The Government of Alberta has launched a public campaign encouraging Canadians to reject the federal energy regulation plan and says it may use its sovereignty act to protect the province’s interests.
“I’m hoping we don’t have to use it,” Premier Danielle Smith said during a news conference in Calgary on Sept. 28. “We are going to bend our constitutional jurisdiction to make sure that we develop our oil and gas industry at our own pace, and that we develop our electricity system so that it achieves the goal of reliability and affordability.”
“We are running print, radio, television, and social media ads, along with billboards and bus wraps,” Ms. Smith said at the news conference.
“These highlight how the regulations will make it more expensive for Canadians by increasing power levels. They'll drive off investment in jobs and will threaten the reliability of our power grid, and put it at risk.”
She said the goal of the campaign is to get Canadians to express their concerns to the federal government.
Ms. Smith’s government is on board with a net-zero emissions plan by 2050. However, it opposes the federal government’s new Clean Electricity Regulations, which imposes a 2035 net-zero electricity grid objective.
“Our campaign urges everyone to contact their MPs and have their say so that Ottawa can hear how many people are deeply concerned,” said Ms. Smith.
Alberta’s Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz said the move was a necessary one.
“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,” Ms. Schulz said.
The federal government says besides reducing emissions, its new Clean Electricity Regulations has a myriad of benefits for the country, including creating jobs, providing “predictable and affordable electricity rates,” attracting new business to the country, and improving “economic reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.”
Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault has argued that the new federal regulations are “designed to be flexible, realistic, and affordable.”
Under Alberta’s sovereignty act, which Ms. Smith championed during her party’s leadership race in 2022 and passed shortly after becoming premier, the province can reject federal rules that it deems as going against the interests of the province and infringing on its jurisdiction.
‘Unaffordable’
Premier Smith said the federal government’s push for net-zero emissions will be “unaffordable” for Canadians.“If implemented, the proposed federal electricity regulations will stick Canadian families and businesses with unaffordable bills, and provincial governments with crushing debt. And the grid itself, based on unreliable energy sources, will risk leaving many of us shivering in the darkness in the dead of winter, or sweating it out in plus-30 weather in the summer,” Ms. Smith said during the news conference.
Ms. Smith said there was common ground between Alberta and Ottawa and that she is willing to work together with the federal government. However, the timeline and pace of the federal targets would create unacceptable burdens on Albertans and on the power grid.
Alberta’s government has reduced emissions and will continue to do so, Ms. Smith said, adding her government was “demonstrating leadership.”
“Sometimes you have to wait for the technology to develop, we’ve got projects at scale that are capturing and storing CO2, and we'll see more of that. But some of the technology just doesn’t exist yet,” she said.
A recent poll of Canadians found little support for the federal government’s plan. A Leger poll found that only 52 percent of respondents knew of the plan and just 15 percent thought a 2050 net zero plan was realistic.
