Premier Danielle Smith is conjuring up a new A-bomb to drop on the meddling of the Trudeau Liberals with Alberta’s power grid.
This newly devised weapon is the key feature in Smith’s first use of the Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, which she introduced on Monday in her bid to thwart Trudeau’s clean electricity regulations, devised to force Alberta’s electrical grid to be net zero by 2035.
The A-bomb is a proposed Alberta Crown corporation for electricity generation. It represents Alberta arming up to reverse the broken federal-provincial power dynamic. It’s also the only mechanism that will allow Alberta to meet the generational challenge of having an affordable and reliable net-zero electrical grid by 2050.
At her news conference, Smith suggested it’s not a sure thing Alberta will get the new Crown corporation. For now, she said, she’ll work with industry players to see if one is needed.
But if Trudeau’s new clean electricity regulations are enforced, ordering Alberta’s grid to be net zero by 2035, 15 years earlier than previously agreed upon, such a Crown corporation will be necessary, Smith said.
Alberta needs reliable electricity to get through cold winter days and it needs affordable electricity for people here to prosper. With five or six million more Albertans here by 2050, Alberta will also need to double its baseload electrical generation.
Private industry could do this with natural gas but the new federal regulations stipulate that all plants must capture 95 per cent of their emissions, something Smith said is not feasible, suggesting 60 per cent is possible for new plants, even as it will greatly increase costs.
Smith said she will not ask any private operators to disregard federal law, but said a Crown corporation could build new gas plants and disregard the new federal regulations if need be, adding provincial officials involved could be indemnified against federal prosecution.
As Smith described it, the new Crown corporation will be similar to Epcor, owned by the City of Edmonton, or Enmax, owned by the City of Calgary.
“We want the private sector to step in with new natural gas generation, with new nuclear generation, but if they don’t, we’ll need to step in. We’re sending a message to the market that this is a reluctant entry. It would be a generator of last resort.”
A moment later, she added, “I can’t sit back and allow for the grid to fail, for there to be insufficient investment in baseload power and for us to see the instability in the grid that we have get worse and worse, or for the affordability to get worse and worse. We have to act now.”
If existing power plants don’t meet federal regulations, Alberta’s power corporation could also purchase them and continue operating them. “These measures are not something we want to do,” Smith said. “They are planned to counteract the absurd ideological, unscientific and unconstitutional interference in Alberta’s government by a federal government that simply doesn’t care what happens to our province so long as they have a good, virtue-signalling story to tell their leftist friends and special interests.”
What to make of all this?
First, while Smith talks about this new Crown corporation in theoretical terms, there’s no way for Alberta to meet its 2050 target without such a Crown corporation. The Alberta oilsands will need the heat and clean power of nuclear. Alberta consumers will need the same for the grid, and nuclear is the only proven way to provide safe, affordable, abundant, net-zero power, as demonstrated by Ontario.
Second, the existence of an Alberta power generation company will turn on its head national power dynamics, which saw Ottawa bring in out-of-touch and overly aggressive legislation on the oil and gas industry, then impose it on Alberta, with Alberta then spending years in court trying to convince federal judges that Ottawa had gone too far.
With its Crown corporation, Alberta will possess the mechanism to defy Ottawa, to force it to take the Alberta government to court, not the other way around.
What isn’t clear is how our top courts will view Alberta reversing the established process by defying Ottawa in this manner. It’s possible it will be seen by federal judges as an insulting violation of Canada’s constitutional order.
Bottom lines? Trudeau’s government is exceptionally unpopular and likely doomed in the next election, which will make this current problem go away. That said, the push for net zero will not go away, and Smith’s move to create a Crown corporation to safeguard us and help build nuclear in Alberta is sound.
