Western Standard - The Danielle Smith Show - May 11, 2022

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Well, greetings, friends. It won't surprise you. Well, let me just welcome you to the

00:00:37.700 Danielle Smith Show. I'm Danielle Smith. It won't surprise you that today I'm going to

00:00:42.540 spend quite a bit of time going through this court decision that came down from the Court

00:00:47.580 of Appeal yesterday on the issue of what has been called Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines

00:00:55.620 Act. You know, I regret that we've been calling it that because that's not what it is. What it is

00:01:01.920 is the no more building of anything in Alberta ever again act as it relates to natural resources

00:01:10.580 or anything else the federal government decides. That is fundamentally why four to one judges in

00:01:17.060 the Court of Appeal yesterday came down and said, let's cut the crap here. We're calling out what 0.96

00:01:22.900 this actually is. It's gutting the constitution. And if it is allowed to stand, it constitutes an

00:01:30.360 existential threat to the survival of the country. Let's be very frank about what has happened here.

00:01:36.420 And the reason why I say we need to be looking at this broader than the issue of pipelines,

00:01:41.640 because the interesting part about it, as the court acknowledges, is that no one is actually

00:01:47.400 disputing the federal government's authority to make decisions on cross-border issues.

00:01:54.280 We can fight, and we can be frustrated, and we can work to change government, and we can

00:02:00.800 make our case, and we can lobby, but the Constitution's pretty darn clear.

00:02:04.740 The Constitution says that if a pipeline goes across borders, whether it's between provinces

00:02:11.700 or whether it's down to the United States, if a transmission line goes across borders,

00:02:17.580 whether it's across provinces or down to the United States, regardless, the federal government

00:02:23.300 has jurisdiction over that. And we accept that there is a federal regulatory process to that.

00:02:28.620 What we do not accept is the fact that they are able to designate essentially any project that

00:02:35.060 they choose for any criteria, for any reason that exists and would normally be approved through

00:02:42.000 provincial processes, they're allowed to designate that a federal project. And that's the nature of

00:02:47.720 the problem that we have. So I want to walk through some of the legal jargon that came

00:02:53.800 through here. I haven't had a chance. It's a very long summary. It's 209 pages. I was reading through

00:02:59.440 is like, oh my goodness, get to the point already. But it's a very long summary. And I went through

00:03:04.940 to page 124, which is the affirming judges and what they had to say. It's still really important

00:03:11.420 for us to read on the other side as well, what the dissenting judges have to say, because in

00:03:16.660 the dissenting judges is where we're going to find the seeds of what the federal government

00:03:20.900 is going to use to try to keep this law from standing. And it won't surprise you that what

00:03:25.900 has happened is the federal government, Stephen Gobeau, has already said full steam ahead will

00:03:31.560 be appealing this to the Supreme Court. And he made sure as well to say that we are not allowed

00:03:38.300 to act on any of the judgment in this act because it was only advisory and doesn't have the force

00:03:45.220 of law. Well, I've got a solution for that one too. But I want to go through this as well because

00:03:49.780 I've been, as I've been contemplating and trying to figure out why the federal government seems

00:03:54.480 have control over everything we do it occurs to me that this this incursion is just a regular

00:04:01.040 feature of confederation that it took the 1930s resource transfer act for us to assert that we

00:04:09.680 had the same right as other provinces were granted at confederation over our lands and our resources

00:04:16.320 and our ability to develop them that was the natural resources transfer act it happened under

00:04:20.400 premier brownlee and i thought that that was the end of the story then of course in the 1970s

00:04:26.000 when we started developing our oil and gas resources and we started seeing international

00:04:31.120 energy crises all of a sudden the federal government came in with their uh with their

00:04:35.440 national energy program and decided that they were going to set the rate for oil and gas prices

00:04:40.320 in the country as well as regulate how much we were able to export that was one of the fights

00:04:45.760 that Peter Lougheed got into in 1982. That was also remedied in the constitution. There's a specific

00:04:52.480 section of the constitution that was put in place to make sure this never happened again. Section

00:04:57.520 92A that says that we have the exclusive jurisdiction to develop our resources as well

00:05:03.840 as to develop our own electricity and transmission infrastructure within our province. It's right

00:05:09.360 there in the constitution. So how in the world did the government come back and create a law

00:05:16.180 in parliament that allows them to essentially have a veto? And yes, that's what the court says,

00:05:21.100 a veto over any decision that we make within the province. So let's define some terms.

00:05:28.480 The term intra-provincial means anything within our borders. And this is where I think I have

00:05:35.960 maybe undersold just how intrusive and dangerous to national unity this bill is. Because true,

00:05:45.060 I mean, we've been frustrated about the Northern Gateway pipeline being canceled. We were frustrated

00:05:51.280 that Energy East pulled the plug after a billion dollars worth of investment. We were frustrated

00:05:56.400 that the federal government didn't stand up for us. When it came down to Keystone XL, we were

00:06:00.560 frustrated that Quebec also didn't allow for us to take our Western gas and export it off Port of

00:06:07.380 Saguenay through an LNG project. So all of these things were frustrating, yes, but what is even

00:06:12.340 more frustrating is when Environment Minister Stephen Gilbeau says, yeah, we're going to approve

00:06:17.640 this project in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we think that the Suncor expansion of their oil

00:06:22.460 sands project does not fall within our federal objectives, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

00:06:28.920 And so I guess that you sort of scratch your head and say, well, why do they have any decision to render on this at all? And it's because they are designating these projects within their area of jurisdiction. So let's talk about this. Interprovincial should mean anything within our borders we control.

00:06:45.280 So if we decide that we want to establish a natural gas power generation plant, we have the ability to do that. If we want to have transmission lines that connect our various business centers within Alberta and do not go back cross border, we are supposed to have the power to do that.

00:06:59.800 If we want to establish pipelines that take our natural gas from one part of the province to another part of the province without crossing provincial borders, we have the right to do that. But this is why Bill C-69 was so sinister, is it actually took all of that away from us.

00:07:14.520 So let me go through, and I will, don't believe me, I'll have you believe the courts, because

00:07:20.200 it is, to me, what I find really interesting about how they judge this is that if we do

00:07:26.180 not remedy this problem, they call it an existential crisis.

00:07:30.720 So it's worth it to read, if you will, just the introduction, if you can.

00:07:36.720 I know it's hard going through all of this legislation and the legalese, but I think

00:07:41.120 just even reading the introduction will give you a sense for how they're framing it. So first of

00:07:46.220 all, we've got sustainable economic development cannot be achieved without a sustainable,

00:07:50.780 healthy environment and society. Since we all want a healthy biosphere in which to live,

00:07:57.580 we expect our governments to make informed decisions about proposed larger scale projects

00:08:02.500 in this country in a careful and precautionary manner. The utility, therefore, of environmental

00:08:08.600 impact assessments of such projects to determine their environmental social economic health impacts

00:08:13.720 is undisputed this has been unanimously recognized by all four governments and all

00:08:19.000 interveners who participated in this reference and so nobody is disputing the fact that this

00:08:24.520 is an important issue we need to figure out how to develop our resources we need to do so

00:08:28.920 ensuring that we're taking care of the environment and looking at social and making sure that we're

00:08:33.640 respecting rights of first nations no one is disputing that but listen to how they continue

00:08:39.480 times of great change often lead to pressures to centralize power popular thinking may consider a

00:08:46.760 central government to be suited to manage whatever change dominates public discourse today that

00:08:54.120 discourse most certainly um is uh includes climate change the increasing frequency of weather events

00:09:01.480 related to climate change and their detrimental effects are evident. The need to act with urgency

00:09:06.640 on this front is undeniable, but this cannot be confused with the issue at stake here. So yes,

00:09:12.820 fair enough. Everybody wants to act on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions. But the court goes

00:09:18.500 on to say this reference is not about the legitimate concerns all government and citizens

00:09:22.920 have today about climate change, nor how to address them, nor is it about the anxiety many

00:09:26.820 rightly feel about the subject. Rather, the issue before the court is where the parliament has

00:09:30.980 overstep the limits of its constitutional mandate under Canada's constitution. So there's a couple

00:09:36.420 of questions that they have to deal with there. One is whether this, and it's called the Impact

00:09:41.700 Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulation Act, and they're asking whether it is unconstitutional

00:09:49.380 in whole or in part. That's question number one. Question two is whether it is unconstitutional

00:09:57.620 in whole or in part by purporting to apply to certain activities that relate entirely in the

00:10:02.720 authority of the provinces. That is the part that I want to get into because it's really

00:10:05.860 important that we understand just how far the overreach actually goes. So continuing on,

00:10:12.180 if you look at this, they say climate change constitutes, this is section six, climate change

00:10:18.560 constitutes an existential threat to Canada. So I think it's important that that be stated there

00:10:23.700 because it's not like the court is discounting the concerns that were put forward. It's not like

00:10:28.940 anybody is arguing that they don't want to act on this. I think that's crucial. It says,

00:10:33.360 but climate change is not the only existential threat facing the country. The Impact Assessment

00:10:40.400 Act involves another existential threat, one also pressing and consequential, and that is the clear

00:10:48.100 and present danger this legislative scheme presents to the division of powers guaranteed

00:10:54.020 by our constitution and thus to Canada itself. This reference shines a spotlight on the crucial

00:11:00.760 feature of federalism built into our constitutional framework. History teaches that governments by

00:11:06.500 central command rarely works in a geographically large country with a diverse population and

00:11:12.660 divergent regional priorities. In most major democratic countries in the world, federalism

00:11:17.340 and its associated principles, subsidiarity, have been insisted upon by the government. That

00:11:23.300 includes Canada, which by deliberate choice is a federation and not a unitary state.

00:11:31.260 We have to understand that this country exists by choice. It exists by negotiation. It exists

00:11:41.220 by the various foundational documents that we have that represent a compromise. We can put a

00:11:47.020 little water in our wine on certain issues, but you've got to leave us jurisdiction to take care

00:11:51.560 of our other areas of jurisdiction. That was the foundational premise of Canada when we came

00:11:58.540 together in 1867, revised through the 1930 Resource Transfer Act, reaffirmed through the 1982

00:12:04.260 Constitution Act. And what we're seeing is that the government is trying to throw that completely

00:12:08.520 out the window. I think there's one more section that I want to show you here just before we move

00:12:12.580 on. So under the constitution, the environment is not a head of power assigned to either parliament

00:12:19.020 or provincial legislature. This is important because what they go on to say is when either

00:12:24.140 government level legislates for purposes related to the environment, that legislation must be

00:12:30.080 linked to a specific head of power within its jurisdiction. A meritorious motive, protection

00:12:35.660 of the environment, does not by itself found constitutional jurisdiction for either level

00:12:41.980 of government so the so the notion that they can say because the environment is so important

00:12:48.460 and uh we declare that we have an interest in it therefore we can usurp your area provincial

00:12:53.980 jurisdiction that does not stand so let me go on to this next section because i want you to see who

00:12:59.340 the suspects are who who engaged as interveners in this case so what happens when the government

00:13:04.940 puts forward a case they ask other parties to who have an interest in the outcome to intervene so

00:13:12.300 that they can also submit briefs and make their case so in the case of the provincial government

00:13:17.660 on their side were ontario and saskatchewan as well as the woodland cree first nation the indian

00:13:22.380 resource council council the canadian taxpayers federation the canadian association of petroleum

00:13:27.260 producers the canadian energy pipeline association explorers and producers association of canada

00:13:32.220 the Independent Contractors and Business Association, and oh look, the Alberta Enterprise

00:13:36.680 Group, all intervened in support of Alberta's position. You want to see who the usual suspects

00:13:42.300 were on the other side? Well, this is going to surprise you at all. So these are the folks who

00:13:46.020 intervened on behalf of the federal government supporting its position. Nature Canada. Oh,

00:13:51.920 look at this too. Eco Justice Canada Society, Mining Watch Canada Inc., the Canadian Environmental

00:13:58.240 Law Association, Environmental Defense Inc. I wonder where they got their money from. Gosh,

00:14:03.800 if only someone would do a public inquiry to find out whether U.S. foreign foundations are sending

00:14:08.580 hundreds of millions of dollars into Canada to stop our resource development. If only someone

00:14:12.580 would do an inquiry into that. Also, the Athabasca, Chippewan, First Nation, and Mikasukri Nation

00:14:18.560 intervened in support of Canada. There's a couple of interesting parts, I think, to that as well,

00:14:23.000 is that what I think we should take away is that we had Indigenous groups intervening on both sides.

00:14:31.060 And this to me is something that Stephen Buffalo has made me quite aware of, is that the United

00:14:38.880 Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, it has been framed almost exclusively

00:14:46.080 as a piece of governing legislation that would stop any kind of resource development. But do you

00:14:52.640 know how the First Nations, like the Indian Resource Council and the National Coalition of

00:14:57.760 Chiefs and other aligned groups look at it? They look at the UN Declaration on the Rights of

00:15:02.560 Indigenous Persons as saying that the federal government has no right to interfere when they

00:15:07.180 do want to develop it. And that's a piece that I think is gaining more traction, especially as

00:15:12.960 First Nations leaders realize that the only way to address poverty in their communities is to take

00:15:18.060 up an equity stake and own and buy some ownership in some of these projects, which increasingly

00:15:22.640 they're being allowed to do. Now, here is the nut of why I think when we've been calling this the

00:15:28.400 No More Pipelines Act, we kind of missed the point about why this is so offensive to provincial

00:15:33.620 jurisdiction. So in this section, they talk about the activities included under the act. And again,

00:15:40.340 I don't think anybody is going to be surprised that the federal government is going to claim

00:15:45.120 jurisdiction on any development that takes place in a national park or a federally protected wildlife

00:15:52.080 area. They're not going to be surprised that the federal government is going to assert its right

00:15:56.760 to develop any specific matters related to military or defense. No problem there.

00:16:03.100 Uranium or mills. That's another one. Pardon me. Uranium mines or mills. So Saskatchewan's

00:16:10.200 resource on uranium, sure. That's something that the federal government has an interest in and is

00:16:15.020 going to develop. And I don't know that anybody is seriously challenging that. Nuclear facilities.

00:16:19.000 We might end up trying to get more of those developed as we go to small modular nuclear,

00:16:24.140 and provinces are very keen on that. But I don't think anyone is seriously disputing that the

00:16:27.920 federal government shouldn't be the one who makes the decision on that. Offshore oil and gas. That's

00:16:33.040 obviously an issue for our friends on the East Coast, and they have their own frustrations there.

00:16:38.260 But it is offshore. It's in international waters. It has multiple jurisdiction issues. I think we

00:16:44.260 accept again, that the federal government should be allowed to make decisions on that. New

00:16:48.640 international electrical transmission lines. If it goes cross border into the United States,

00:16:53.380 fair enough. Offshore oil and gas pipelines, same thing. Interprovincial oil and gas pipelines. So

00:16:59.000 if we cross border into Saskatchewan, obviously we can't impose anything on Saskatchewan. And that

00:17:05.080 is why you need the federal jurisdiction. Once again, no one's surprised there. Offshore wind

00:17:10.140 power again because it's offshore by definition it falls outside one particular jurisdiction falls

00:17:15.100 in the realm of federal government fair enough aerodromes and runways international and

00:17:19.100 interprovincial bridges and tunnels canals or causeways marine terminals okay so again those

00:17:24.940 are the areas that you would fully expect the federal government to have an interest in

00:17:30.380 determining whether there's going to be development or not and having the ultimate say on environmental

00:17:35.260 impact. But look at this. Importantly, however, designated projects also include intra-provincial

00:17:43.500 activities. Those are things that are within provincial jurisdiction, within provincial

00:17:50.060 borders, such as renewable energy, transportation, oil and gas. The following activities designated

00:17:57.020 in the regulations are matters primarily within exclusive provincial jurisdiction. So look at the

00:18:03.540 kind of things that they want to have exclusive jurisdiction over. Any coal, diamond, metal,

00:18:10.580 rare earth element, stone quarry, sand, gravel pit, exceeding a specified daily production capacity.

00:18:18.700 So when the federal government deems anything gets to be large enough, they're going, and it's

00:18:23.740 100% within our borders, they are going to declare that they have the jurisdiction to govern it.

00:18:30.540 That's what this impact assessment statement does. This impact assessment act is it took over jurisdiction over everything that we have traditionally decided on ourselves once it reaches a certain size. Continuing on, certain activities with respect to existing new oil sands mines with a bitumen production capacity of 10,000 cubic meters per day or more.

00:18:53.940 Sorry, guys, I didn't do the translation on that. But 10,000 cubic meters a day or more is a relatively small operation. So as soon as it reaches that size, federal government saying we get to decide. Construction, operation, decommissioning, abandonment or expansion of a fossil fuel fired power generating facility with a production capacity of 200 megawatts or more.

00:19:15.820 So think about that. So if we wanted to rebuild, call it the Shepherd plant in Calgary, which is 800 megawatts, natural gas fired plant, we wouldn't be allowed to do that without federal permission.

00:19:30.500 I was, you know, I knew that the federal government was overreaching when they said that they were going to ensure that we had no natural gas or fossil fuel production of electricity after 2035.

00:19:40.540 This is the act that allows them to do it.

00:19:42.480 Any plant that is over 200 megawatts or more, they're declaring a federal interest in and they give the final approval.

00:19:49.520 It continues construction, operation, commissioning, abandonment, and expansion of an in-situ oil sand extraction facility when the bitumen production exceeds 2,000 cubic meters per day or more in a province that does not have provincial legislation limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by oil sands or in the province or where such limits have been reached.

00:20:11.920 So when Rachel Notley agreed to the cap on oil sands production, we thought that that gave us

00:20:19.840 a lot of latitude to develop. And the way the government is interpreting this, it's questionable.

00:20:25.700 They want to step in and be able to develop or to regulate and veto any of the SAGD operations

00:20:33.320 that we have in the oil sands area. It continues construction operation decommissionary abandonment

00:20:40.580 of new expansion of existing oil refineries, facilities to liquefy petroleum products from

00:20:46.400 coal to natural gas, sour gas processing facilities, petroleum storage facilities,

00:20:50.820 natural gas liquid storage facilities, above specified production or storage capacities.

00:20:55.940 Any of those are going to be large operations. So that means that they're going to kibosh

00:20:59.640 any second level value added production that we do within our own borders. Anything that's

00:21:05.580 happening up in the Fort Saskatchewan, Sturgeon County, and Strathcona County area. All of that,

00:21:11.100 by virtue of this, comes under the purview of the federal government, even though none of it

00:21:17.520 crosses the border and there should be no reason why they would intervene. It continues the

00:21:23.280 construction, operation, decommissioning, and abandonment of a new and expansion of an existing

00:21:28.300 hydroelectric generating facility over a certain production capacity. So they're going to regulate

00:21:33.380 as well, even if it's all within our own borders,

00:21:36.120 any hydroelectric power on our river systems,

00:21:39.380 the construction operation,

00:21:41.740 decommissioning and abandonment of all new,

00:21:44.040 all season public highways

00:21:45.820 that require a total of 75 kilometers

00:21:48.500 or more of new right of way.

00:21:50.400 So they're now going to get into

00:21:51.920 provincial highway construction.

00:21:54.000 We've got a pretty big province

00:21:55.820 connecting a lot of different areas.

00:21:57.660 If it goes beyond 75 kilometers of new road,

00:22:00.700 they're going to step in.

00:22:01.860 That would have required...

00:22:03.380 federal approval to build the ring roads around Edmonton, a ring road around Calgary. We're not

00:22:08.140 going to be allowed to do those things anymore without the federal government saying so.

00:22:12.080 Construction, operation, decommission, and abandonment of a new facility or expansion

00:22:15.780 of an existing facility for the treatment of hazardous waste that's within 500 meters of a

00:22:20.660 natural water body. So presumably, I guess, I don't know, I'd have to look at the Swan Hills

00:22:28.380 plant which we decided to to do years ago maybe any of these new plants that are designed to deal

00:22:34.220 with uh with waste to energy maybe all of those are going to require federal approval and finally

00:22:40.900 the construction operation decommissioning and abandonment of a new or expansion of an existing

00:22:45.980 dam or uh dike or water diversion structure that exceeds certain limits so i don't know does that

00:22:53.960 I mean, I guess that's the Springbank Dry Dam or any other infrastructure, if we wanted to develop

00:22:58.900 out new irrigation infrastructure for our food producers, would we be allowed to do that? Not

00:23:03.860 without federal permission. See what I mean? That is at the heart of what this is about. It's not

00:23:09.380 really about the issue of pipelines. It's about the issue of everything else. And if you want me

00:23:15.080 to make, if you think I'm over-interpreting this, the court is super clear about the invasion in

00:23:22.920 every single aspect of our lives that this bill constitutes. Look at section 294.

00:23:29.160 To bring this down to reality, there are several ways greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced.

00:23:36.440 So this is what you're giving up. If you decide that the federal government is the one who gets

00:23:40.660 to make all of the decisions on all of these factors, federal or provincial, for all of the

00:23:46.580 different areas that they have outlined in law, that they believe that they have the ability to

00:23:51.720 say no. There's 20 different areas, including an assessment of gender and sexual issues as well.

00:24:01.180 They've got that enumerated in here, if you can imagine. But they have given themselves the

00:24:07.400 latitude to say no on not only areas of their own jurisdiction, areas of provincial jurisdiction,

00:24:13.640 and every social or environmental consideration that they want to, without limit. So here's what

00:24:20.440 it comes down to, to bring this down to reality. Lots of ways greenhouse gas emissions could be

00:24:25.380 reduced. So if the full effect of what they've given themselves is put into effect, here's what

00:24:30.020 they say. A few examples, which admittedly are at the end of this extreme, but for illustrative

00:24:36.300 purposes only, they could limit the number of children per family. This legislation allows them

00:24:42.080 to do that. They could legislate that we have to stop eating beef and become vegetarian.

00:24:48.020 We could they could legislate that we have to stop drinking dairy milk, stop living in single family homes, limit the square footage of a person, couple or family, limit what they can occupy, limit home heating above a certain prescribed temperature and stop cooling homes below a prescribed temperature.

00:25:05.660 stop using gas appliances, stop driving vehicles that cannot achieve a stringent mileage level

00:25:12.260 per liter, stop driving vehicles of any kind, stop taking holidays that involve leaving home

00:25:18.420 by plane, car, or bus, stop eating as much, stop spending as much on consumer goods,

00:25:24.420 shut down all cruise vessels and all plane travel for pleasure, shut down the dairy and cattle

00:25:30.960 industry, shut down all cement plants, shut down the auto industry and aerospace industry,

00:25:36.240 shut down all electrical power generation plants, shut down the production and export of coal,

00:25:42.280 shut down the entire Canadian oil and gas industry. That is the consequence of what

00:25:47.340 they've allowed them to do in this legislation. Do you see why they call this an existential

00:25:53.580 threat to Canada? Because it's interesting to me that they do that list of enumerated

00:25:59.320 areas that the federal government could decide are important areas of policy that they're now

00:26:03.780 able to do. Because isn't this what some of the extreme environmentalists are suggesting that we

00:26:09.040 should do? And so this becomes the mechanism for them to be able to do that. How long do you think

00:26:14.100 we will have unity in this country if the government acts on these kinds of issues?

00:26:19.360 So here's the other part that I think, so that's sort of the extreme end of what the government

00:26:23.440 has given themselves the ability to do. But I think this is equally important when they talk

00:26:27.820 about the practical effects of the Impact Assessment Act. One of the practical effects

00:26:34.420 is the issue of delay. It's indisputable. One of the practical effects of the act is delay. Given

00:26:40.800 the structure of this legislative scheme, this is not surprising. At every point that counts,

00:26:46.680 when a step is to be taken or a decision is to be made by the minister or governor and council,

00:26:51.000 that's the term for cabinet, there is no enforceable deadline by which that step or

00:26:56.720 decision must be made. In particular, there is no requirement that the decisive decision-making

00:27:02.880 step, the issuance of a decision statement, which includes the public interest determination,

00:27:07.820 will be made by the minister or governor and council within a finite time frame, reasonable

00:27:15.040 or not. Instead, the act permits an endless loop of delay. Endless loop of delay. And again,

00:27:21.140 it's one thing when you're talking about pipeline projects, as I said, that is at least an area of

00:27:28.380 jurisdiction. But every single area of provincial jurisdiction enumerated above, we could have

00:27:34.720 endless loops of delay that ensures that we are never able to get to the finish line on any large

00:27:41.820 project ever. So that's one practical effect. Practical effect number two, uncertainty. Another

00:27:48.460 practical effect of this statutory regime is uncertainty. If there were one consideration

00:27:53.740 above all other that militates strongly against investment in any country, it is uncertainty.

00:28:00.480 Investors crave certainty. The investing in intra-provincial designated projects need to know

00:28:07.380 and to be able to rely on the ground rules that apply to a proposed project. This is especially so

00:28:13.800 where those investments would potentially be measured in billions of dollars. Further,

00:28:17.980 Well, Canada remains an importer of foreign capital. Capital flows work both ways. Investors,

00:28:23.540 both foreign and domestic, can vote with their feet if a country is not competitive on the

00:28:27.840 investment front. Predictability and reliability of investing are essential to Canada's economic

00:28:34.260 success in an integrated world. You know, the number of business leaders I have talked to

00:28:38.860 who have told me, I just spoke with one last night, who told me that Canada used to be a green light

00:28:44.320 when it came down to the issue of investment.

00:28:48.220 And now we are a yellow light.

00:28:50.260 We are at the same level of Argentina

00:28:52.580 in how our investment climate is being judged

00:28:55.600 because of the uncertainty,

00:28:57.220 because you can't get approvals,

00:28:58.820 because you've got this endless cycle of delay,

00:29:01.500 because you've created uncertainty

00:29:03.000 and capital is fleeing the country.

00:29:05.280 Third practical effect is there's no practical remedy

00:29:08.320 to federal action or more importantly, inaction.

00:29:11.200 A third practical effect of this statutory scheme relates to judicial review. Canada and its

00:29:17.100 supporters submit that should the federal government overshoot the proper boundaries of

00:29:21.200 its powers under the act, there would be a remedy available in judicial review, but constitutionality

00:29:28.480 does not turn on the availability or the efficacy of judicial review, and unconstitutional law is

00:29:34.120 not made constitutional because the exercises of discretion thereunder are subject to judicial

00:29:39.720 review. In any event, there isn't any practical way to hold the government to account when it

00:29:45.380 comes right down to the issue of whether something is going to be approved or not. So this is where

00:29:49.920 we find ourselves, my friends, is that we are in a position where anyone who proposes a project of

00:29:57.960 any size can have Stephen Gilbo, who clearly hates our energy industry, swoop in and say,

00:30:05.240 you're not allowed to do that. And they can have an endless cycle of delay with no end in sight,

00:30:10.720 creating uncertainty with, why would anybody invest here? What would be the point of that?

00:30:17.420 So I was pleased to see, yes, the provincial government issued a strong statement,

00:30:21.960 said that they're going to continue to challenge this to the Supreme Court. But look what Stephen

00:30:27.560 Gobo did. He made it clear that he expects that we're going to continue to fall under this regime

00:30:33.760 until it is heard by the Supreme Court. Where are we at now? How many years has this been fought?

00:30:38.780 Do you remember how this went down? This went down under Rachel Notley's regime. And I remember

00:30:43.940 getting through the House of Commons with virtually no pushback whatsoever. Remember,

00:30:48.980 we thought we were going to get social license because we were playing ball. We shut down

00:30:53.040 the coal industry early. We're converting all those natural gas plants. We put in a carbon tax.

00:30:58.480 We decided to put a cap on oil sands. And do you remember that was supposed to solve all of these

00:31:03.100 problems. So what did the federal government do? They used that as license to say, if you want to

00:31:08.420 give up your area of provincial jurisdiction, don't you worry, we'll take all of it. And we

00:31:14.300 didn't hear anyone kicking up a fuss until Rick Peterson from Suits and Boots in the 11th hour,

00:31:21.120 when it was going through the Senate, decided to try to get the senators to reject both that and

00:31:26.380 the C-48 bill as well. Came pretty darn close to doing it. But there was no 911. There was no

00:31:32.920 And even then, we were still talking about it in terms of pipelines only, not in terms of all of the things that are listed there, that we're not able to build an in-stream hydroelectric operation.

00:31:44.840 We're not able to build a power plant that's larger than 200 megawatts.

00:31:49.200 We're not able to have in-situ oil and gas development.

00:31:53.100 We're not able to expand refining operations.

00:31:55.320 We're not able to do anything that allows for us within our own jurisdiction to make our own decisions.

00:32:00.100 No one really kicked up a fuss about that part of it.

00:32:02.120 so it went through the court and here we are a couple years in and now what we're supposed to do

00:32:06.520 we're just supposed to sit back for another couple of years and waiting for the supreme court to make

00:32:12.040 their decision no rob anderson came up with a solution if you've looked at his free alberta

00:32:18.120 strategy what did he say he he says that we need to immediately pass the alberta sovereignty act

00:32:24.280 and what would that do the alberta sovereignty act would tell us that we are going to disregard

00:32:30.360 any federal decision or any court decision that interferes in provincial jurisdiction. So now

00:32:35.720 we have got a court of appeal ruling. Four out of five judges, only one dissenting said that this

00:32:41.840 is outrageous, completely guts the constitution. We are not a unitary state. We are a confederation

00:32:46.980 and this negates our confederation if it is allowed to stand. That seems to me to be pretty

00:32:51.740 strong. That seems to me to be pretty clear that the end result is ultimately going to be that the

00:32:58.160 Supreme Court has got to strike this down. So why should we wait? How many more billions of dollars

00:33:03.980 are we going to see chased out of this province? Well, we wend our way through waiting for the

00:33:09.840 Supreme Court, which incidentally has three out of nine judges appointed by Quebec. You'd think

00:33:15.500 Quebec would be equally concerned about these interventions and the inability of them to

00:33:20.720 develop their resources too. Or is this the problem? This is fundamentally the problem with

00:33:26.120 our confederation, and they point this out too, is it causes the federal government to be allowed

00:33:31.980 to pick winners and losers among provincial projects. And guess who has the political power

00:33:36.040 right now? So if Quebec proposes that they want to have a new cement plant or a new aluminum plant,

00:33:43.940 do you think the federal government will intervene and say, no, you can't do that? We want to

00:33:47.380 designate that a project that we approve? I doubt it. If Newfoundland and Labrador want to have an

00:33:51.520 offshore project, I guess they can get it approved. But you know what, Suncor, you're out of luck.

00:33:54.920 the federal government is in grave grave danger we talk about existential crisis the court

00:34:02.620 identified this right from the beginning we are in an existential crisis for the survival of the

00:34:09.020 canadian federation and this is the saddest part i think about the response from the federal

00:34:15.060 government yesterday it's they obviously didn't read the act or the read the judgment and if they

00:34:21.020 did read the judgment, they just don't care. They just don't care. You know, you sometimes think

00:34:27.660 that people have higher minded reasons for why they want to make decisions. But it's pretty clear

00:34:34.520 that we've got an environment minister that simply wants to destroy Alberta's fossil fuel industry

00:34:42.520 and destroy Alberta's autonomy over making its own decisions over its resources. There's no other

00:34:47.820 interpretation that we can have other than that and so if that's going to be the case if that's

00:34:53.420 the federal government's response to alberta giving an equalization referendum saying we

00:34:59.580 want to eliminate equalization the very next day it seems they instituted the most hostile

00:35:05.820 environment minister that we could possibly ever dream of at the federal level it's time for us to

00:35:10.620 start asserting ourselves we can't we can't just simply wait and be passive on this that this is

00:35:16.140 is the time for us to start the strategy. You pass the Alberta Sovereignty Act and say we are

00:35:22.080 looking at the Court of Appeal decision. We are not abiding this act anymore. We're going to

00:35:27.860 collect our own income taxes. We're going to let you know that we are opting out of Alberta pension.

00:35:31.720 We're going to opt out of employment insurance. We're not going to be bought with your money

00:35:35.080 for child care or dental care or long-term care or pharmaceutical care because we understand what

00:35:40.480 the gig is here. The gig is that you are trying to create a unitary state where we have no decision

00:35:45.940 making whatsoever. If we don't start pushing back on these things, look what they do.

00:35:50.460 It's the whole classic argument of you give an inch, they take a mile, they have taken well

00:35:54.720 more than a mile on this one. And I think that the Supreme Court, that's why I called it the

00:35:58.700 cut the crap judgment, because they called it out. There's no denying it now, that this is very 0.96

00:36:05.080 clearly offside with the principles of confederation, and it's dangerous to the country.

00:36:10.180 With that in mind, I am going to read the other side of the argument, just so that we can see

00:36:14.420 what kind of arguments they're going to raise. But I think this gives us full license now for

00:36:20.020 us to be really putting Alberta first, charting our own course. Remember, I told you that one of

00:36:24.820 my last sessions when I was on the air was with Gerard Belziel from the Montreal Economic

00:36:30.380 Institute. And I did ask him the question of why it is Quebec was so hostile towards us.

00:36:36.260 And his answer was, they're not hostile towards you. They just don't think about you at all.

00:36:40.580 they're too busy thinking about themselves. And maybe it's time for Alberta to think about itself

00:36:45.400 for a change. Couldn't agree more. All right, my friends, go have a look at the decision yourself.

00:36:50.300 If there's anything you think I missed that we need to talk about next time around,

00:36:53.220 you know what to do. Just send me a note, danielle at daniellesmith.ca,

00:36:56.600 and we'll talk about it again on Friday. Thanks so much. It's been the Danielle Smith Show,

00:36:59.820 and I appreciate you tuning in.

Western Standard - May 12, 2022

The Danielle Smith Show - May 11, 2022

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