Energy and energy literacy in Canada

Lots of people have opinions about Canadian energy, how we use and export it, its costs and its impacts on the environment. In the end, however, it is leaders in business and policy circles whose opinions can have a greater impact on influencing how the rest of us think about energy, and ultimately, how our national energy picture eventually unfolds. Remarkably, however, a survey of leaders in business and policy-making across the country finds that their knowledge about Canadian energy systems is not that much deeper or different than the Canadian public at large. Their opinions about how we should use, conserve and export energy are also strikingly similar. Anyone presuming that leaders in business and policy have a firm understanding of how Canadians get their energy might be startled to discover that, in Ontario, Alberta, the Atlantic region and Saskatchewan, a substantial fraction of these "elite" survey respondents incorrectly identify the primary resource used for energy in their province.