EDMONTON - It’s a bit early for a parade, but at least we can exhale now. The new NDP government offered further evidence this week that it plans to track toward the middle ground, and not lean too far left.

If so, that’s a very good thing.

The appointment of ATB Financial chief Dave Mowat to head the province’s new energy royalty review is a smart, business-friendly move.

The Alberta-born Mowat, who previously ran British Columbia’s largest credit union, is a veteran banker who understands how the economy works and why the energy industry is so vital.

As chairman of the review panel, he’s not likely to recommend changes — especially in a period of low oil prices — that would severely damage the province’s economic engine or cripple ATB’s own customers, many of whom are directly tied to the energy sector.

Likewise, the Notley government showed admirable smarts by recruiting respected University of Alberta energy and environmental economist Andrew Leach to help steer the province’s new climate change strategy.

The media-savvy Leach has a more detailed understanding of industry economics than many senior execs in the oilpatch, and knows how much additional cost the industry can bear to curb emissions without rendering it uncompetitive.

Leach is an environmental pragmatist, not an altruist. Unlike the noisy eco-activist crowd, he doesn’t demonize bitumen, per se. He’s agnostic about the source of emissions. He just wants a level playing field that discourages more emissions, no matter where they come from.

That said, Leach is a staunch believer that Alberta needs a credible emissions reduction plan if it wants to secure new markets for its crude oil, and that its biggest industry has to get its head out of the oilsands or pay the price for inaction.

“If we believe the economy we have only exists because we can pollute without paying for it, or without compensating for the damages that creates, that’s a real problem,” he told me in March, before addressing an EcoFiscal Commission forum in Edmonton.

“I worry about this when I hear the prime minister say things like, ‘To impose environmental regulations on the oilsands sector would be crazy.’ That’s really not a message you want to send.”

On the flip side, Leach is no Pollyanna. He doesn’t exaggerate the impact a small province like Alberta can have on global emissions, or see carbon pricing as a panacea for the planet’s ills.

“You see a lot of discussion from the other side of the debate, that equates carbon pricing with magic, and that somehow just having a carbon price or carbon tax magically solves all kinds of problems. It doesn’t,” he says.

“The economics of carbon pricing tells you that if you’re going to impose a policy, carbon pricing is probably the most cost effective way to achieve a particular outcome,” he explains.

“But it doesn’t necessarily say that you’re going to achieve a better outcome with carbon pricing versus regulation. And it doesn’t say that taxes are better than cap and trade, unconditionally. It doesn’t say the things you routinely hear.”

See what I mean? Leach is a data-driven realist, not dreamer. And like Mowat, he knows that the energy industry needs clarity — the sooner, the better — on how all the elements of the province’s new fiscal regime, from taxes to royalties to carbon levies, will ultimately fit together.