THE BLOC’S WAR ON ALBERTA
Oil, equalization and the strange provincial battle
The federal government comports itself like a petro-state, toadying up to oil companies, while Quebec, virtuously, produces planes and trains but no gas-powered automobiles, says the Bloc Québécois.
“Since it is a petro-state, Ottawa runs from failure to failure with inconsistent policies that spare oil companies in the West,” the platform reads.
But as much as it is anti-ottawa, the Bloc is perhaps the most explicitly anti-alberta it has ever been in its history. While Alberta and Quebec have in the past worked on shared concerns, the Bloc in its 2019 iteration sees little but Alberta taking Quebec’s money while having designs on its green fields and pastures for dirty pipelines.
“Oil provinces are very wealthy and have developed those resources with money from all across Canada, including Quebec,” said Bloc leader Yves-françois Blanchet at the English-language leaders’ debate. “Now, we have paid for development of oil in western Canada and you make us pay again with this idea of buying a pipeline over there.”
Martha Hall Findlay, president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation, an Alberta think tank, says “it somehow feels as though it felt they had to find another adversary” now that some of the historical linguistic and economic separatist grievances have faded. But, she says, it’s unfortunate — not a path Blanchet needed to go down.
“Almost half of the oil that is consumed in Quebec comes from Alberta, so in one breath to vilify the Alberta oil industry … and at the time half their oil coming from Alberta is hypocrisy,” she said.
“I think it’s frankly irresponsible for any politician, but certainly for somebody who is hoping to represent the province of Quebec.”
In the platform, short and sweet at 24 pages, the Bloc says “non” to Energy East and says it’s time to put an end to reliance on fossil fuels. This would be accomplished in part by the aforementioned “green equalization,” a sort of mega-carbon tax that would impose a tax upon provinces with higher than average per capita greenhouse-gas emissions, and then give that cash to provinces with lower emissions.
“I chuckled a bit when I heard that, and that was a clear, I think, response to the equalization debate that he’s been getting from people in Alberta,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Calgary’s Mount Royal University.
The Bloc proposal claims to be more efficient than the present equalization setup and allow for income tax reductions federally and provincially given the reduced burden on incomes. The idea is this tax on polluters would spark a rush toward green energy and put an end to “the most polluting oil in the world.”
Equalization is meant to put public services across the country on an equal footing by giving cash to “havenot” provinces. In 2019, equalization was a $19.8-billion program with Quebec getting $13.1 billion.
Alberta gets nothing from the program and Premier Jason Kenney has threatened to call a referendum in 2021 on the equalization formula. Alberta, with a budget deficit of $9 billion, is still paying into equalization while Quebec, with a budget surplus, is still receiving equalization payments. One of the reasons Quebec still gets payments is that its bountiful hydro revenues are not included in the formula.
The Bloc’s proposal, to turn equalization into a “punish and reward” system, would almost certainly be unconstitutional.
On Thursday, during the leaders’ French debate, Justin Trudeau, the Liberal leader, told Blanchet: “Equalization exists so that every Canadian across the country, regardless of the province they’re born into or live in, accesses the same quality of services right across the country. It is not a perfect system, but it is a system that ensures as much as we can equality of opportunity across Canada.”
And Green Party leader Elizabeth May told the Bloc leader: “We need to think like a family. Your proposal, Mr. Blanchet, would be to put an extra burden on those parts of Canada like Alberta that have the toughest challenge to meet the climate crisis. We’re concerned as Greens that we work together, that we not alienate Alberta.”
Historically speaking — and even recently — Alberta and Quebec have had a considerable amount in common. Bratt says during the constitution talks back in the 1980s, Alberta premier Peter Lougheed and Quebec premier Rene Lévesque were often on the same side in discussions about provincial autonomy.
“Both want less national government intrusion, so on jurisdictional grounds, often they seem strange bedfellows, Quebec nationalists seem to work well with Albertans,” Bratt explained.
More recently, Quebec intervened in Saskatchewan’s court challenge to the federal carbon tax, not because they oppose climate action per se, but because they are concerned a federal policy tramples on provincial rights. And, this also comes at a time when the ruling party in Alberta, Kenney’s United Conservatives, are attempting to pull a page from Quebec’s playbook in terms of boisterously pitting Alberta against the rest of the country.
What’s changed, Bratt says, is that Alberta, in lobbying for pipelines to be built in territory where they’re not especially popular — Energy East through Quebec and Trans Mountain through British Columbia — is now requesting more federal interference. Indeed, Blanchet mentioned in the debate how Quebecers’ money went towards purchasing the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan when it looked like the
THIS IS A DIRECT RESPONSE … TO SOME OF THE MESSAGES HE’S HEARD FROM ALBERTA.
company might bail on the project. And, he said “we have paid for development of oil in western Canada.”
“So, Blanchet is responding to the views of Quebecers, but he’s also I think responding to much of Jason Kenney’s rhetoric about equalization, about Energy East and those sorts of things,” Bratt said. “It’s not that this just came out of left field, I think this is a direct response back to some of the messages he’s heard from Alberta.”
It is more or less impossible that Blanchet could become prime minister after the election on Oct. 21, but it is possible his party will have a decent showing in Quebec, have official party status in Parliament and, in a minority government scenario, could have some influence on the balance of power.