Western premiers finally push back
IT IS SO GOOD, FINALLY, TO SEE A REAL RESISTANCE TO THE GREEN AGENDA.
— REX MURPHY
It is not only Alberta Premier Danielle Smith who is taking a strikingly aggressive attitude towards the Trudeau government’s persistent hostility to the oil and gas industry — Scott Moe of Saskatchewan has also stepped into the ring. Both are plainly, without apology, saying “no” to net-zero, carbon taxes and hymns to windmills.
The carbon-tax zealots in Ottawa are not accustomed to strong push-back, even from those western provinces most injured by federal policy. Indeed, when the NDP were in power in Alberta, the premier had a cosy relationship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This was the period when, for a while, the line out of Ottawa was: governments can grant permits, but only communities can grant permission.
Apart from evacuating all substance and meaning from what a “permit” actually is, and apart from also being one of those Trudeau platitudes we’re all are so tired of, this was a position meant to signal to protesters, NGOS and the incessant green doom-mongers that they should keep up their efforts to stall, halt and interfere in every conceivable way with every new or ongoing oil and gas project.
Smith, before becoming premier and now after entering office, has done more than signal that her province will fight the torrent of decrees and regulations coming from Ottawa. But as mentioned, the country has also heard from Saskatchewan’s premier that obliging federal interference within provincial jurisdiction is no longer in the cards.
Not content with degrading the economy of Alberta, the federal government has also announced it wants to reduce fertilizer usage on Canadian farms. Premier Moe’s response to that, to quote another journalist’s paraphrasing, was: “To hell with that.”
Saskatchewan and Alberta are now in league to challenge and resist the overwhelming determination in present-day Ottawa, under the clarion call of “net zero,” to steamroll and eventually kill the oil and gas industry — and on the way, brutalize the agricultural industry. From here on in, it’s going to be a fight. As it should be, and as it always should have been.
Policy that emerged from a cadre of green activists should never have been tolerated as an overriding national policy, with the force to downgrade provincial economies — and the national treasury. In its zeal to be a partner of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the number 1 servitor of the global warming crusade, Trudeau’s government has, for its full seven years in power, done all it could to gut the natural resources industry.
Natural resources have traditionally (and constitutionally), till green fantasies took over at least, been a matter of provincial rights. What Smith and Moe have made clear is that from here on in, Trudeau’s pursuit of the green agenda, built on a vast intrusion into provincial rights, is going to take a lot more than the federal government simply declaring Canada’s journey to the fabulous state of net zero and the end of oil and gas.
Both premiers have uttered a very interesting truth: that the federal government is a partner, not a ruler, in Confederation. They are also reminding Canadians of the very real dangers of being obsessed with the climate crusade.
A glance at world politics, the grim acceleration of food prices and inflation generally, Europe’s justified anxieties about heading into the coming winter with devastating fuel shortages — all of these are an outgrowth of the blind war on energy resources and the foolish and dangerous conviction that windmills and solar panels can run the modern, hightech global economy.
Earlier this month, Premier Moe introduced the Saskatchewan first act, which declares that the province has “exclusive legislative jurisdiction under the Constitution of Canada in relation to” a number of areas, such as the “exploration for non-renewable natural resources.” Premier Smith has promised to introduce similar legislation.
It is so good, finally, to see a real resistance to the green agenda, an unapologetic defiance of the global warming fantasia and at least a couple of premiers making it really clear that Ottawa — which in many cases may be understood as the Prime Minister’s Office — doesn’t own the country, that policy is built on partnerships with the provinces and that the zeal to be as one with Al Gore and David Suzuki does not provide an intellectual foundation for national energy policy.