Energy opponents killing Indigenous jobs: Kenney
In the wake of Teck Resources Ltd.’s decision to withdraw its Frontier oilsands project application, Premier Jason Kenney took aim Wednesday at “urban green left militants” who he blamed for destroying potential jobs in Indigenous communities.
Speaking to hundreds gathered in Calgary at the Indian Resource
Council’s conference on Indigenous participation in major projects, Kenney told the crowd that the proposed $20.6-billion oilsands mine project in northern Alberta represented a “path forward” for prosperity.
Teck announced Sunday it had cancelled its application less than a week before the federal government’s deadline to approve the project. Earlier that day, the Athabasca
Chipewyan First Nation reached an agreement with the province on several environmental areas of concern, meaning all 14 affected Indigenous organizations in the area had granted their support for the project. It would have created hundreds of jobs for nearby Indigenous communities and provided $55 billion in revenue for the Alberta government to help fund programs benefiting Indigenous people, the premier said.
“But it’s over now,” said Kenney, “because of uncertainty created by uncompromising, ideological opponents of any resource development.
Appeal courts in Saskatchewan and Ontario upheld the carbon tax law and the Supreme Court of Canada will consider the issue next month.
Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said on Monday that the Supreme Court will make the “ultimate determination” and that he’s confident the law will pass the test.
The majority opinion in the Alberta Court of Appeal argued that the federal law is a “Trojan horse” that has wide ranging discretionary powers buried within it.
The powers the act authorizes are “in the sole unfettered discretion of the executive” and “endlessly expansive.”
“If the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act is a valid law, the constitutional foundation for provincial governments is badly damaged and their future as an important level of government is in jeopardy. Federalism, as we have known it for over 150 years, is over,” the decision reads. “The federal government is not the parent; and the provincial governments are not its children,” the decision reads.