Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated her and Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland said the federal Liberals respect Alberta’s decision, following Premier Danielle Smith’s victory in the province’s election on Monday.
Freeland’s comment was a bit strange — what choice do the Liberals have? — but in any event, Smith wasted no time in firing a shot across the bow of Trudeau’s Liberals in her victory speech.
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“My fellow Albertans, we need to come together no matter how we have voted to stand shoulder to shoulder against soon to be announced Ottawa policies that would significantly harm our economy,” Smith said.
She was talking about Trudeau’s planned cap on greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta’s oil and gas sector, his goal of cutting Canada’s emissions by 40% compared to 2005 levels by 2030 and to net zero by 2050, and his “just transition plan,” now renamed his “sustainable jobs plan.”
Smith and the UCP are justifiably suspicious that those policies will hit Alberta harder than any other province, given that it is Canada’s leading producer of oil and natural gas.
One thing that would help open up a meaningful dialogue between Alberta and Ottawa, would be for the feds to stop pretending that reducing Canada’s emissions can be achieved painlessly, or at no cost to taxpayers, or with everyone ending up better off financially.
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That portrayal of what is needed to reach Trudeau’s goals is nonsense because, in the real world, it involves a major shift in how Canada produces and exports energy; changes that will disrupt the Canadian economy.
The feds could also stop implying that every Albertan has an oil well in his or her backyard and is oblivious to the environment.
Even the federal government acknowledges that “Alberta has been a leader in pricing carbon pollution in Canada” as “the first province to put an output-based pricing system in place, in 2007,” although relations have dramatically deteriorated since Trudeau imposed his federal carbon price on the province, arguing it wasn’t reducing emissions quickly enough.
The reality is that gratuitously damaging Alberta’s economy over unrealistic emissions goals will damage the Canadian economy.
If Trudeau really wants to improve relations with Alberta in the wake of Smith’s victory, then understanding that would be a good place to start.