The Politics of Fracking in Canada and the EU: Convergence, Diversity or Conflict?

This paper seeks to explore and explain the very different patterns of energy governance in Canada and the EU with particular reference to the development of shale gas resources. Policy in both cases can be regarded as forms of multilevel governance but with very different and perhaps surprising balances of responsibility between the federal/supranational, the provincial/member state and the local in each case. Moreover, both the EU and Canada are characterised by very diverse responses to the development of this resource within each case with different governments at the provincial/member state level adopting stances which range from enthusiastic support to outright opposition. The paper will consider the different domestic politics affecting these outcomes and consider how these might in turn affect Canadian-EU relations in the light of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement