Alberta Launches National Ads to ‘Push Back’ Against Ottawa Draft Electricity Regulations

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz stand together during the cabinet swearing in, in Edmonton on June 9, 2023. The Canadian Press/Jason Franson

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government is launching a national advertising campaign against the federal government’s proposed clean electricity regulations.

At a live news conference on Sept. 28, accompanied by Environment and Protected Areas Minister Rebecca Schulz and Affordability and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, Premier Smith said the campaign would consist of print, radio, television, and social media advertisements.

Mrs. Smith said Alberta is going to “push back against Ottawa’s disastrous draft electricity regulations,” which the province maintains is creating “rapid and risky” changers to the nation’s power grid.

The premier called Ottawa’s legislation “poorly conceived,” “disastrously uninformed, and totally disconnected from reality.”

“We are sending a message to Ottawa: ‘No one wants to freeze in the dark,’” the premier said in a social media post on Sept. 29. “This campaign is about energy security and affordability for every Canadian.”

The post suggests consumers visit the website tellthefeds.ca and send a message to their member of Parliament to reject Ottawa’s plan for a net-zero electrical grid by 2035.

Ms. Schulz added: “This national advertising campaign is necessary because hearing from Canadians, yes here in the Prairies, but right across our country, is the only way the federal government can be convinced to actually consider affordability and reliability in the decisions that they’re making.”

Power Bills

In an accompanying news release, Mrs. Smith said Canadians need to be informed about the “negative effects of the federal government’s proposed electricity regulations,” suggesting they will increase power bills for all households, put reliability of the grid at risk, and drive investment out of Alberta.

“If left unchanged, Alberta will be forced to achieve net-zero in 12 years without stable sources of baseload power, like natural gas. This would increase the likelihood and frequency of brownouts and blackouts during Alberta’s cold winters and hot summers, and negatively affect many other Canadians as well,” the news release said.

It said Alberta has its own plan to fully transition away from coal-powered electricity by 2024, noting that the province had already reduced electricity emissions by 53 percent between 2005 and 2021.  Alberta has a target to achieve a carbon-neutral power grid by 2050 “without compromising affordable, reliable and secure energy for Albertans, Canadians and the world,” said the news release.

The Alberta government said the Constitution of Canada leaves the legislating and regulating of the development of electricity explicitly within provincial jurisdiction.

Alberta maintained that it needs “a diverse mix of intermittent and baseload options to prevent future blackouts and maintain a reliable grid,” and that among all of the provinces, Ottawa’s proposed regulations will incur the highest costs in Alberta.

The premier said at the news conference that electricity systems have been built up over decades.

“Radically redesigning them in 12 years would cost Canadians at least a trillion dollars and possibly as much as 1.7 trillion dollars,” she said.

“Alberta would bear the largest cost of any province estimated at coming anywhere between 200 billion to more than 400 billion.”

Unreliable

Alberta’s premier added that wind and solar sources of energy are “intermittent.”

“Energy storage technology has not advanced to overcome that, meaning electricity supplies could simply stop, repeatedly and dangerously. In Alberta, we do not have enough non-emitting baseload electricity available from hydroelectric or nuclear, and there’s not enough time to build that by 2035.”

The news release noted that “Alberta’s grid had seven alerts during colder months in 2022 and had three alerts in summer 2023, underscoring the importance of having sufficient stable baseload power sources like gas, hydro, and nuclear available year-round.”

“The federal electricity regulations do not adequately account for regional electricity system differences, Alberta’s energy-only market, the province’s reliance on natural gas generation or the large industrial demand,” it added.

“Modelling and analysis recently highlighted by the Public Policy Forum shows the federal electricity approach could cost Canadians more than $1 trillion.”

At the news conference, the premier said the proposed federal regulations will leave families and businesses with “unaffordable bills” and the provinces with “crushing debt.”

Unreliable energy “will risk leaving many of us shivering in the darkness in the dead of winter or sweating it out in plus 30,” added Mrs. Smith.

Sovereignty Act Motion

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said on Sept. 29 that Alberta will not get special treatment when it comes to the new regulations.

He disagreed that the regulations will impose undue costs or cause reliability problems anywhere.

“I would call on Premier Smith to work with us constructively to ensure that these regulations are the most efficient for all Canadians,” Mr. Guilbeault said at a news conference in Ottawa on Sept. 29.

“How fair would it be for ... the rest of the federation if we started carving out exceptions for provinces?” he asked.

Premier Smith said the province is “preparing a Sovereignty Act motion and I’m hoping we don’t have to use it, ... but we are going to defend our constitutional jurisdiction to make sure that we develop our oil and gas industry at our own pace.”

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.