It was a momentous occasion for Canada – the first foreign visit for a rookie United States president – and it was going to be short, so briefings needed to be concise and accurate. “I guess he’s filled in OK now,” Bruce Carson tells a visitor entering his spartan office at the University of Calgary.

Filling in a senior federal cabinet minister is routine stuff for this straight-shooting 62-year-old lawyer. Until last summer, he spent the past 30-odd years advising senior members of government. In his most recent Ottawa role, he served as senior policy adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The fledgling Canada School of Energy and the Environment couldn’t have chosen a better person to take the helm as its first executive director. It’s telling of the organization that they selected one with such vast experience in the corridors of national power.

“What we’re trying to do is help out with the path forward after the visit,” says Carson of the whirlwind Obama stop. “The Canada school may be asked to help out with a Canada-U.S. climate change agreement. It’s part of the general mandate of the School to help bring together industry research and government.”

The CSEE emerged as a force because the federal government designated it as a national center of excellence and endowed it with $15 million in the 2007 budget. The agency was formed as an umbrella organization over agencies at three Alberta universities, which each carry their own strengths and expertise when it comes to today’s issues related to energy and the environment. The school’s stated intention is to take “an interdisciplinary approach to energy issues by bringing together experts in the fields of law, economics, engineering, chemistry, geology, environmental sciences, political and social sciences, and business management.”

The field of energy and the environment clearly has a broad reach into every aspect of life and the CSEE looks at them all. The topic is so interwoven with different connective disciplines that none of them can be studied without looking at the effect on another. Co-ordinating research in every related area and forming a three-way link among industry, academia and all orders of government, the new organization intends to bring the latest knowledge and technology to industry to help generate economically viable solutions to today’s energy issues. Carson’s agency declares its intention to work on “demonstrating Canada’s leadership in responding to international energy demands and underscoring the country’s commitment to addressing environment concerns and developing alternative energy sources.”

That’s the gist of CSEE’s mandate, and Carson agrees it’s a tall order in today’s world. “It is incredibly exciting, if we can actually pull it off,” he says, emphasizing the international scope of the new organization and the clear promise it now has with the election of President Barack Obama. With the visit of the two leaders having produced a modest early proposal aimed at developing new technologies like carbon sequestration, public expectations are that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s position on these issues is bound to be drifting in new directions away from his much-criticized co-operation with former U.S. president George Bush. In his Ottawa address, President Obama openly expressed hope that both countries would be firmly committed to these climate change issues.

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