SMITH'S SOVEREIGNTY ACT FINALLY LANDS, JUST AS SASK. DEFIES OTTAWA
Jailhouse rock with Danielle Smith and Scott Moe? Premier Smith actually suggested it Monday with her last throwaway line at a news conference about invoking the sovereignty act.
“I've joked with Scott Moe about whether he's prepared to go to jail. He sounds like he is. I guess I'm gonna go in 2035 if it comes down to us, and I hope it doesn't come down to that,” Smith said.
Saskatchewan Premier Moe is closer to the cells than Smith (not that either of them will serve a day).
His government has brought in Bill 151, which exempts Saskenergy officials from federal punishment for defying federal law, and gives the relevant minister power not to pay carbon tax.
Moe vows that on Jan. 1 the Crown corporation will not remit carbon tax on home heating fuel to Ottawa.
This is an immediate crisis for Ottawa, compared to Smith's more distant alarm.
By New Year's Day, unless somebody blinks, one province will formally defy the carbon tax, with sympathy from several others.
That could be the snowball that starts an anti-tax avalanche.
Moe's pledge follows the Liberals' exemption of home heating oil from carbon tax. They admitted it was done for political gain in Atlantic Canada, then refused to allow a similar break for natural gas.
Smith and Moe have their wedge issue. They pound stakes into it like a pair of vampire slayers.
She would love to join Moe in tax defiance, but can't, because that would mean ordering private companies to defy federal law.
Smith's larger concern is the electricity regulations coming from Ottawa. The feds demand that Alberta's grid be net-zero by 2035.
The premier says it just can't be done without enormous economic pain. She adds that the province can and will comply with the general 2050 goal for net-zero emissions.
Under the sovereignty motion to the legislature, the Alberta Electrical System Operator and Alberta Utilities Commission would be ordered to refuse compliance with federal electricity rules.
Smith said the government will consider how to shield officials of those bodies from charges under federal law.
NDP Leader Rachel Notley slammed the whole project.
“The UCP is invoking a dishonest and illegal stunt that jeopardizes investment certainty, breaches treaty rights across the country, weakens national unity, and embarrasses Albertans on the global stage.”
The sovereignty motion would also allow creation of a Crown corporation with power over electricity generation and marketing.
The premier said this would leave plenty of room for private operators, but act as a backstop and owner for some natural gas production.
The threat of federal action has virtually stopped development, she says, so the government needs a way to ensure that production continues for generating electricity.
“I'd love for the private sector to continue to be allowed to work the way we intended.
“But with the federal government intervening the way they have, it's created uncertainty in the market ... we want to be the generator of last resort.”
Smith argues that Ottawa, not Alberta, is breaking the biggest law of all by ignoring the constitution, which gives the provinces sole authority over electricity.
Ottawa recently lost a Supreme Court case over the Impact Assessment Act. A Federal Court ruling also went against the single-use plastic ban.
“You've seen how the federal government acts,” Smith says. “They pass a law that's unconstitutional ... they force us to go to court and wait years to get a judgment. We get a judgment, they ignore it, and then continue on as if it didn't happen in the first place.”
Smith is reacting in much the same way as the first Progressive Conservative premier, Peter Lougheed, who used provincial power in several ways to face down Ottawa.
When the feds imposed an export tax on natural gas, the government bought some wells, exported gas, and then won a court case against the tax.
In the 1980s the province still granted “export” permits to ship oil and gas to other provinces.
During the fight over the National Energy Program, Alberta energy minister Don Getty stopped signing the permits. Ontario refiners went into a panic and Ottawa began to soften.
Such provincial powers have largely dissipated. Now Smith wants them back, for exactly the same purpose.
An unfair, regionally destructive Liberal government needs pushback every generation or two. Climate goals can be achieved without this overbearing federal power.