Juno News - Alberta’s war against Ottawa’s net-zero scheme begins (ft. Rebecca Schulz)

00:00:00.000 As I mentioned on the show yesterday, I am on the road this week, hence the unusual environment

00:00:13.400 from which I am broadcasting. I'm in the nation's capital of Ottawa. And after the show yesterday,

00:00:19.100 I decided to take a little bit of a walk around, went down by the Parliament buildings, and

00:00:24.360 I was there at the moment the question period had ended. And why that's significant is because I

00:00:30.760 was out in front of West Block in that building, which is, well, as the name suggests, on the west

00:00:34.800 side of the parliamentary precinct. And a bunch of members of Parliament were coming out, cabinet

00:00:40.320 ministers. Justin Trudeau, I think he snuck out a back door. But all of these people, these very

00:00:45.000 important people in Canada's government and Parliament were there. And when you come out,

00:00:50.620 you walk south towards Wellington Street, which you may be familiar with as the center, the

00:00:55.460 epicenter of the Freedom Convoy protests a couple of years back. But yesterday, there was a different

00:01:01.760 type of truck on Wellington Street at that exact spot, this serendipitous moment I snapped a picture

00:01:08.300 of. Let's throw that up there for those watching. Ah, yes, no one wants to freeze in the dark. That

00:01:15.000 was a truck being driven courtesy of the Alberta government, which has launched an eight

00:01:20.560 million dollar ad campaign opposing, among other things, the federal government's commitment to

00:01:25.280 net zero, a very aggressive pledge, which will have very real consequences for the economy. Now,

00:01:31.420 I don't know how many times that truck was circling the block, but he ended up it was a male. I'm not 0.99

00:01:36.200 I'm not being like gender bias here. It was a male driver ended up at that perfect spot at that perfect

00:01:42.020 moment, where we will discuss, among other things, whether the people that need to see that message are

00:01:48.200 listening. Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schultz joins us now. Rebecca, great timing on

00:01:54.100 that, by the way. I don't know if you were the ones like with the roadmap saying you got to turn on to

00:01:57.520 Wellington at, you know, exactly 302, but it worked. You know, we obviously didn't give that

00:02:04.120 specific of direction. But I mean, it is an important message for MPs from across the country to see,

00:02:11.740 especially those who are part of the federal liberal government, because Canadians right across our

00:02:17.620 country, not just in Alberta. But we're hearing this across the prairies in Atlanta, Canada, that

00:02:23.720 the draft clean electricity regulations, not only are they wildly expensive, they're completely

00:02:29.120 unrealistic, and they will risk leaving Canadians in the dark. This is completely unacceptable. And

00:02:35.660 that's why we launched this campaign. You know, one of the challenges here is that this is a

00:02:41.080 campaign that costs a fair bit of money. And I know that when you're dealing with provinces and

00:02:46.060 governments, the budgets are very large, but $8 million still not insignificant here. Why can you

00:02:51.980 not just pick up the phone and call your federal counterpart? Why can Premier Danielle Smith not just 1.00

00:02:56.720 pick up the phone and talk to the federal government the way you'd hope in a federation levels of

00:03:01.760 government communicate and cooperate? You know, unfortunately, what we've seen is that the federal

00:03:07.080 government has not listened to provinces. And they certainly haven't listened to electricity

00:03:12.260 providers on essentially why these regulations are so problematic. They say that they consulted. But

00:03:19.220 then when they came out with draft one of the clean electricity regulations, like very little, almost

00:03:25.420 none of that feedback that was provided by provinces or our electricity companies was listened to or

00:03:31.760 included. And so, you know, from here, I mean, we are in discussions with the federal government, we as in

00:03:38.500 Alberta, about these specific regulations and other pieces of legislation or regulations that the federal

00:03:44.580 government is looking at that would impact our economy, jobs, and the well-being of Albertans. But

00:03:50.840 specifically here, this is something that will impact all Canadians. And if the federal government,

00:03:57.140 you know, first of all, they've showed that they haven't been listening to the provinces, they haven't

00:04:00.840 been listening to companies. I think that hearing from Canadians is is one way that hopefully we can remind

00:04:07.820 them of who we're here to serve, and why these regulations cannot go forward the way they've

00:04:13.420 been presented. Albertans, Canadians, they do not want to see their electricity bills go up three,

00:04:19.740 four, five times, right, the cost estimates are up to $1.7 trillion. Canadians will have to pay for

00:04:25.400 that somehow on their taxes on their bills. We see other countries around the world, we see also places

00:04:31.380 like California, Texas, Germany, where they are actually facing rolling brownouts, blackouts,

00:04:37.600 rationing power, and going back to coal-fired generation. We don't want that. What we're

00:04:42.300 saying to the federal government is be a partner, let's have discussions where we put ideology aside

00:04:48.120 and use common sense, and put Albertans and Canadians and their very real concerns about affordability and

00:04:53.940 reliability first. Justin Trudeau yesterday said that Albertans are, quote, all in for what his

00:05:02.200 government is doing on this. Now, I would say, given the narrative that emerged during the last

00:05:08.000 election campaign in which your UCP got a majority, that Albertans are not all in for the liberal

00:05:13.420 government's approach to this, but how do you even reconcile that claim with the experiences that

00:05:20.040 you're seeing from your constituents? Yeah, you know, it's interesting that they pick and choose

00:05:25.260 facts, and they do misrepresent, I think, the feedback that they've been hearing from, especially

00:05:31.280 Alberta power companies. I mean, we've been meeting with companies over the last number of weeks to

00:05:34.780 understand why these regulations are so problematic. A number of those companies are, and their

00:05:40.100 representatives are actually in Ottawa, providing that very real feedback. You know, we saw Minister Guy

00:05:45.960 and Beau say, for example, Capital Power is fully supportive. Well, Capital Power also said that

00:05:51.600 they can't do this before 2045. So, you know, I think it's a little disingenuous, to be honest with

00:05:58.500 you. It's not 100% truthful. We know that the way that these regulations are written right now

00:06:05.500 absolutely cannot be implemented in Alberta, and even our independent system operator has raised concerns

00:06:12.100 about grid reliability. And what I break that down to is, I mean, I represent a lot of young

00:06:18.440 families, we have a lot of seniors, when we're talking about rationing power, think about that. In other

00:06:23.720 places, they ration power at areas of or times of high demand. So 4 and 9pm. When I think about that, I think

00:06:31.160 about families and the people I serve, picking up their kids from school, doing homework, trying to have dinner,

00:06:37.360 getting to kids activities, and doing that in the dark, while paying more for less reliable power.

00:06:44.460 I just don't think that that's what anybody wants to see. And you know, when we look at the criminal

00:06:49.840 code aspects that Minister Guy-Beau has suggested that there will be criminal code, essentially sanctions

00:06:57.380 under the Environmental Protection Act for powering our grid. That is a very real problem. And I don't think

00:07:05.940 that's what Albertans or Canadians want to see. You mentioned capital power, which I think raises an

00:07:10.960 interesting and important point here. Is your issue the timeline? Because the government has been on

00:07:15.720 emissions reduction schemes in general, very aggressive. And I think they keep rewriting the

00:07:20.160 timeline and giving the country and the provinces and everyone in it less and less time to do this.

00:07:25.500 But so is that the issue? Or is it the fundamental ask underlying it, irrespective of the timeframe?

00:07:31.240 I mean, first of all, of course, this is an area of provincial jurisdiction. So this is another

00:07:35.740 area where the federal liberal government is infringing on an area of provincial jurisdiction. And I think

00:07:42.440 the big issue here is that they fundamentally do not understand how power generation works in each

00:07:47.740 of the provinces. And they're not treating the provinces as unique. So where we're left is a

00:07:53.720 situation where their prescribed regulations are just, they're completely not feasible for a couple of

00:08:03.120 reasons. One, the technology does not exist. The standards they put in place have not been tested

00:08:09.160 or proven anywhere in the world. And we would have to develop them, test them, prove them and scale it up

00:08:16.180 across our whole system in just over 10 years. That is completely unrealistic. The other thing is around

00:08:23.560 the number of hours that we can run peaker generations. So that helps us, especially, you know,

00:08:29.580 think winter, it's cold right across Canada, not just in Alberta, throughout the winter months.

00:08:34.920 Now, if we only have 18 days of peaker capacity, where, you know, the wind isn't blowing, the sun

00:08:40.980 isn't shining, renewables are not generating the base load that we need, and you need natural gas

00:08:45.560 peaker capacity to come in and essentially provide that base load natural gas. 18 days does not get us

00:08:52.920 through the month of January. That is wildly unreasonable for, again, not just Alberta,

00:09:00.700 but right across the country. And system operators across the country are saying, this just isn't

00:09:06.840 feasible. And so, you know, I hope that this campaign urges on Canadians to tell the feds, tell

00:09:14.160 their MPs why this is so problematic. And, you know, I hope that MPs are looking at those ads,

00:09:21.220 are hearing it on the radio, and then are hearing from Canadians just how concerned they are.

00:09:26.720 Are you getting support for this from other provinces?

00:09:30.280 You know, here's what I would say. We've had provinces right across the country articulate

00:09:34.920 why these regulations are so problematic. I mean, yesterday, you know, not necessarily specific to

00:09:42.760 clean electricity, but the Nova Scotia reports around energy poverty, right? When we talk about energy

00:09:49.940 reliability and energy poverty and why people are at risk because of the federal government's

00:09:56.660 ideological goals, you know, reading reports of people asking, how do I keep my home? How do I

00:10:02.460 keep my home? How do I put food on the table? How can we afford this carbon tax? That is a problem. I

00:10:08.160 mean, we've seen Ontario system operator also essentially say that the current draft regulations

00:10:14.120 would be problematic for their grid as well. We've seen it here in Alberta. I know Saskatchewan

00:10:19.280 is opposed. I think a few months ago, Manitoba also had some concerns. And so what we're asking

00:10:24.260 for, I think, as provinces, is some common sense. Let's not use ideology. Let's listen to Canadians

00:10:30.680 whose top concerns right now are affordability, the cost of living, obviously, the carbon tax is driving

00:10:36.580 that to a huge extent, of course, in inflation. But let's listen to those very real concerns and

00:10:43.280 make sure that, you know, when when a mom wakes up in the middle of the night with baby, that wasn't,

00:10:48.440 you know, too long ago, I remember what that was like. And could you imagine that mom waking up in

00:10:54.920 the middle of the night and not being able to turn on the lights? Like that is the reality of what the

00:10:59.600 federal government is putting forward. I am encouraging the federal government, we are here across

00:11:04.920 Alberta, encouraging the federal government to actually think about the Canadians that this would

00:11:10.460 impact, how it would impact them, and what that would mean in their day to day lives as at a time when

00:11:16.100 cost of living is already a top concern, increased electricity bills for less reliable power. That just

00:11:23.100 isn't something that I think Canadians want to see. But and I think you're very right when you point out how

00:11:29.220 all provinces and certainly a few in particular have a shared interest in this. But in terms of going to

00:11:34.460 the extent that Alberta is, you know, maybe not necessarily with an ad campaign, but really

00:11:39.100 asserting provincial jurisdiction here, are you seeing the support from other provinces that you

00:11:43.680 need or would like? You know, I think that we are. I mean, we hear other provinces across the country

00:11:49.160 saying that this is just unreasonable and unrealistic. I mean, I certainly felt like this campaign was

00:11:55.960 something that was needed to make sure that the federal government is hearing those concerns,

00:11:59.800 concerns, and that we're focusing on, you know, what's really at the heart of the issue, which is

00:12:05.680 the people that we are elected here to serve, and their very real concerns around affordability and

00:12:09.600 reliability. And, you know, I think what we're seeing out of Atlantic Canada, and of course, across

00:12:14.500 the prairie provinces shows that this isn't just from Alberta, this, this is an across Canada issue. And

00:12:20.040 it's also why I think the federal government really needs to respect provincial jurisdiction,

00:12:24.340 and take the feedback from provinces on what makes their systems unique.

00:12:30.220 Well, I think the last few years has shown that you can certainly make a point by bringing a truck

00:12:33.820 to Ottawa. I know you're doing a different type of truck on Wellington Street there. We had that

00:12:38.300 image. It certainly was noticed by people, whether they'll heed the words on it. And in the radio ads

00:12:44.940 and billboards, time will tell. Minister Rebecca Schultz, always good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on

00:12:49.940 today. You as well, anytime. Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by

00:12:55.280 donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - October 05, 2023

Alberta’s war against Ottawa’s net-zero scheme begins (ft. Rebecca Schulz)

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