Hon. Sonya Savage

Sonya Savage is Senior Counsel at Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG), one of Canada’s largest law firms, serving clients across North America.  She serves on the Board of Directors for E3 Lithium, is a Senior Fellow at the MacDonald Laurier Institute and a Senior Advisor to Navigator, Canada’s leading communications and government relations firm. Prior to returning to the legal profession in 2023, Sonya served as Minister of Energy, Minister of Environment and Protected Areas and Minister of Justice and Solicitor General in the Alberta Government.

Prior to being elected in 2019, Savage was a leading advocate in the energy industry, with 13 years in the pipeline industry, at Enbridge and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.  She earned a Master of Laws in Environment and Energy in 2015 with a published thesis on the evolving role of the National Energy Board. 

As Minister of Energy, she led the Ministry during the global pandemic and price collapse, representing the province at OPEC meetings and across North America and Europe.  She implemented a liability management framework to help accelerate reclamation of oil and gas wells, overhauled the Alberta Energy Regulator, and modernized Alberta’s legal, policy and fiscal frameworks in new and emerging growth areas, including strategies to accelerate energy transition investments in critical minerals, hydrogen, geothermal, energy storage, and Small Modular Reactors.  In 2022 she developed the province’s framework to advance Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) through CCUS hubs, allocating pore space to 25 projects across the province in 2022. 

As Minister of Environment and Protected Areas she developed Alberta’s net-zero climate strategy – the Emissions Reduction and Energy Development Plan in 2023. She retired from politics in 2023 and returned to private practice where she continues to provide strategic advice on energy transition opportunities across Canada.