Juno News - October 21, 2023


Supreme Court rules against feds’ ‘no more pipelines act’ (ft. Kris Sims)

Mentioned
Danielle Smith Andrew Lawton Show Chris Sims Bill C-63 Jonathan Wilkinson Trudeau Stephen Guibault Steven Guilbeault Jason Kenney Vancouver
Pro-Palestine protesters HATE Justin Trudeau Documents reveal SNC-Lavalin probe blocked by Trudeau cabinet

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13 minutes

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Word count

2,521

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153

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Misogyny

1

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday issued a decision on Bill C-69, often referred to by critics in Alberta and elsewhere as the No More Pipelines Law, they found it to be largely unconstitutional. They said the government s expanded review process for infrastructure projects, including pipelines, was intruding outside of federal jurisdiction. This is exactly what the Government of Alberta has been saying. And the government of Alberta had a bit of a victory lap.

Transcript

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00:00:00.000 The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday issued a decision on Bill C-69, which is often referred
00:00:15.520 to by its critics in Alberta and elsewhere as the No More Pipelines Law. They found it to be
00:00:21.780 largely unconstitutional. They said the government's expanded review process for
00:00:27.060 infrastructure projects, including pipelines, was intruding outside of federal jurisdiction.
00:00:33.400 This is exactly what the government of Alberta has been saying. And the government of Alberta
00:00:38.200 had a bit of a victory lap on this that it decided to take. And do we have the, I don't see it on the
00:00:44.660 clip list. I think we might've had a clip of Danielle Smith though. Now today, Minister of
00:00:51.020 Environment and Climate Change, Stephen Gibault, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources,
00:00:54.880 Jonathan Wilkinson, responded to this historic decision, upholding the rights of provinces to
00:01:00.620 develop their resources. They tried to position this as a win. It is not. They confirmed their
00:01:06.220 plans to bring legislation back to Parliament to amend it. Clearly, they simply aren't listening.
00:01:12.660 Gibault does not seem to acknowledge how badly he lost. And Wilkinson, I heard him say that he hopes
00:01:18.700 that this is the last time that we end up going to court. Well, there's one way to assure that.
00:01:23.820 They need to drop their clean electricity regulations and they need to drop their emissions cap.
00:01:30.500 Yeah, it was a bit of a weird thing. Actually, to be honest, Stephen Gilbeau was doing the
00:01:34.100 Jagmeet Singh dance thing. He was like, he loses, but he's like somehow trumpeting it as a big victory.
00:01:39.820 The federal government said, oh yes, we welcome the guidance from the Supreme Court on, you know,
00:01:44.980 how we can better tweak this and refine this and we'll continue to build on it. No, you lost.
00:01:50.660 You lost and you were called on trying to trample into provincial jurisdiction with abandon. So,
00:01:58.120 what does this mean for Canada and for the oil and gas sector? Chris Sims joins us every Monday.
00:02:03.400 She is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and it is always a delight to
00:02:08.580 start our week off with her. Chris, this was a rare win from the Supreme Court. We don't get many of
00:02:13.580 those. No, and we absolutely need to pause and celebrate it, Andrew, for exactly this reason.
00:02:18.880 Well, number one, it's just a win. So, it's really good to see. Number two, it's a huge win,
00:02:23.480 not just for people who work in our natural resources industries, but it's also a big win
00:02:28.860 for taxpayers. So, we did the math a few years back and we figured out that because Canada does not have
00:02:36.580 its full pipeline capacity up and running, we've lost out on roughly $13 billion in taxes just over
00:02:45.940 the past 10 years. And Andrew, that's just in federal income taxes of people who would otherwise
00:02:51.880 have been working in the industry. That's not even touching like municipal property taxes or any other
00:02:57.380 sort of revenue that the government would get from such projects. And when you try to think of what
00:03:02.200 that kind of money would do, $13 billion, roughly speaking, would pay the salaries of about 60,000
00:03:08.980 police officers and about 60,000 nurses combined. So, we're talking big money here for taxpayers.
00:03:17.760 But more importantly, I think what you highlighted there was really important. That statement from
00:03:22.580 Guibo, the guy's just not taking no for an answer. And so, there was language in there that is a little
00:03:29.840 bit concerning, where he says, we're going to quickly bring this back to the House of Commons
00:03:35.380 and improve the legislation. So, there seems to be this zealous attachment to this sort of,
00:03:44.860 no, you can't do that within your own provincial jurisdiction, coming from the federal government,
00:03:50.820 coming from the Trudeau government. So, while we think Premier Smith is right in celebrating this,
00:03:55.700 this is definitely a huge win for provincial jurisdiction, we still need to keep an eye on
00:04:00.020 these folks, because they don't seem to be taking this no as a no.
00:04:05.260 Yeah, I want to read one line from this that jumps out here.
00:04:09.660 We are heartened that the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed our role on these core principles. This is
00:04:16.620 respecting the environment, Indigenous rights, and ensuring projects get assessed in a timely way.
00:04:21.920 We will now take this back and work quickly to improve the legislation through Parliament.
00:04:26.580 When the Supreme Court tells you that it is unconstitutional, and there were some parts
00:04:32.280 that were upheld as constitutional, but the core aspect that was at issue was found unconstitutional,
00:04:37.820 they weren't saying, well, if you just did this, you would be fine, because the court took issue
00:04:42.740 with the core purpose of this. That was the thing. It's not just, well, if you left out that paragraph,
00:04:48.900 it would have been fine. They said, no, you don't have a right to do this. But that's the part that
00:04:52.640 the federal government has missed here. And I don't know how they're going to get around that. But
00:04:56.900 I fear that the lawyers working around the clock on the federal government's dime will find a way.
00:05:02.220 Yes, exactly. So that's a concern as well. And then going forward, if you just read the way the
00:05:07.500 Supreme Court explained it, it just sounds like a straight up win for things like what Premier
00:05:12.700 Smith was referencing there, the so-called clean electricity caps that they're trying to impose
00:05:17.920 on Albertans here, but also things like so-called just transition. So just transition is basically an
00:05:25.860 idea coming from the federal government that they are going to transition Canadians away from our natural
00:05:32.060 core natural resources and to something else. And the transition part is for the workers and the
00:05:39.840 employees within things like energy, trucking, construction, all of the stuff that keeps us warm
00:05:46.400 and builds our things and makes this whole country function. That would have cost hundreds of billions
00:05:52.060 of dollars just in the salaries alone. And so we were, at least I am, reading the Supreme Court decision
00:05:58.760 saying, oh, well, maybe this is a good indicator that the federal government needs to stay in its
00:06:03.660 lane. But their reaction to it sounds like they won this case. So it's still probably a big uphill fight.
00:06:11.700 One thing that I think is important to note here as well is that we've effectively given provinces a
00:06:17.540 veto on this. If a province like British Columbia, where you used to live, says, you know what, screw this,
00:06:22.520 we don't want pipelines here. If Quebec does that, we basically give them the right to do that.
00:06:27.620 And it's actually quite astonishing that the federal government has tried to make a regime
00:06:32.080 in which provinces that want this don't actually get the same level of control and autonomy over it.
00:06:39.360 Because when Alberta is saying, yep, build it, we want it. Yes, yes, yes. The federal government's
00:06:42.560 like, well, now listen here. I don't know. And that's really what's happened here. So they've given
00:06:49.880 the right to the naysayers to have complete carte blanche on these projects, but they've not given
00:06:55.680 the analogous right to those who want pipelines. It's almost like the federal government has an
00:07:01.000 agenda and they're picking winners and losers in this. What was really good about this fight
00:07:06.300 is that it wasn't just the province of Alberta. It wasn't just the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:07:11.260 We were actually an official intervener saying, you know, yes, Bill C-69 is bad for Canada.
00:07:17.500 We had our lawyer in court and all of that stuff. It was other provinces as well. It wasn't just
00:07:22.900 Alberta out there fighting its lonesome fight in the wilderness. This time we had other major
00:07:28.180 provinces on board. So this means, if you can picture it, the province of Quebec could not be
00:07:34.300 told no if they want to have a new hydroelectric program. The maritime provinces, if they ever decide
00:07:41.140 to, for some reason, use the natural gas resources that they are sitting on provincially, they wouldn't
00:07:47.040 be able to be told no by the federal government. So it wasn't just one of those lone voice in the
00:07:52.400 wilderness by Albertans fighting this. It was other provinces in on it too. It was really good to see
00:07:58.600 this decision. Hopefully it is precedent setting. And that means things like just transition in these
00:08:05.080 strange electricity energy caps will hopefully go away. Yeah. And I think that's the important part
00:08:11.820 in the common law system. We want to really hold to that precedent here because right now there is
00:08:16.500 a federalism question at play. And I mean, when we saw the carbon tax come up before the Supreme Court,
00:08:22.180 which did not go the way you and I wanted it to go, it wasn't really, does the federal government
00:08:27.340 have a right to impose a carbon tax? It was, I mean, it was, but it was, does the federal government
00:08:31.980 have a right to manage this or does the provincial government have a right to manage this? And
00:08:35.980 the case was really about finding where we put the carbon tax in that federalism divide. Whereas
00:08:41.900 on this issue, I think the government pretty clearly said, we believe this is a federal
00:08:47.220 responsibility. And the court said, well, no, that's encroachment. That's mission creep. So
00:08:51.200 I think in that sense, it will be helpful. And I mean, obviously the government's going to try to
00:08:55.500 navigate around it. I mean, my concern is that they're going to really grasp at straws here because
00:09:01.080 one area where the federal government does have a right to act is in criminal laws. And that's
00:09:06.220 basically what they're doing with like to shoehorn in some other environmental regulations
00:09:10.540 and also under emergency powers. And we've heard some of the really radical environmentalists say
00:09:15.780 that the government should have defended the carbon tax under emergency powers because of the climate
00:09:20.660 emergency. Yeah, I've run into that as well. So that was at the federal level. They were making that
00:09:25.760 argument. I've actually even heard that sort of argument at municipal levels. So a few years back
00:09:32.000 when I was back in British Columbia, I was sitting in on an online discussion program with the city of
00:09:38.940 Vancouver and the city of Vancouver was trying to do many things all at once. They were trying to
00:09:44.200 install a virtual toll wall around downtown to nail people with fines and fees every single time they
00:09:51.100 crossed it. They were trying to impose brand new mega parking taxes on any new vehicles that were parked
00:09:58.140 on the street rather than ones parked in the driveway. So they were penalizing renters, the people who can
00:10:03.340 least afford it, the ones who were living in the basement suites. And before me in the queue, there
00:10:08.920 were several people who were interveners who were saying exactly that, that in their view,
00:10:15.340 they were in such a moment of crisis and emergency for the entire planet that all of our other arguments
00:10:22.260 were moot and nobody was allowed to bring up anything like financial hardship, fairness, the freedom to
00:10:27.340 own your own vehicle. All of that wasn't relevant to these folks. They said all that mattered was the
00:10:32.760 emergency. Now, do we have people in that same thinking and line of thinking within the federal
00:10:38.560 government? Probably. Hopefully they have other things to do though, instead of coming back quickly
00:10:45.140 and rewriting this legislation. But that sentence jumped out at me and I'm concerned that they are
00:10:51.140 going to do just that. Go back and try to rewrite it. But hopefully the Supreme Court would say, you know
00:10:55.980 what, we said what we said and go away now. Yeah. I mean, if Vancouver were given completely free
00:11:01.840 reign, they would just like put snipers up on the living Shangri-La and anyone that drives a, you know, 0.61
00:11:07.680 diesel or gas powered vehicle gets, gets like shot on their way into downtown. So you don't want to
00:11:11.660 give them emergency powers. But the thing that I find so shocking about this and just to bring it back
00:11:17.280 to the Emergencies Act and federal government, that was a useful exercise in showing us what the
00:11:22.880 government thinks is appropriate when there is an emergency. And we should all be very, very
00:11:27.820 terrified of the day the government does adopt the emergency rhetoric to deal with climate because
00:11:32.520 all of a sudden, oh, well, no gas powered vehicles. You can't drive to work through the way. I mean,
00:11:36.760 these are things that would sound absurd three years ago, but now we wouldn't find to be out of left
00:11:42.600 field. No. And especially if you look at other countries that are debating things like this,
00:11:47.640 especially in their downtown. I mean, France banned domestic air travel. It is illegal to take a flight
00:11:52.660 within France now. See, and this is where you get this mission creep so quickly. And this is why at
00:11:57.980 the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we want smaller, more accountable government. One, because it's bad
00:12:03.380 for people's freedom to have this ever encroaching, ever burgeoning government. And two, we just can't
00:12:08.740 flat out afford it. Like Vancouver was going to hire, you know, parking cops to go around with these
00:12:15.000 special iPads. I'm not kidding. And scan the vehicles to see what make and model and how new they were
00:12:21.480 and decide whether or not they then need to be fined. Can you imagine the bureaucrats tasked with that sort of 0.57
00:12:27.720 policing? And so imagine that now on a federal scale, like we're already flat broke. We're already more than a
00:12:34.200 trillion dollars in debt. We have un-money right now. But that wouldn't stop a lot of these ideologues,
00:12:40.860 unfortunately, from cracking down on things like this. So this is, again, bringing it back to the Supreme Court
00:12:45.580 decision. This is why this is such a huge win, is because it was a clear correction to the feds
00:12:51.000 saying, nope, these provinces are correct. They are able to produce and refine their natural resources
00:12:57.620 as they see fit. And folks, it wasn't just pipelines. Based on how you could read the interpretation of
00:13:03.560 this law, Bill C-69, it could be argued that, you know, a gravel pit or a new highway or even a transit
00:13:11.840 system built within the province's own borders could somehow be subject to federal approval.
00:13:18.760 And so this is where this is such a good win for the Supreme Court to correct the Trudeau government
00:13:23.920 here. Yeah. And very much vindication for the Alberta government, not just Danielle Smith,
00:13:29.460 but also Jason Kenney, because this is, I mean, the Supreme Court literally took at face value,
00:13:34.440 effectively, what the Alberta government had been saying about this from the get go. So well said,
00:13:39.720 Chris Sims, we will talk to you next Monday. Thank you so much for coming on as always.
00:13:43.500 Thank you.
00:13:44.220 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:13:46.560 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.