Western Standard - October 13, 2023


'C-69 was governmental gangsterism but Supreme Court decision bodes well for Sovereignty Act'

Mentioned
Jonathan Wilkinson Stephen Guibault Jason Kenney
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Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

162.41

Word count

871

Sentence count

44

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Supreme Court of Canada rules that the federal government cannot interfere in the province s ability to manage its own energy resources. Prime Minister Rachel Notley says the ruling is a victory for the provinces, First Nations, business, NGOs, and Canadians across the country who made their voices heard.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 If you believe in fairness, common sense, and the sanctity of the Canadian Constitution,
00:00:05.940 today is a great day.
00:00:07.880 We are extremely pleased with the Supreme Court of Canada's decision confirming the
00:00:12.060 unconstitutionality of the federal government's Destructive Impact Assessment Act.
00:00:17.920 This legislation, also known as the No More Pipelines Act, but I've been calling it the
00:00:22.240 Don't Build Anything Anywhere Act, is an existential threat to Alberta's economy.
00:00:28.020 It is already responsible for the loss of tens of billions of dollars in investment and
00:00:32.440 thousands of jobs across the country in many economic sectors.
00:00:36.560 Today's ruling represents an opportunity for all provinces to stop that bleeding, rebuild
00:00:41.560 investor confidence, and attract those jobs back into our economies.
00:00:45.720 And today, I am pleased to say that Alberta is once again open for business.
00:00:53.300 The Court ruled that the Act and regulations are unconstitutional and reaffirmed.
00:00:57.980 That the primary jurisdiction of non-renewable natural resource development is the sole
00:01:03.180 jurisdiction of the provinces.
00:01:05.520 And the Court also ruled that they do not apply to activities that primarily fall under
00:01:10.240 provincial jurisdiction, including conventional oil and gas, oil sands, hard rock mining, and
00:01:15.600 other similar non-renewable resource development.
00:01:19.480 These are substantial wins for the protection of provincial rights in our Constitution.
00:01:23.660 The legislation gives the federal government almost unlimited power to intervene in the
00:01:28.460 approval of virtually any major project or in any part of the country and for any reason.
00:01:35.040 Businesses agree with us.
00:01:36.240 Six other provinces, as well as First Nations, who joined as interveners, NGOs, and Canadians
00:01:41.760 from across the country who made their voices heard.
00:01:44.540 And today, so does the Supreme Court of Canada.
00:01:47.100 And we will continue to fight against Ottawa's unfair overreach that continues with their
00:01:52.200 uninformed and unrealistic electricity regulations and oil and gas emissions cap.
00:01:57.540 They will damage our economy, they will stifle development, they will erode constitutional
00:02:01.840 rights, and they will ultimately harm all Canadians by putting jobs at risk and making 0.88
00:02:06.920 life more expensive.
00:02:08.540 Alberta will simply not accept, being handcuffed by Ottawa's unfair overreach with another blatant
00:02:13.540 attempt to erode and emasculate the rights of constitutional authority of the provinces
00:02:18.280 as equal and sovereign orders of government.
00:02:22.720 Today's decision significantly strengthens our legal position as we work to protect Albertans
00:02:27.200 and all Canadians from federal intrusion into our provincial jurisdiction.
00:02:30.980 And we will continue partnering with willing provinces, First Nations, and other allies in
00:02:34.980 fighting unconstitutional federal overreach using any and all legal means available to
00:02:39.940 us.
00:02:40.940 And this includes potentially introducing a motion under Alberta's sovereignty within the
00:02:44.100 United Canada Act.
00:02:45.640 I would like to thank the provinces, First Nations, business groups, NGOs, and others who stood
00:02:49.620 with us and stood for all Canadians.
00:02:53.020 I would also like to thank former Premier Jason Kenney, who tirelessly fought back against
00:02:57.380 federal overreach during his term as Premier.
00:02:59.980 I hope that Ottawa will learn from this mistake.
00:03:02.980 Now, today, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Stephen Gibault, the Minister of Energy
00:03:08.800 and Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, responded to this historic decision, upholding the
00:03:14.500 rights of provinces to develop their resources.
00:03:17.000 They tried to position this as a win.
00:03:18.940 It is not.
00:03:20.420 They confirmed their plans to bring legislation back to Parliament to amend it.
00:03:24.460 Clearly, they simply aren't listening.
00:03:27.600 Gibault does not seem to acknowledge how badly he lost.
00:03:31.540 President Wilkinson, I heard him say that he hopes that this is the last time that we
00:03:35.420 end up going to court.
00:03:37.360 Well, there's one way to assure that.
00:03:39.360 They need to drop their clean electricity regulations and they need to drop their emissions cap.
00:03:43.500 That will be the way that we can assure that we can come to the table and work together.
00:03:47.540 The entire reason we ended up in the Supreme Court was because the federal government acted
00:03:52.360 illegally.
00:03:53.280 They ignored the provinces.
00:03:55.160 They ignored the Senate.
00:03:56.160 They ignored the many partners who have opposed this unconstitutional law all along and creating
00:04:03.280 the uncertainty that led to the withdrawal of projects like Tech's Frontier Mine that would
00:04:08.660 have brought $20.6 billion in investment and thousands of jobs across the country.
00:04:14.160 Enough is enough.
00:04:15.160 It is time for Ottawa to stop legislating in provincial jurisdiction and work with us on
00:04:20.120 shared goals.
00:04:21.380 And that's why we call on the federal government to learn from the Supreme Court's decision
00:04:25.060 that their ongoing efforts to seize regulatory control over the electricity grid and natural
00:04:30.520 resource sectors of the provinces is unconstitutional and it's illegal.
00:04:35.580 They do not have the right to thwart the economy, livelihoods, and future of any Albertans
00:04:40.280 or any Canadians.
00:04:41.280 Instead, we once again invite them to come back to the table in good faith and work with
00:04:46.520 Alberta to align our mutual efforts on 2050 reduction targets for emissions and the development
00:04:53.460 of our electricity grid and our world-class energy sector to make life better for all Albertans.
00:04:59.980 We hope today's decision provides an opportunity for a reset in the ongoing federal-provincial
00:05:05.020 discussions on these issues because today we celebrate this important decision and we
00:05:10.300 will continue protecting our constitution, responsibly managing our resources, protecting
00:05:16.520 the environment, and making life better for all Albertans and indeed for all Canadians.
00:05:21.660 Thank you.