Kelly McParland: How decades of Liberal indifference created Danielle Smith

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
28,041
10,465
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
The Federal legislation that is Bill c69 makes the regulatory burden greater and more complicated for new resource projects. It’s been dubbed the “no more pipelines” law and challenged in both the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, both of which ruled it unconstitutional. The Alberta court called it “a constitutional Trojan Horse” and said it “tears apart the constitutional division of power.” The Supreme Court of Canada agreed.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney confirmed this week that his party will not repeal Bill C-69 if his party forms the next government.

Carney is “thumbing his nose at the Constitution,” said former Alberta premier and former federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney.

“Complying with the Constitution isn’t partisan. It’s not ideological. It’s not optional. It’s mandatory,” he posted on X.

It’s also a foolish policy for this country to pursue.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith posted a dire warning on X: “Make no mistake. If this law stays, there will be few, if any, large-scale energy infrastructure projects built in this country and Alberta and Saskatchewan will be cut off from international markets.

This means Canada will become more vulnerable to and overly dependent on the United States.” Unless that’s the end goal?

At a press conference in Winnipeg on Tuesday, Carney emphatically stated that he would stick with the Liberals’ disastrous Impact Assessment Act (IAA), one of the main impediments to building pipelines and other infrastructure projects.

As my colleague Jamie Sarkonak detailed in these pages on Saturday, the IAA imposes such onerous requirements on developers — forcing them to study a project’s impact on everything from Indigenous language to gender equity in every community it affects — that the vast majority of them choose to simply give up rather than invest in the Canadian economy.
Those living in Eastern Canada should worry because, in order for oil and gas to get to them from the West, it passes through the U.S….

…so we don’t have control of our own energy supply. If we’ve learned anything over the past few months, it’s that this country has to aim for energy security and self-reliance in all aspects of our economy.

All those brave words about “Elbows Up” and “Canada Strong” are just hot air and slogans if we’re not prepared to fight for our survival with every weapon at our disposal.

Carney’s farcical “Net Zero” fantasy is just bunk. It will consign this country to third-world status at a time when our neighbour is promising to “drill, baby, drill!”

It steps on provincial toes and is harmful and divisive.

Canada is blessed with abundant resources. To hobble our economy with legislation that’s been deemed unconstitutional is an act of self-harm to the Canadian economy at a time when we need to be unleashing the full power of our potential.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Taxslave2

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
28,041
10,465
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
Too many assume that the stability of the Canadian federation is strong, but it will take much less than they think for the country to shatter into several broken pieces.

If that happens, Alberta, not Quebec, will lead the way. Alberta has wealth, and enough oil and gas to generate more, many times over. The province still needs friendly borders to sell it, and the United States can deliver that if Alberta breaks away, which would be a fatal tragedy for Canada.

If the Liberals win another term in government, as the polls currently point towards, there are determined and well-funded activists who will stoke the appetite for a sovereign Alberta.

Plans are already being made by the Alberta government for a debate on the province’s place in Canada, although Danielle Smith’s UCP has ruled out leading a separatist campaign.

Should Carney remain prime minister after April 28, along with the rest of Justin Trudeau‘s former ministers, there will still be a real showdown between Ottawa and Albertans, if not their government.

Considering the economic chaos that would result from Alberta leaving Canada, the cheapest way to avoid that is giving the province what it wants.

That does not mean tens of billions in transfer payments (looking at you Quebec), it simply means Ottawa choosing to step aside and loosen the vice-like restrictions on building economic infrastructure and extracting resources.
That would require the ideologues and failed technocrats who have delimbed this country for the past 10 years to realize their errors, and change course. They must stop treating Alberta’s oil and gas-driven economy like a terminal patient that must be slowly smothered with emissions caps and making it so difficult to build that the federal government has an effective monopoly on constructing pipelines.

That, or they may be replaced by a Conservative government, which could immediately act as a release valve for the pressure building up in Alberta.

Western alienation was a political force in the 1990s, but today, those sentiments are stronger than ever, and backed by the West’s growing political and economic power.

The chaos will begin if that propels Albertans to go it alone. With them would go the biggest net distributor of the transfer payments that glues the federation together, 15 per cent of Canada’s GDP and the country’s primary source of oil and gas, its largest and most valuable export.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pgs and Taxslave2

Taxslave2

House Member
Aug 13, 2022
4,612
2,650
113
Too many assume that the stability of the Canadian federation is strong, but it will take much less than they think for the country to shatter into several broken pieces.

If that happens, Alberta, not Quebec, will lead the way. Alberta has wealth, and enough oil and gas to generate more, many times over. The province still needs friendly borders to sell it, and the United States can deliver that if Alberta breaks away, which would be a fatal tragedy for Canada.

If the Liberals win another term in government, as the polls currently point towards, there are determined and well-funded activists who will stoke the appetite for a sovereign Alberta.

Plans are already being made by the Alberta government for a debate on the province’s place in Canada, although Danielle Smith’s UCP has ruled out leading a separatist campaign.

Should Carney remain prime minister after April 28, along with the rest of Justin Trudeau‘s former ministers, there will still be a real showdown between Ottawa and Albertans, if not their government.

Considering the economic chaos that would result from Alberta leaving Canada, the cheapest way to avoid that is giving the province what it wants.

That does not mean tens of billions in transfer payments (looking at you Quebec), it simply means Ottawa choosing to step aside and loosen the vice-like restrictions on building economic infrastructure and extracting resources.
That would require the ideologues and failed technocrats who have delimbed this country for the past 10 years to realize their errors, and change course. They must stop treating Alberta’s oil and gas-driven economy like a terminal patient that must be slowly smothered with emissions caps and making it so difficult to build that the federal government has an effective monopoly on constructing pipelines.

That, or they may be replaced by a Conservative government, which could immediately act as a release valve for the pressure building up in Alberta.

Western alienation was a political force in the 1990s, but today, those sentiments are stronger than ever, and backed by the West’s growing political and economic power.

The chaos will begin if that propels Albertans to go it alone. With them would go the biggest net distributor of the transfer payments that glues the federation together, 15 per cent of Canada’s GDP and the country’s primary source of oil and gas, its largest and most valuable export.
Also a major supply of good paying jobs for have not provinces. If the current anti jobs legislation, and excessive transfer payments from Alberta to the welfare provinces, why would Alberta look east for workers, when there are well trained, willing to work people all over the world?
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
28,041
10,465
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
The Liberal leader and prime minister was asked if he would make a commitment.

A solid concrete commitment to do everything in his power to see that new oil and gas pipelines and new LNG projects will be on the list of projects he wants built.

Carney made no such commitment.
He did spend time trying to convince us since he grew up in Alberta he knows Alberta and he doesn’t need anyone to tell him what Alberta is like.

Carney was also asked about the nine demands presented to him by Smith when they met last month.

These demands include scrapping the No More Pipelines Law. Carney won’t.

They include lifting the cap on oil and gas emissions. Carney won’t, though he said he would.

There is also deep-sixing Ottawa’s net-zero power regulations. Crickets.

There is also doing away with the tanker ban off the west coast. More crickets.

Smith wants the demands worked on in the first six months after the election.

Playing games will lead to a national unity crisis.

What is Carney’s response, the man touted as a genius at negotiations by his party and its supporters?

“I could spend my time writing letters back and forth,” Carney tells us in Calgary.

“I’m going to put in place things that work.”

TRANSLATION. Premier Smith can take a hike. I will do what I want to do. Carney has spoken, the matter is ended.
 
  • Like
Reactions: petros

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
28,041
10,465
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
The man Smith replaced, Jason Kenney, says that in 2019, when he was premier, the reasons for the anger were easy to find — Bill C-69, C-49, the cancellations of the Northern Gateway and Energy East pipeline. Now, Kenney says, it’s more basic: Albertans are simply baffled that the Liberals under Mark Carney could possibly be re-elected.

“There’s a general sense in Alberta that the Liberal party is hostile to our core industries, and a frustration that despite the manifest incompetence of the government on virtually every issue over the past decade — which would be a view held by like three-quarters of Albertans — that it’s a government that might get re-elected,” Kenney said.
 
  • Like
Reactions: petros