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Danielle Smith does socialism to own the libs

Danielle Smith announces the implementation of her "Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act" and ... the creation of a new Crown corporation? Photography by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta

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Ever since she announced her bid to replace Jason Kenney as UCP leader and Alberta premier, Danielle Smith has brandished the idea of a so-called Alberta Sovereignty Act like it was a loaded political gun. It worked, too, given that it helped her win the leadership of her party and survive a provincial election in May. But she had to know at some point people would figure out the chamber was empty and the supposed weapon she was wielding was little more than a political prop.

On Monday, as she announced its use in order to “shield” Albertans from the federal government’s Clean Electricity Regulations, it became abundantly clear she was firing blanks.

It’s not just that she had to admit the invocation of the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act (yes, that’s really its official name) was little more than a “symbolic act” designed to attract attention to Alberta’s demands, and it had always been intended as such. It’s not even that she acknowledged it didn’t give the province any legislative powers it didn’t already have. It’s also that her proposed solution here is the creation of a new Crown corporation, one that will supposedly serve as the “generator of last resort” in the province — and be able to ignore the federal government.

Yes, that’s right: Smith’s UCP is effectively creating a government-owned and operated electricity company, an idea that’s anathema to libertarians like her, purely in order to own the (federal) libs.

Again, because it bears repeating: the federal clean electricity standard does not, in fact, require Alberta and other provinces to get their grids to net-zero emissions by 2035. As I’ve written repeatedly, the proposed regulation allows all sorts of natural gas-fired generation to remain on the grid long past 2035, whether it’s as a peaker plant for a prescribed number of hours or one of the more recently built units that are grandfathered in for 20 years. Kineticor’s 900-megawatt Cascade facility, which just came online this year, could operate unfettered under the proposed regulations until 2043.

For over a year, Danielle Smith has been talking a big game about her "Alberta Sovereignty Act" and how it will put Ottawa in its place. As it turns out, that's all it ever was: talk.

Smith pitched this as some sort of last-ditch effort to get Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault to back down from their nefarious plans to implement the Clean Electricity Regulations. If anything, though, it’s just going to give them a good laugh — and some added resolve when it comes to implementing other climate policies, like the cap on oil and gas emissions. After all, if Alberta’s way of “fighting back” against Ottawa is to create Crown corporations and get the government more directly involved in the economy, maybe they’ll try to get Alberta to fight even harder. What’s next, a new Alberta Crown corporation in the oil and gas industry?

You almost have to feel sorry for the people who bought Smith’s Sovereignty Act ruse, whether that’s during the UCP leadership race or the provincial election. They bought her argument that Alberta was going to take the fight to Ottawa and put the federal government in its place, and probably thought that meant something other than creating a massive new government-owned business. If this was Rachel Notley creating a Crown corporation, after all, they’d surely accuse the Alberta NDP leader of being a socialist or a communist or some other brand of godless political heathen. But with Smith, they’ll have to suck it up and pretend it’s yet another political masterstroke from a supposedly small-government premier who’s already nationalized one business and imposed a moratorium on an entire industry.

It also sends another fascinating message to delegates at COP28, where Smith and other Alberta government officials will be attending to tell their story, such as it is. Why, exactly, is the province so determined to undercut its wildly successful renewable energy industry, and why is it fighting so hard against regulations that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation? These are just some of the questions Alberta’s delegates will be busy trying — and, I suspect, struggling — to answer.

In the end, though, this has always been about one thing: supporting the oil and gas industry. Smith got her start in provincial politics with a party, the Wildrose Alliance, that was created to defend the industry’s economic interests, and she’s continued along that path ever since. As premier, her government has been consumed with trying to run interference for the oil and gas industry, whether that’s by undercutting renewables, slow-walking efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or now creating a Crown corporation that gives this province’s natural gas generators a taxpayer-funded out.

Smith is welcome to continue tilting against her province’s windmills, even as it costs Alberta billions in delayed investment and thousands of potential jobs. Nothing she says or does, Sovereignty Act or not, will change the global energy transition that’s already well underway. But it will delay Alberta’s ability to participate in, and benefit from, the changes associated with said transition. And maybe, in the end, that was the point all along.

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In reply to by Alex Botta