Alberta's Sovereign Speaks

Nov 29, 2023

This Week in AB

“We developed (the Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act) to shield the province from federal intrusions and we’re using it now because the consequences of this particular overreach would be so severe.

Alberta will bear the largest share of expenses required to meet these absurd targets, and consumers and businesses will see their (electricity) bills soar.”

~ Premier Danielle Smith, November 27, 2023

It’s funny how that works isn’t it? When the UCP wants to get credit for burning the place down, they don’t bother fixing some panels or townhalls to slowly smolder away — they just reach for the nearest jerrycan.

Danielle Smith may be the only premier whose most recent work experience was that of corporate lobbyist, but she’s not so different than most of the others who have sat in her chair.

As I keep saying, the Alberta Advantage is in having a government that prioritizes corporate interests over those of the public, and she’s neither the first nor — unfortunately — the last who will likely take that stance.

Using it to “shield” companies from the federal Clean Electricity Regulations, however, seems more like performative art than anything else.

Why? Because the renewable energy industry in Alberta is moving far more quickly than Smith or the UCP seem willing to acknowledge to voters.

Alberta has around 50 facilities generating power with fossil fuels. Two of those are coal-fired generators and the rest are natural gas, generating around 9,500 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

Of these facilities, 37 would be expected to meet the new regulations by January 1, 2030 because they came online prior to 2015. The regulations allow all projects that came online after 2015 to come into compliance with the regulations more slowly, reaching full compliance by 2050.

The 37 facilities produce 5,780 MW.

There are two more natural gas projects planned and three currently under construction which will add 2,405 MW and 2,300 MW, respectively.

Yet, here’s something fun I learned today: renewable energy is currently delivering 7,071 MW, from: biomass, biogas, and waste heat recovery (452.2 MW), hydro (905.1 MW), wind (3,474.4 MW) and solar (1,159 MW).

There are currently 20 renewable projects under construction (2,401.96 MW) and 32 planned (4,686.1 MW).

I don’t expect this includes the more than 100 green energy projects awaiting approval that were caught up in the UCP’s moratorium, which is currently in place until March 1, 2024.

Energy capability from renewable sources is currently at ~75 per cent of the output from natural gas facilities. Once all of the planned projects are completed, that number will be 97 per cent.

That’s how fast renewable energy is catching up to fossil fuel output and they’re nowhere near done.

What I imagine would happen (and probably will anyway), is that those 37 facilities will slowly reduce output as more green energy producers come online, successfully reducing their emissions in the process and meeting the new regulations.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault threw Danielle Smith’s words back at her, saying the federal government would not challenge the use of the Act as it is “a symbolic gesture”.

“You don’t take someone to court over something that’s symbolic", Guilbeault said, dropping his mic on the deflated egos of Alberta’s chest-thumping freedom “strategists”.

Speaking of using government money for partisan purposes…

Oof — that hurts 14-year old me who learned about Preston Manning and the Reform Party in grade eight and saw rainbows and butterflies for Alberta specifically and me generally.

I make no apologies for being young but I will remind readers about the Alberta curriculum’s anti-Ottawa bent.

Fresh off the COVID-19 review panel, Preston Manning emailed a copy of his multi-million-dollar report (“two” totally counts as “multi”) to Alberta MP’s, which mistakenly (probably) including Liberal MP George Chahal (how could a Calgary MP also be a Liberal???).

Manning suggests some “content may be useful in attacking the Liberal/NDP coalition (not a ‘coalition’)” with regard to the COVID-19 response that was mostly fought out in the 2021 election.

As a former Preston Manning stan, that email divulged everything that Manning likely didn’t intend to say — he is no longer a big fish and has found himself instead phishing for relevance.

Albeit, when you manage to convince yourself that farmers and college drop-outs should be making medical decisions for the public, it’s probably right where you belong.

Canada

A concerning, but not “terror-related” event

It was a wild couple of hours on November 22 after a car burst into flames at the U.S./Canada border crossing at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. Part of the fun was trying to figure out if reports were coming from Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, or Niagara Falls, New York, U.S..

While eye-witness reports are not always reliable, in this case, they were far more useful than any of the “official” reports — particularly those picked up by CPC leader Pierre Poilievre who was practically drooling at the possibility of having “a terror-related attack” to hold over Justin Trudeau’s head.

While the infotainment outlet Fox News was also heavily salivating over the fantastical story (for hours), reporters on the ground had a much clearer picture.

The first eye-witness said that the vehicle had sped down the street toward the border crossing on the U.S. side, that it appeared to have lost control, hit a “fence” or barricade that launched it into the air and then burst into flames upon landing.

The second report I saw had multiple eye-witnesses who saw the vehicle speed out of a parking lot on the U.S. side, adding they saw “a lot of smoke but no explosion”.

Right-wing partisans were quick to blame the leaders of both countries, with some added racist and anti-immigrant commentary thrown in for the most rabid of the bases.

In the end, it was determined to be an unfortunate driving miscalculation that led to the death of a well-to-do white couple in their fifties who were heading to Canada to attend a KISS concert later that day.

True to form, there were no apologies for unnecessarily alarming the public, though Poilievre was able to find something from a Canadian outlet that couched the possibility of a malicious attack in order to further justify his decision to remain out of the loop by not obtaining security clearance to receive briefings on matters of national security.

Even he knows he’s not ready to leave the kiddie table.