Western Standard - 'No Just Transition,' the three words that Rachel Notley just can't say

Rachel Notley is the premier of Alberta, Canada's largest oil and gas producer. She's also the leader of the country's largest and most important political party, the New Democratic Party of Canada. In her role as premier, Rachel Notley has to deal with the fallout from the Trudeau government's plan to turn Alberta's high-paid energy workers into janitors, truckers, and other less well-paid occupations.

00:00:00.000 Faced with clear evidence that the Liberal government has a detailed plan to transition

00:00:05.880 high-paid energy workers into janitors, truckers, and other less well-paid occupations, it was no

00:00:13.000 surprise that Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley needed a week to assemble her thoughts about the

00:00:20.360 so-called just transition. After all, what could she possibly say? First, there was nothing

00:00:29.660 just about it. A ministerial cheat sheet came right out and said it. The transition to a low-carbon

00:00:38.520 economy will have an uneven impact across sectors, occupations, and regions. An uneven impact?

00:00:48.240 Hmm, nothing just there. And although it would affect only about 3% of the workforce nationally,

00:00:56.400 the cheat sheet went on to say that the oil and gas sector in particular is a large contributor to the

00:01:03.780 GDP of Alberta at 27.3%, affecting about 187,000 workers in Alberta. There, 27% in Alberta,

00:01:18.860 3% across the country. The just transition. The other reason was that it was also her boss's

00:01:31.200 policy. Support for the just transition was part of the deal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh made with Prime

00:01:40.860 Minister Trudeau as his price for propping up the Liberals after the 2021 voter rejection that left the

00:01:52.100 Liberals in a continued and smaller minority. The Alberta NDP maintains a pretense that they're their own

00:02:02.300 people. But the truth is that they're a branch office for the National Party. Unfortunately, it soon

00:02:09.100 became clear that the cheat sheet was no boys in short pants staffer hoax. We've seen things like that,

00:02:17.260 but this is the real thing. Even for the oh-so-superior Liberals, it's a bit rich to suggest that a rig worker

00:02:28.500 earning $150,000 a year should accept a job paying a fifth of that. Ms. Notley must have been hoping it 1.00

00:02:37.060 was a hoax, but there it was on page 68 of the cheat sheet. And then to remove all doubt, Environment Minister

00:02:44.500 Jonathan Wilkinson stepped up to own it. Back to square one. It was all true. Under federal threat

00:02:53.860 were the jobs of 187,000 Alberta oil and gas workers, some of them union members. What had Jagmeet been

00:03:03.780 thinking? But silence was no longer an option from Ms. Notley. So, in the face of this legislative

00:03:13.380 broadside from Prime Minister Trudeau and her own leader, she did the only thing she could do.

00:03:19.220 She returned fire at Premier Daniel Smith, accusing her of jaw-dropping levels of incompetence and

00:03:27.220 leading a government that was asleep at the wheel. While that fizzled, the just transition plan has

00:03:34.980 been quietly percolating since Trudeau went to Paris in 2015. Smith has been Premier for three months.

00:03:42.660 Then, as it was now pretty clear that everybody was starting to understand why the Alberta Sovereignty

00:03:50.500 Act was looking good all of a sudden, she found religion. Notley pulled herself up to her full height, 0.95

00:03:57.700 took a deep breath and urged her friends in Ottawa to not go so fast. She said,

00:04:07.220 My view is that the federal government has to put the brakes completely on its legislative plans

00:04:12.580 for this spring with respect to the sustainable jobs legislation. In other words, do whatever you

00:04:20.660 like in June, but please don't make me fight an election on this. Hard as it is for me to imagine myself

00:04:31.380 as leader of any NDP party, I must say that in all fairness, I would have said much the same. What else was there?

00:04:42.500 And I would have expected the rebuke that Smith handed to her. Smith said,

00:04:52.500 I don't want to pause just transition until after the election. I want it gone, forever, dead on arrival,

00:05:00.900 a distant bad memory. And for good measure, she reminded Notley that Jagmeet Singh was still her boss.

00:05:10.740 That would be the Jagmeet Singh who has so far failed to come to Notley's rescue in any meaningful way,

00:05:21.140 from which one can deduce how much he will come to the aid of anybody, in Alberta or anywhere else,

00:05:29.220 who's lining up with her dustpan and broom. I actually feel sorry for Rachel Notley.

00:05:36.340 After all the provisos and the considerations declared, there is still only one proper response

00:05:47.060 for any Alberta leader to any federal proposal that will gut the provincial economy.

00:05:54.180 Alberta will fight. Alberta would be right. And I am not doing it. There will be no just

00:06:06.020 transition on my watch. Unfortunately, it's the one thing that Rachel Notley can't say.

00:06:16.420 From the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Haniford.

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Western Standard - January 23, 2023

'No Just Transition,' the three words that Rachel Notley just can't say

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