodate them.
As Alberta navigates these changes, power developers, investors, and policymakers must adapt to the shifting regulatory and commercial landscape while balancing reliability, affordability, and decarbonization goals.
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10:00 AM – 10:45 AM
THE IMPACT OF PRIVATE CLIMATE CHANGE LITIGATION AND RECENT COMPETITION ACT AMENDMENTS ON THE CANADIAN ENERGY SECTOR: REGULATORY AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS SHAPING THE PATH FORWARD
Presenters: Paula Olexiuk, Kaeleigh Kuzma, Matthew Huys (Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP)
Authors: Logan Aitken, Ankita Gupta (Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP)
Climate change litigation is surging worldwide as plaintiffs turn to courts to address global warming. Emerging lawsuits are targeting corporations using tort, nuisance, deceptive marketing, and corporate law among other principles to demand accountability and push for decarbonization. Private climate litigation remains in its early stages in Canada, but momentum is building, with lawsuits aiming to hold multinationals liable for climate costs and legislative changes set to accelerate the trend.
International cases show courts are willing to recognize corporate obligations regarding mitigating climate change, though the scope remains uncertain. Some claims challenge misleading climate disclosures, emissions reporting, and governance practices. Other tort-based lawsuits, despite legal hurdles, have yet to be dismissed outright. Corporate directors and officers also face lawsuits over climate-related decision-making. Meanwhile, recent amendments to Canada’sCompetition Act heighten scrutiny of environmental claims, with private enforcement available as of June 20, 2025.
We will discuss emerging private climate lawsuits in Canada and around the world, the legal theories driving them, and their implications for corporate liability. In addition, we will explore the impact of recent amendments to Canada’s Competition Act, discuss litigation challenges, and offer strategies for how companies can mitigate climate litigation risks.
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11:00AM – 11:45 AM
RECENT JUDICIAL DECISIONS OF INTEREST TO ENERGY LAWYERS
Presenters: Paul Chiswell, Kylan Kidd, Chelsea Nimmo Burnet, Robert Martz (Burnet Duckworth & Palmer LLP)
This paper summarizes recent judicial decisions of interest to energy lawyers. The authors will review and comment on case law from the past year in several areas including Indigenous law, contractual interpretation, employment and labour, securities litigation, class actions, environmental law, intellectual property, insurance law, bankruptcy and insolvency, tax, and arbitration. The authors will discuss the practical implications of the decisions and risk-management strategies that may be of benefit to participants in the energy industry. The authors also highlight cases to watch in 2026.
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FRIDAY, JUNE 13
8:15 AM – 9:00 AM
DATA CENTRES, AI AND ELECTRIFICATION: LEGAL AND CORPORATE APPROACHES TO GROWING POWER DEMANDS
Presenters: Robert Wydareny (Capital Power Corporation), Dana Saric (Neo Financial Technologies Inc. ), Peter Bryan (Borden Ladner Gervais LLP), Jordan Hulecki (Borden Ladner Gervais LLP), Alan Ross (Borden Ladner Gervais LLP)
Data centre load growth is the single largest driver of forecast electricity demand growth in North America. Data centres are the physical backbone of the modern information society and the digital-services industry, and as their number and scale have increased so has their energy consumption. The advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI), with its much greater computing power requirements, has added jet fuel to this explosion. Alberta and other Canadian jurisdictions are positioning themselves to attract data centre investment, leveraging their advantages of cooler temperatures and abundant water and electricity potential.
Data centre load growth is outpacing the generation and transmission investment required to serve it. This is disrupting the electricity industry across North America and creating opportunities for investors, including in renewable, dispatchable and baseload generation; energy storage and demand response; and transmission. At the same time, risks created by the pace of growth threaten to limit that growth. Long payback periods and unproven revenue streams risk overbuild and stranded costs. Behind-the-fence generation risks uneconomic bypass of the transmission system, increasing costs for other system customers. Adding large loads and intermittent power sources to strained grids is creating reliability concerns. Regulators and legislators across North America are exploring a variety of responses to these risks as they strive to attract data centre investment while promoting sustainable development and protecting customers.
Data centre load growth also presents commercial considerations for stakeholders. Proponents seeking behind-the-fence generation will encounter issues associated with typical generation project development, including load forecasting; counterparty credit assurances; schedule risk; and cost overrun risk. In addition, they will be acutely aware of guaranteed availability rights, change of law risk, expansion rights, planned and unplanned outages, and force majeure. With electricity being the largest contributor to Scope 2 carbon emissions for data centres, operators are also increasingly entering into renewable PPAs to offset their data centre footprint. These operators will also be negotiating pricing structures (fixed price, indexed, discounts, floors/ceilings), environmental attributes (including who gets credit), and considering around-the-clock carbon free matching, amongst other issues.
This paper will consider the commercial aspects of power procurement that are unique to data centres, as well as their regulatory and public policy implications.
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9:15 AM – 10:00 AM
REGULATORY ROULETTE: HIGH STAKES AND UNPREDICTABLE OUTCOMES FOR ALBERTA’S ENERGY INDUSTRY
Presenters: Ashley Urch (McCarthy Tétrault LLP), Robyn Finley (McCarthy Tétrault LLP) , Riley Thackray (McCarthy Tétrault LLP), Audrey Bouffard-Nesbitt (McCarthy Tétrault LLP), Carolyn Milne (Shell Canada Limited)
In the face of shifting political dynamics in Canada and the United States, not least concerning tariffs and trade, Alberta’s energy sector continues to face a period of significant uncertainty. The drive for a cleaner energy future further complicates the regulatory landscape, presenting a mix of significant challenges and emerging opportunities. This paper will critically examine the impact of regulatory unpredictability on the industry, considering both provincial and federal policy influences. The authors’ goal is to provide a targeted perspective for legal professionals advising clients within the conventional and renewable energy sub-sectors, informed by insights from experienced industry insiders.
This paper will examine the regulatory landscape’s effect on six crucial areas: conventional oil and gas, carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS), battery storage, hydrogen production, LNG exports, and renewable energy development. This analysis aims to identify how changing regulations, and a lack of clear direction are shaping investment decisions, business growth, and operational approaches. By weaving in firsthand accounts from industry stakeholders, we offer a practical viewpoint on the real-world complexities encountered by companies.
With our paper serving as a jumping-off point for a panel discussion at the CELF Seminar in Jasper, we seek to share information and insight to equip legal practitioners in the energy space with a nuanced understanding of the challenges we all face and provide practical, forward-looking strategies for assisting clients in an era of unprecedented change.
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10:15 AM – 11:00 AM
THE PORE SPACE RACE: CONFLICTS OF SUBSURFACE RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION
Presenters: Nick Ettinger (Torys LLP), Gino Bruni (Torys LLP), Tyson Dyck (Torys LLP), Alanah Wiberg (Torys LLP), Henry Ren (Enbridge Gas Inc.),
Legal frameworks for pore space ownership, expropriation, unitization, and compensation are developing in a non-uniform manner across Canadian and U.S. jurisdictions. Each regime poses different legal and economic risks to carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”) project development and the disparate nature of each regime can be difficult for project proponents and investors to navigate. For example, despite the Government of Alberta’s ability to grant tenure rights to CCS project proponents as the owner of almost all pore space in the province, there are an abundance of other pore space uses and resources that stand to conflict with CCS projects at the regulatory approval phase.
This paper discusses and compares the developing pore space ownership, expropriation, unitization, and compensation regimes in various Canadian and U.S. jurisdictions and comments on the merits and attendant risks associated with those regimes, including the potential for conflicts of subsurface rights.
The first section focuses on the disparate pore pace ownership regimes in Canada and certain key U.S. jurisdictions. The second section focuses on pore space unitization and expropriation regimes—which flow from the vesting of pore space ownership in the surface estate—as well as compensation regimes for the taking or use of privately owned pore space. The third section focuses on conflicts between CCS proponents and other subsurface rightsholders whose interests stand to be adversely impacted by CCS projects and how regulators and courts may deal with such conflicts.
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11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
RECENT REGULATORY AND LEGISLATIVE DEVELOPMENTS OF INTEREST TO ENERGY LAWYERS
Presenters: Joelle French, Gavin Fitch, Michael Barbero, Marika Cherkawsky (McLennan Ross LLP)
This article provides a high-level overview of regulatory and legislative developments between June 2024 and April 2025, which may be of interest to Canadian Energy Lawyers. It includes discussion of recent regulatory decisions and changes to regulatory and legislative regimes impacting energy law and highlights several ongoing regulatory and legislative developments to watch for in the coming year. Topics of note include implications arising out of legislation and policy changes to the Impact Assessment Act, the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, the Canada Energy Regulator, and the Restructured Energy Market, among others.
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SATURDAY, JUNE 15
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
RICHARD RIEGERT MEMORIAL LECTURE: THE EFFECT OF TARIFFS ON LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL ENERGY TRADE
Presenters: Josh Jantzi, Marle Riley, Niles Bond (DLA Piper Canada)
In today’s interconnected global economy, energy trade is crucial for sustaining growth and development. Recent international and local events emphasize the need to expand or change Canada’s energy trade. Both trade tariffs and regulatory tariffs can significantly impact energy trade, shape economic landscapes and influence policy decisions. In this paper we analyze and compare international trade and regulatory tariffs, consider the economic, regulatory and practical barriers to interprovincial trade in Canada, and compare provincial regulatory rates and tariffs and local responses thereto. Ultimately, we identify which international tariffs are most favourable to Canada and propose solutions to interprovincial trade challenges.
Whether you’re a policy maker, energy sector professional, or an academic scholar, this paper offers insights and actionable recommendations to navigate the evolving landscape of energy tariffs. This work considers energy and tariffs, and explores the asserted reasons for imposing tariffs, including political and economic factors reflecting a constellation of public interests.
The paper then delves into international tariffs, examining regulatory and trade tariffs from Canada, the United States of America, European Union, United Kingdom, and China. We highlight current tariff structures and their legal bases. The discussion continues with an exploration of inter-provincial trade barriers within Canada, examining constitutional aspects, trade agreements, and various types of trade barriers. The paper recommends areas for Canadian federal, provincial and territorial law reform aimed at increasing local market access and reducing trade barriers in Canadian energy markets.
We further examine intra-provincial energy trade in Canada, including local consumer responses to tariffs in the provinces and territories. Looking to the future, we analyze regulation in the public interest and consider the impact of changes in international relations, technological advancements, and policy directions on the approval of facilities and energy tariffs.
We conclude by ranking tariffs by magnitude of impact on the Canadian energy sector. We opine on which tariffs to favour, which to avoid, and which tariffs ultimately do not make much of a difference.
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Questions?
If you have questions regarding the CELF Jasper Research Seminar, please contact us at seminars@energylawfoundation.ca or at 1-800-281-0697.
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