The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - December 02, 2023


Smith invokes Sovereignty Act to “protect Albertans” from Trudeau gov

Topics
photo radar policies Dow facility investment in Alberta
Hosted by
Isaac Lamoureux
Mentioned
Danielle Smith Devin Dreesen Christopher Landau Stephen Guibo Devin Drieschen Jim Thetterling Rachel Emanuel Stacey Bratzel Andrew Lawton Jason Kenney Path Zero Chad
The Alberta Roundup is back! Alberta won’t be bullied by Ottawa： Smith

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

168.82

Word count

1,423

Sentence count

85

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this week's Alberta Roundup, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has invoked the sovereignty act for the first time, while also introducing a bill that could force Alberta to become a net zero power grid by 2035. Photo radar has also been banned in some areas of the province, and there's been a major investment into the province. Finally, you won't want to miss the Alberta Politics Funny Moment of the Week!

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host, Rachel Emanuel.
00:00:03.860 We are back to our regular programming. If you haven't had a chance to see my episode
00:00:08.240 from last week yet, head over to YouTube and give that a watch. You won't want to miss
00:00:12.960 True North host Andrew Lawton's insights onto the province of Alberta and some of the major
00:00:18.300 news stories that I missed while I was away. That being said, we have a great show for you
00:00:23.440 guys today. A lot of big things happening in the province. Here's a look at what we'll be
00:00:27.160 discussing today. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has invoked the Sovereignty Act for the first
00:00:31.920 time. There's also been some positive changes regarding PhotoWriter and a huge investment
00:00:38.040 into the province, which will create thousands of jobs. Finally, you won't want to miss the
00:00:43.660 Alberta politics funny moment of the week. All that and more happening now on the Alberta Roundup.
00:00:57.160 Okay guys, up first, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she's invoking the Sovereignty Act
00:01:03.260 for the first time to challenge Ottawa's regulations, which would require a net zero
00:01:08.820 electricity grid by 2035. No doubt you remember that Danielle Smith first pitched the Sovereignty
00:01:14.620 Act during the United Conservative Party leadership race. It was very controversial at the time.
00:01:20.040 Of course, she won that race and it was her first piece of legislation as Premier. The bill
00:01:25.220 was pitched as a mean to bar federal legislation deemed harmful to Alberta and its interests.
00:01:30.700 In this case, Smith said she invoked the act to show that she was serious about challenging Ottawa's
00:01:35.300 energy regulations, which would wreak havoc on Alberta's natural gas-based grid. Here's what
00:01:41.620 she had to say about invoking the Sovereignty Act to reporters on Monday.
00:01:44.980 We developed this legislation to shield the province from federal intrusions, and we're using it now
00:01:50.900 because the consequences of this particular overreach would be so severe. Alberta will bear
00:01:57.180 the largest share of the expenses required to meet these absurd targets, and consumers and businesses
00:02:02.900 will see their bills soar. If the federal government has its way, many people will be left without
00:02:08.980 electricity that they can pay for on a power grid that will fall short or even fail in a typical
00:02:15.300 Alberta winter or summer.
00:02:16.640 I'm sure this won't come as a surprise to you all, but Environment Minister Stephen Gaubeau
00:02:20.680 doesn't appear to be taking the Premier seriously. Here was his response to the news that she would
00:02:26.580 be invoking the Sovereignty Act for the first time to challenge his government.
00:02:30.320 We will continue moving ahead with this. There is no legal basis for what Alberta is doing,
00:02:37.540 and we feel that we're on very solid ground. And the fact that we already have some provinces
00:02:41.740 who are on board with us, as well as a number of private companies and investors who say that
00:02:46.140 this is the way to the future.
00:02:47.400 Under the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, the Premier put forward a motion,
00:02:53.360 which would require the Alberta government to take several actions. Most notable among the actions,
00:02:58.580 it would compel Alberta regulators and officials not to comply with regulations,
00:03:03.480 so long as they are not breaking federal law. Those regulations are still in draft,
00:03:09.100 but they are expected to be enacted soon. The motion also calls Alberta to look into creating
00:03:14.500 a Crown Electricity Corporation. Now the purpose of this Crown Corporation would not be to compete with
00:03:21.200 Alberta's private electricity power system, but rather to look into generating electricity in the
00:03:27.680 case of a shortage. Moving into the controversy of the week, the Alberta government has banned
00:03:32.600 photo radar on ring roads around Edmonton and Calgary. It says it will instead allow the cities to move
00:03:39.340 those photo radar cameras to places like construction zones, schools and playgrounds.
00:03:44.300 There are currently eight photo radar cameras on Calgary's ring road and a whopping 22 cameras in
00:03:50.380 Edmonton. When making the announcement last week, Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Drieschen said,
00:03:55.520 Alberta's are concerned that these photo radar cameras are not being used because of safety,
00:04:00.960 but rather to generate revenue for the cities. Here's what that sounded like.
00:04:05.240 Now, some Albertans believe that municipalities operate photo radar solely to generate revenue
00:04:11.660 and is not for the improvement of traffic safety. So there's a lot of concern over fishing holes that we've
00:04:19.340 heard from Albertans. Now, since then, we've now had years worth of data to review, and we have come to the
00:04:26.400 conclusion that some photo radar sites are indeed designed to generate revenue, not to improve safety.
00:04:31.760 So let me be perfectly clear. This will end here in the province of Alberta.
00:04:36.720 It's the family and friends event at Shoppers Drug Mart. Get 20% off almost all regular priced
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00:04:49.140 to get your coupon.
00:04:52.800 The Alberta government will now work with law enforcement to remove all fishing hole locations,
00:04:57.900 referring to cameras where there is no safety concern. Now, the reason I put this story as the
00:05:03.540 controversy of the week because while it is trending in the right direction, it does not
00:05:08.300 quite go far enough. Comment below if you agree that it is time for Alberta to ban
00:05:13.820 photo radar entirely. Perhaps more importantly, email your city councillors and let them know that you hate
00:05:19.780 these policies. And while we're at it, let's do away with those stupid drive safe vehicles. I cannot stand this 1.00
00:05:26.540 program. I couldn't believe it that shortly after moving to Alberta, I received a ticket in the mail
00:05:31.720 for $120 for going 10 kilometers over the speed limit. An officer would never ticket you that much.
00:05:38.940 They probably wouldn't even pull you over for going 10 kilometers an hour over the speed limit. At least
00:05:44.140 in Ontario, it's generally considered that the speed limit is just 10 kilometers an hour over whatever
00:05:49.940 is posted. So it's one thing if you get pulled over fair and square, then it's up to you to reason your way
00:05:56.540 ticket. But I really don't agree with these policies. I don't like that the government is
00:06:00.940 watching all our actions, constantly finding new ways to monitor us, and then penalizing us if we
00:06:08.340 don't comply with their regulations. Comment below if you agree. Moving into what we're watching in the
00:06:13.880 weeks to come, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Federal Finance Minister Christopher Land this week
00:06:19.360 announced a $8.9 billion investment by Dow into the province's Fort Saskatchewan area.
00:06:26.340 That will become home to Dow's Path Zero facility, the world's first net zero scope one and two
00:06:32.480 greenhouse gas emissions integrated ethylene cracker and derivative site. Now for those of
00:06:37.460 you who thought that was a little bit of word salad, here's the great takeaway. It will create
00:06:41.300 6,000 construction jobs and 400 to 500 permanent jobs once the site is operational. In an announcement
00:06:48.260 on Wednesday, government officials were joined by Dow CEO Jim Thetterling. He said products made at this
00:06:54.720 facility will have greenhouse gas footprints less than half of products made at other plastic
00:06:59.900 alternatives. He added quote, we intend to take that to zero. Chrystia Freeland said the investment
00:07:05.840 is evidence that her government's plans are working. Here's what that sounded like.
00:07:11.000 We said that those tax credits would create great careers for Canadians, for people like the great
00:07:16.980 Canadians who are here with me, that they would build stronger communities and help reduce our emissions
00:07:23.980 at the same time. Today is proof that it's working. Moving into the Alberta politics funny moment of the
00:07:33.580 week, you guys are going to love this. Transportation Minister Devon Driesen was being interviewed by 630
00:07:40.000 Chad host Stacey Bratzel about his photo rater when she asked him about the Alberta Sovereignty Act,
00:07:45.500 reminding him that his former boss and former Premier Jason Kenney once called the Sovereignty Act
00:07:51.800 illegal, cockamamie, and said it would turn Alberta into a banana republic. Here's Driesen's response.
00:07:59.080 But your old boss called it cockamamie and illegal and would turn us into a banana republic, so
00:08:04.280 I guess that's politics, right?
00:08:08.980 And I wonder what he's doing now, yeah.
00:08:10.620 Oof, that's gotta hurt. Okay, guys, that's everything we have for you today. Thank you so
00:08:15.920 much for tuning into the Alberta Roundup. As always, if you're able, please consider supporting
00:08:20.680 our work over at donate.tnc.news. I will see you all next week. God bless.