A lot of my research applies to the oil and gas industry a lot more than to renewable energy. I can make some brief recommendations on this, but I just don't have the level of detail on the renewable sector as I would on the fossil fuels sector. The short answer is that, yes, other countries do have much better quality, reliable, credible, aggregated information about renewable energy, including the U.S. EIA. Germany and the U.K. are also good examples.
I think one area where Canada could improve is in assessing interprovincial electricity sharing. There are a lot of savings that can be made by transmitting electricity across provinces, such as hydro from B.C. and Manitoba to provinces that are using coal-fired or gas-fired power plants, for example, in order to reduce emissions. This would also be a cost-savings for a lot of provinces, as that hydro is incredibly cheap.
The other thing is that I don't think we've aligned the pan-Canadian framework with Canada's renewable energy potential. If you look at Canada's wind potential on the Prairies, if you look at Canada's solar potential in a lot of areas, if you look at Canada's tidal potential on the east coast, for example, we're not really factoring in how useful that can be in 2030 or 2050. I think we should be looking at the opportunity and at the economic opportunity of creating those jobs associated with renewable energy, instead of focusing so much attention on the economic costs and benefits of fossil fuel expansion.