Sovereignty, Security, Sustainability: Say One Thing, Do the

[Oscar]

Sovereignty, Security, Sustainability: Say One Thing, Do the Other

When provincial climate policy becomes a performance piece, why should we expect words to mean what they're supposed to? When it all goes wrong, they'll always have the feds to blame.

Mitchell Beer - The Energy Mix Weekender - May 11, 2025

EXCERPT: "Act 1: A Sovereignty Act that Isn’t

Granted, the competition is tough. But it’s hard to imagine a Canadian politician anywhere who can match Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for theatrics.

From the moment Smith introduced her Alberta Sovereignty Act in November, 2022, there was little doubt what brand of sovereignty she had in mind. The language played to a base of United Conservative Party supporters who would buy her line that federal policy is the only thing standing in the way of a forever boom in Alberta’s fossil-driven economy—despite tens of billions of dollars’ worth of evidence to the contrary. The details played to the advantage of the fossil industry that hired her as a lobbyist, then showered her party with donations after she re-entered the provincial legislature.

Now, “sovereignty” means a new “mature assets” strategy that could leave Alberta taxpayers and communities paying billions to clean up the industry’s abandoned oil and gas wells, paired with a moratorium and regulatory barriers that are driving investors away from a provincial renewable energy sector that once led the country in new installations.

All in defence of an economic strategy that hooks Alberta jobs and Canadian prosperity to a global market for fossil fuels on the verge of decline, where the only thing we know about prices is that they won’t be predictable.

We get to see Smith heroically invoking the Sovereignty Act to fight off a set of common-sense federal electricity decarbonization regulations that had already been watered down and delayed. Vilifying an oil and gas emissions cap that allows the industry’s climate pollution to rise unimpeded until 2032. Then watching her government’s budget projections wither against another round of low oil prices, driven lower still by the actions of the U.S. president she worked so hard to placate while the rest of us were getting our #ElbowsUp.

It's hard to see how our continuing dependence on a sputtering oil and gas economy will make it easier for Canadians to credibly assert our sovereignty, or for Smith’s radical fringe in Alberta to try to falsely assert theirs. But you can bank on it: When Smith’s trumped-up promises (yes, the adjective is deliberate) begin to evaporate, she’ll surely find a way to make it Ottawa’s fault. . . . "

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