Thirteen billion dollars in government subsidies are going to Volkswagen to build an electric vehicle battery plant in Ontario. That’s what the Liberal government calls a “business case.” Thirteen billion dollars to build a $7-billion factory. Of course such a massive payout — bribe? — would only be provided for a “green” business case.
Alberta is releasing an emissions reduction plan on Wednesday premised on the idea that the province, not Ottawa, is best positioned to implement environmental policies. For the first time, the province as a whole will have a goal of being carbon neutral by 2050 – the same aim as major oil sands producers, and the federal commitment for all of Canada.
A bill introduced by the Alberta government to protect its lawful firearms owners from the federal government’s gun confiscation program has passed third reading.
In a 28–7 vote on March 22, Bill 8, the Alberta Firearms Act, passed third reading on division, with seven NDP MLAs voting against it.
Danielle Smith says the “extreme green environmental movement” wants to use the federal government’s proposed “just transition” legislation to shut down the province’s oil and gas industry, which the Alberta premier has repeatedly said she wants to maintain and grow.
“Just Transition: I would just ask you to look at how the extreme green environmental movement uses that language. They use it as language to talk about completely phasing out the oil & natural gas industry,” Smith said in a video posted on Twitter on Jan. 19.
Just Transition: I would just ask you to look at how the extreme green environmental movement uses that language. They use it as language to talk about completely phasing out the oil & natural gas industry.#cdnpoli #abpoli #ableg pic.twitter.com/h47DCfB2x2
— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) January 19, 2023
A staffer in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s office sent a series of emails to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, challenging prosecutors’ assessment and direction on cases stemming from the Coutts border blockades and protests, CBC News has learned.
The emails were sent last fall, according to sources who CBC has agreed not to identify because they fear they could lose their jobs.
Soon after being elected leader of the United Conservative Party and sworn in as premier, Smith’s office asked for a briefing on the cases. Subsequent emails critiqued the prosecutors’ assessment of the charges and pushed back on the characterizations of the protest.
If you’ve ever wondered whether politics does indeed make for unlikely bedfellows, just take a peek under the covers in Alberta.
In the run-up to the provincial election this spring, Premier Danielle Smith is receiving a boost from two of the unlikeliest of sources: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley.
That’s not to say Trudeau and Notley are deliberately trying to help Smith, but it is exactly what’s happening.
The federal government failed dismally to help 1,100 Alberta workers during the coal industry shutdown. Now it pledges “just transition” for many thousands of oil and gas workers, with legislation coming this year.
There is nothing to show we can trust the federal Liberals with such an upheaval. In fact, the word straight from Ottawa shows the feds simply aren’t up to it. This should concern everyone, including those who want the industry to meet climate goals.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Tuesday that the federal government’s so-called just transition plan is a “big threat” to the province’s oil and natural gas industry.
At a news conference, she said the language that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government are using when they talk about just transition “is language that they used when they phased out the coal industry.”
“It’s a social justice term,” said Smith. “To use that terminology, they are virtue signalling to an extreme base that is openly advocating to shut down oil and natural gas.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is either clueless about what’s going in Alberta, or cares nothing for the truth.
That’s the unpleasant choice in his inflammatory remarks about provincial action on climate change.
“One of the challenges is there is a political class in Alberta that has decided that anything to do with climate change is going to be bad for them or for Alberta,” Trudeau said in an interview with Reuters, the business news service with a worldwide audience.
Says the nation wrecking eco-nutbar
Alberta’s environment minister says Ottawa must stop using the term “just transition” because she believes it is shorthand for phasing out Canada’s oil and gas industry.
“The problem with the just transition, it’s a polarizing term,” Sonya Savage said. “And they’ve been using it.”
Savage told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday that the Alberta government and Ottawa agree on many things, including reducing emissions from the oil and gas sector. But she said while the federal Liberals have “walked away” from using the “divisive term,” it’s still being used on Natural Resources Canada’s website.
The LPC lies – they will shutdown the oil and gas industry.
A new law in the province of Alberta radically circumscribes federal authority, advancing the agenda of the province’s far-right secessionist movement.
OTTAWA — In the heavily conservative western prairie province of Alberta, Canada, many residents, especially those on the far right, chafed at the Covid-19 restrictions imposed by the Liberal federal government in Ottawa, the country’s capital.
The widespread resentment helped fuel the enormous truck blockade this year that disrupted trade with the United States and paralyzed Ottawa for a month.
Now, oil-rich Alberta has ratcheted up the long-running schism between western and eastern Canada by approving a bill allowing the province to ignore any federal laws and regulations it opposes, a move some critics described as an unconstitutional threat to the basic fabric of the country’s government.
Readers in Eastern Canada may be forgiven for reckoning that Alberta cowboys are trying to jackhammer our province out of the Canadian bedrock.
We must look past the hysterical hand-flapping from Ottawa to understand why Alberta is defending itself.
I have some very good news for you, Danielle Smith: over here in Toronto, the centre of the universe, your recent legislation — the Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada act — is being rebuked, dismissed and ridiculed.
In the real world, as opposed to the fantasy one which too many Canadian politicians inhabit, oil and natural gas are going to be major sources of Canadian and global energy for decades to come.
The federal government’s Canada Energy Regulator projected in 2019 that Canada’s oil sector will grow by almost 50%, and the natural gas sector by 30%, from 2018 to 2040.
What you think you might know about Danielle Smith’s Alberta Sovereignty Act is probably wrong. Whatever the demerits of the bill, which enables provincial non-enforcement of federal laws, it is not “unconstitutional.” Nor does it “erase the rule of law,” or empower the legislature to circumvent the courts, as Premier Smith’s critics argue. Those criticisms were valid against earlier versions of this proposal, but have no bearing here.
