“Screw the West, we’ll take the rest,” has been the battle cry of the federal Liberals, ever since the late Liberal senator Keith Davey, co-chair of Pierre Trudeau’s successful 1980 election campaign, famously coined the phrase.
Portraying Alberta as out of step with eastern Canada on everything from gun control to climate change is textbook federal Liberal strategy, because they believe it plays well with urban “progressive” voters in Liberal strongholds like Ontario.
Trudeau is just borrowing a page from dad’s playbook.
“One of the challenges is there is a political class in Alberta that has decided that anything to do with climate change is going to be bad for them or for Alberta,” Trudeau told Reuters in a recent interview.
He was criticizing Premier Danielle Smith for describing Trudeau’s long-promised but as yet unannounced “just transition” plan for helping Alberta oil and gas workers retrain for jobs in the green energy sector as a ruse to, “shut down our energy industry.”
That was over the top but somewhat understandable given that when federal environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco examined Trudeau’s alleged “just transition” plan last year, he basically concluded it didn’t exist.
As for Trudeau’s understanding of Alberta’s energy sector, Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid said the PM is “either clueless … or cares nothing for the truth.
It’s hard to see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent attack on Alberta for failing to do enough to combat climate change as anything other than a tried-and-true Liberal strategy to trash the province in gearing up for the next federal election. “Screw the West, we’ll take the rest,” has been...
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“This is trash politics based on ignorance or myth, whatever you might think of Alberta’s ‘political class,” Braid wrote.
“(Trudeau) was talking about carbon capture usage and storage — a field Alberta has led for 14 years, apparently outside the knowledge of the country’s prime minister.
Whoopsies!!!
“His remarks are not just wrong. They threaten investment. They challenge years of effort to make the rest of Canada understand … successive Alberta governments, are acting on climate change.”
It’s hard to see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent attack on Alberta for failing to do enough to combat climate change as anything other than a tried-and-true Liberal strategy to trash the province in gearing up for the next federal election.
In the real world, the federal and Alberta governments are contributing significant tax dollars to carbon capture as is its energy sector, which wants Trudeau to make similar economic concessions that President Joe Biden has passed in the United States.
(Reuters) - Canada’s main oil-producing province Alberta is open to bolstering tax credits for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology but ALSO wants the federal government to increase financial support, Premier Danielle Smith said on Tuesday.
“We are working towards the same goal...then we can figure out what portion comes from federal tax relief and what portion comes from provincial tax relief,” Smith said.
“It really is up to the federal government to come to the table with something more significant,” she added.
Canada's main oil-producing province Alberta is open to bolstering tax credits for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology but also wants the federal government to increase financial support, Premier Danielle Smith said on Tuesday.
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WATCH BELOW as the Sun’s political columnist Lorne Gunter explains how Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to transition oil and gas workers into green jobs and to capture the carbon in the air, will not save the planet. What do YOU think? Tweet and Facebook us!
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith fired off her latest shot in the war of words with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday, saying: “The PM needs to understand that Alberta energy and technology will power the world for generations. It’s time for him to get with the program. His obsession on phasing out our nation’s largest industry and its workers is absurd.”
Smith got it half right here. She likely has it correct about oil’s enduring demand in the world economy, but she’s likely wrong when it comes to Trudeau and his own obsession.
Does not Trudeau have plenty of reason to slap around Alberta? In fact, it’s in his interest to paint Albertans as climate-change shirkers, as he did last week when he said: “One of the challenges is there is a political class in Alberta that has decided that anything to do with climate change is going to be bad for them or for Alberta.”
The flavour and content of Trudeau's rhetoric is the latest salvo in a fight between Eastern and Western Canada waged for 154 years
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Trudeau has multiple motivations for making such a comment. First, to boost his popularity with his voting base, which is alarmed to the core by the prospect of global warming. Second, to put Alberta in a weak bargaining position when it comes to which government, Alberta or Ottawa, will pay most for mega-billion Carbon Capture and Storage technology for the Alberta oilsands. And, third, to indirectly advance the interest of Trudeau’s home province Quebec and its ambitious hydro-electric industry.
