This week in AB: December 13, 2024
The border, the Official Opposition, and the power plays; another week down.
Walking the line
There may be a “Team Canada” approach on the horizon, but in the meantime, it looks as though the premiers have their own plans — or maybe it’s just Alberta.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said that his province would be ready on January 20th, but wouldn’t share specifics during a press conference on Thursday. In New Brunswick, Premier Susan Holt said “everything is on the table”. Premier Doug Ford threatened to halt energy exports out of Ontario, something Danielle Smith emphatically rejects. She says it’s because she doesn’t agree with tariffs, and that may be true, but the fact is that Smith has neither the will, nor the luxury, of capping production because that’s something she’s accused the federal government of doing.
I’m not saying Ontario’s energy exports are negligible, but they aren’t what oil exports are to Alberta where sales account for roughly a third of the provincial GDP. Alberta produces about 84 per cent of the country’s oil and gas, and while we keep some for ourselves, we export most of the more than 4 million bbd our oil industry produces; to the U.S..
On Thursday, Danielle Smith held a press conference to outline some of the upcoming changes to border security which will include more sheriffs, drug-sniffing dogs, and drones, along with a 2km stretch north of the border which will be declared “critical infrastructure” (a nod to Jason Kenney’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act) within which new border security will be able to undertake “warrantless searches”.
There is a commonly-held assumption that distrust of policing authorities is more of a political left problem, but it’s also a right-wing, libertarian, property rights problem.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I got more than a few chuckles as Deputy Premier and Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis tried to convince media — or himself — that landowners and residents would be totally fine with this because of drugs (!!) and the dangers of “someone, wandering in the middle of nowhere, carrying something elicit”.
Sure, Mike.
The UCP passed Bill 24, the Alberta Bill of Rights Amendment Act, in the most recent legislative session, which included additional protections for property owners with provisions for exceptions and a notwithstanding clause.
(2) The rights and freedoms recognized and declared by this Act are subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic Alberta.
(3) For greater certainty, a reasonable limit on the rights and freedoms recognized and declared by this Act that is prescribed by law and demonstrably justified under subsection (2) is not an infringement or denial of those rights and freedoms.Parliamentary supremacy
2.1 The Legislature may expressly declare in an Act that a law of Alberta operates notwithstanding this Act.page 3, Bill 24
Rachel Notley stepping down
“I write with mixed feelings to announce that today I will be sending a letter to the Speaker of the Alberta Legislative Assembly, advising of my intent to resign my position as the MLA for Edmonton Strathcona, effective December 30, 2024,” Rachel Notley wrote on social media.
Notley has held the seat in Edmonton since 2008, and became leader of the Alberta NDP in 2014, just in time to help end the 44-year Progressive Conservative dynasty.
It is expected that Naheed Nenshi, who was elected as Notley’s replacement in June, will run.
Danielle Smith, who avoided the substantially more progressive riding of Calgary-Elbow when she was elected leader of the UCP — having Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA Michaela Frey step down instead — managed to swallow the hypocrisy to take a few jabs at Nenshi for choosing not to run in Lethbridge West. The by-election is underway there, and advance polls opened this week, with December 18 being the final day to vote.
Smith was noncommittal about calling a by-election so that Nenshi could be in the Legislature in time for the spring session, saying she hadn’t been informed if Nenshi would like to run for the seat, and her party would need time to “hold nominations”.
Voters in Edmonton-Strathcona have elected four New Democrats and one Liberal (1993) MLA since 1986, but rumour has it that the United Conservatives are gaining support in the city former Premier Ralph Klein nicknamed “Redmonton”.
In the overlapping federal riding of the same name, the seat has gone New Democrat since 2008, but prior to that, from 1993-2008, the riding went Reform, Alliance, and Conservative in the five general elections, and two by-elections, held during that time.
Power plays
As we head into another winter, and power bills surge, the UCP says it’s asking Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) to look at restructuring power price bids to one day ahead, rather than the seven-days the market currently uses. Of note, Alberta is still importing more power from external sources, and ended up with excessive transmission capacity in the north, and a deficit in the southern part of the province where population density is higher.
The UCP is asking generators to build more transmission without passing the cost onto consumers, while also restricting green energy builds to “ensure future generations can continue to enjoy the same Alberta”. Affordability and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf says the UCP “will not apologize for putting Albertans ahead of corporate interests.”
Without a hint of irony, Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz added that the government wants “to protect landowners, municipalities and taxpayers from unfairly having to cover the costs of renewable energy reclamations in the future.”
I like to picture them laughing so hard that tears roll down their cheeks as they write this stuff because reading it is painful.
Meanwhile, the “largest” AI data centre “in the world” is planned for the Grande Prairie area and will include “low cost power generation” not connected to the public grid. Thus far, a letter of intent has been signed for land purchase.
And finally, the UCP is still working to “get value” on that Turkish alternative to children’s Tylenol debacle. Turns out, they have allowed the company that brokered the deal to sit on $49 million, and keep the interest, since the government paid $80 million for product it never received; something that didn’t come up during all those playoff games the broker treated the Premier and her Ministers to.
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Disclaimer: I have no idea why these came up differently…