We take our energy security for granted. Our adversaries do not: Heather Exner Pirot and David McConkey in National Newswatch

This article was originally published in National Newswatch.

By Heather Exner-Pirot and David McConkey, March 21, 2025

Canada has practically unlimited oil, natural gas and uranium. We have ample clean hydroelectricity. Our electricity grid and natural gas utility systems are reliable 99.9% of the time. The average Canadian has so much access to energy that in the odd time they experience a blackout or a gas station shortage, it is treated as a crisis. This is not the norm in most parts of the world, and if we’re not careful it won’t be the norm here either.

Canada enjoys three primary energy systems: natural gas for heat (38% of energy consumption), gasoline and other liquid fuels for transportation (36%); and electricity for power (24%). All three are facing increased risks to their reliability.

Energy systems are attractive targets for our enemies. In the case of hostilities, our energy systems would no doubt be targeted early on. We have seen this in practice in recent years in the Baltic Sea, Ukraine and Russia.

But we don’t have to wait for open conflict to experience an attack on our energy systems: they are occurring now, daily.

The biggest threat is from relentless cyberattacks. The bulk of these are financially-motivated. The number of such attacks in the North American energy sector grew by a whopping 68% between 2022 and 2023.

Suncor was a high profile victim in June 2023, when an attack led to disrupted payments systems at its Petro-Canada stations for several days, causing long line ups, frustration and lost revenue.

Even more serious was the Colonial pipeline cyber attack in May 2021, which caused fuel disruptions along the US east coast and prompted then-President Joe Biden to declare a state of emergency. This led directly and indirectly to a series of US efforts, one of which inspired the Canadian Cyber Defence Collective – a public-private partnership on national-level cyber security challenges, policy priorities, and defence efforts.

America has suffered physical attacks, too. A pair of electrical substations was shot in North Carolina in December 2022, leaving tens of thousands of customers without power in frigid temperatures. Similar incidents occurred in California in 2013 and in North Dakota in 2023. There are hundreds of such substations in Canada.

While concerning, these incidents help us understand what the impacts of attacks on our energy systems could look like. Our main adversaries, Russia and China, are almost certainly active in espionage and pre-positioning activities to enable such attacks on our systems. Because our electricity, pipeline and refinery systems are so integrated with the United States, attacks on them could affect us, and vice versa.

Another threat arises from supply chain disruption. Amongst several bottlenecks, transformers have arisen as perhaps the most critical. Since the pandemic, lead times for the device, which adjust voltage levels in power systems, have more than doubled, from an average of 30-60 weeks to 120-130 weeks. Costs have also skyrocketed, up around 60-80%, largely based on an increase in raw material prices. In the case of an attack or disruption, fixing what was broken will be very challenging.

With North America’s aging energy infrastructure, just maintaining our systems is a huge concern. With additional pressures coming from energy transition ambitions, data centre demand, and an increase in population driven by immigration, supply chains for many key supplies are at a breaking point. This is being worsened by global trade disruptions such as tariffs and export restrictions, skilled labour shortages, and damages from wildfires, floods and other weather events. A perfect storm is brewing.

And into this storm have come layers of policies that make it harder to build and limit our available options: clean fuel standards and clean electricity regulations, permitting woes for major projects, restrictions on natural gas pipelines and connections, and more.

Utilities are stretched to the limit in fulfilling the energy needs of Canadians at rates at which their customers can manage. Our political institutions are leaving energy providers with very few tools by which to balance reliability, affordability, and sustainability. These qualities have been made into competing goals rather than complementary objectives.

We have taken our energy security for granted in Canada. It is not an inevitability, and for the first time in decades it is feeling tenuous. Political and public attention is urgently required to protect the energy access we still enjoy.

Heather Exner-Pirot is the Director of Energy, Natural Resources and Environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

David McConkey is Senior Director, Operations, Safety & Security for the Canadian Gas Association.