It took more than a century to build the electricity network we have today in Canada – from the first hydroelectric projects in the late 1800s to today’s provincial grids. Ottawa’s new national electricity strategy commits to doubling Canada’s power supply by 2050.

The scale of this ambition is staggering.

Federal analysis suggests that modernizing and doubling Canada’s electricity output by 2050 could require investments of up to $1 trillion. If successful, this will be one of the largest, most complex infrastructure achievements in this country’s history. But it requires an unprecedented mobilization of capital, labour and political will across all levels of government.

We have rarely seen a policy Christmas quite like this. The federal government’s strategy is a package overflowing with initiatives and ambitious targets. Within a few dozen pages, the document lays out an aggressive, all‑hands‑on‑deck approach to rewiring the nation’s electricity system.

The strategy touches almost every conventional macroeconomic lever available to policymakers. Its core pillars emphasize large‑scale infrastructure financing, expanding interprovincial transmission links, building a much larger skilled workforce and increasing domestic clean‑energy manufacturing. It also leans on broad home retrofit programs and on revised regulations that allow a continued role for natural-gas generation under certain conditions. The latter is a change that has sparked debate about affordability, emissions and stranded assets.

A crucial piece of the puzzle has been overlooked in allocating billions of dollars for massive generation projects and industrial supply chains. The strategy rightly focuses on provincial governments, utilities and industry. But it pays comparatively little attention to the role that communities, municipalities, co-operatives and citizens can play in shaping and accelerating the energy transition.

The community blind spot

The country’s electricity network was largely built around centralized generation and........

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