Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s new ministers are sworn into cabinet in Edmonton on Oct. 24.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he’s “not interested in fighting” with Danielle Smith’s government on the Sovereignty Act – he wants to avoid the bait that is the Alberta Premier’s contentious legislation. But it won’t be long before Ottawa is drawn into another battle, one way or another.
The province is deeply divided regarding the wisdom of the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act. It will still be subject to constitutional challenges, and the Opposition NDP promises to relegate the law to the dust heap of history should it form government. Alberta Indigenous leaders say it will undermine their treaty rights and that they worry about a land or resource grab. It’s been criticized as a divisive piece of political theatre that could further fracture our highly decentralized country.
All that being the case, many Albertans are on board with pushing back against the federal government, especially when it comes to climate and energy policy. If the act were to cease to exist, that wouldn’t change. In many respects, political leaders in the resource-focused province are only debating the most effective strategy in its dealings with Ottawa and other provinces.
As of right now, the governing United Conservative Party appears poised to put the act into use, in some limited fashion. The legislation, which stipulates that the province can refuse to enforce specific federal laws, passed third reading in the legislature in the wee hours of Thursday (but not before the government stripped out the strange and undemocratic provision that granted Ms. Smith’s cabinet the power to bypass the legislature and rewrite laws).
Ms. Smith has already directed cabinet ministers to find ways to use the act. One possible option is a challenge to the federal government’s Impact Assessment Act, still commonly referred to as C-69.
In May, Alberta’s top court said Ottawa’s environmental assessment law is unconstitutional, arguing it undermines Canada’s division of powers and could effectively place provinces in an “economic chokehold” by regulating their natural resources. The federal government is appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada, and says the act remains in force.
However, the Smith government is particularly interested in the Alberta Court of Appeal’s opinion that the federal law would give Ottawa an effective veto over some intra-provincial activities (as opposed to cross-border projects), including in-situ oil sands projects over a certain size. In this scenario, the sovereignty act could be tested in the real world, even before the matter is decided by the Supreme Court next year.
It’s still not clear exactly how the Smith government could do this. But action on what many conservatives refer to as the “no more pipelines law” is likely to garner support. All the leading UCP leadership candidates had a version of a plan for pushing back against Ottawa, or other provinces. For Travis Toews, it was a plan for tariffs on goods and services from areas deemed hostile to Alberta.
Even NDP Leader Rachel Notley has been no shrinking violet on this front. During her time as premier, the NDP argued in polite terms that equalization doesn’t work for Alberta. In other long-ago memories, Ms. Notley’s government blocked wine imports from B.C. in retaliation for rules that would effectively prevent the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, and later declared that her government would pull out of the pan-Canadian framework on climate change after a court decision quashing Ottawa’s approval of the project.
Although Ms. Notley supports carbon pricing and is seen as taking a more negotiations-focused approach to dealing with the federal Liberals than say, Ms. Smith or former premier Jason Kenney, she has also spoken against Ottawa’s planned sector-specific cap on emissions from the oil and natural gas sector.
That sector-specific question, which will affect Alberta and the Prairies much more than other parts of the country, really gets to the heart of the political matter. A Canada West Foundation report this fall said Ottawa’s economic modelling on its climate plans doesn’t address how policies could dramatically hit provinces such as Saskatchewan or Alberta, “where large emitter sectors make proportionately greater contributions to their economies.”
Ottawa’s detailed plan for a cap on oil and natural gas production emissions is set to roll out in 2023. Most Canadians, outside of the Prairies and with far less skin in the game, supported this plan, according to a 2021 Nanos Research Poll for The Globe. About 75 per cent of Canada’s oil and gas industry’s emissions come from Alberta, along with most of the country’s oil.
All of Canada is subject to carbon prices (but not exactly the same price – another point of contention for Alberta). Ottawa argues it’s going beyond carbon pricing in pursuing its climate goals, with other regulatory approaches. For instance, it’s requiring all new passenger car sales to be zero-emissions models by 2035.
But herein lies the problem: There’s no regional side to that passenger car sales rule.
Albertans knew the sovereignty act was coming but it was still monumental when it passed. There are still so many questions – entities that receive provincial funding remain nervous about how they’ll be asked to resist implementing federal laws.
Many Albertans see themselves as Canadians first, and hate both the name of the act and the message it sends to the rest of the country. Ms. Smith’s argument that it’s not as dramatic as critics suggest will remain difficult, especially as University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper continues to speak about Alberta separation being a potential part of the broader plan. (Prof. Cooper is one of the original proponents of the act but isn’t a part of government or Ms. Smith’s inner circle.)
About one-third of Albertans believe the act is necessary, as reported by Leger earlier this month. That’s a relatively high number, given the controversy of the act (and could certainly shift before the next election). But if you’re scratching your head at where Ms. Smith counts her support, the region-specific hit of Canadian climate and energy policies is one key part of the answer.
In passing the act, Ms. Smith and her government have set the early tone for a provincial election, now six months away. Even as Ms. Notley leads in the polls, even with the support of the many Albertans who want the act repealed, the NDP Leader will be forced to defend her own approach to protecting the province’s economic interests.