A raft of strongly worded letters, duelling committees, and a plague of grasshoppers
The Colossally Irrational Report on Alberta's politics, June, 2023
My Scottish/Irish ancestors arrived on the east coast of Turtle Island sometime in the late 1700’s or early 1800’s and were part of several waves of genocidal colonization of the Indigenous people who were already here. I know I have benefited as a result, and I find this deeply troubling. I like to explain my family’s history and keep this foremost in my mind (and my writing) at all times. I moved west with my family in the 1970’s and am grateful to be here, producing this newsletter in Moh’kinsstis, and the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. This territory is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. I recognize that the land I now work and live on was stolen from these nations (truth) and I support giving the land back as an act of reconciliation.
I’ve just returned from a trip to London (UK) for my daughter’s wedding and would like to extend a special welcome this month to a large group of new subscribers to The Missive (about 38 at last count!). This report on Alberta politics sprouted from a lengthy Twitter thread in 2019 and has blossomed into a regular (although somewhat sporadic) newsletter. I’ve since left Twitter (and don’t regret it at all) but you can find me more regularly on Mastodon, as well as on Instagram for photography and local activism stories. Thank you for subscribing, and much appreciation to Mitchell Beer of The Energy Mix for his kind recommendation.
(Photo caption: If you arrived here via social media, the photo associated with this post is from my recent visit to the Tower of London. The infamous Traitors Gate is where prisoners arrived via barge to be jailed or executed.)
She did it again
Premier Danielle Smith penned a “strongly worded” statement in June aimed at the federal government…again.
Smith’s finger-wagging would be hilarious if it wasn’t signalling how utterly unprepared Alberta’s UCP government is for a serious conversation about helping workers transition to a more sustainable energy future.
The Sustainable Jobs Act was introduced by the Liberal government and it calls for the creation of a council to advise on clean energy jobs, requires the federal government to come up with a plan every five years, and establishes an oversight secretariat to keep track of progress.
This is pretty basic stuff and probably should have been done long ago.
As CBC News’ Elise von Scheel explained following the introduction of Bill C-50:
“A formal jobs action plan is expected in two years. That means we will have spent more time anticipating the strategy than there is time to act on it by interim 2030 emissions deadlines.”
Our premier, a former fossil fuel industry lobbyist, stuck to the script she’s been given by her former bosses, while continuing to cast doubt on any efforts to address climate change, no matter how meek.
In the statement, Smith demands the definition of “sustainable” include the oil and gas sector due to the use of emissions reduction technologies.
“I remind the federal government that due to emissions reduction technologies, oil and gas sector jobs are also sustainable jobs and will continue to be so for many decades and beyond. This must be clearly recognized by the government and its new advisory panel members.
Just a reminder, the definition of sustainable energy is that which, “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
No, conventional oil and gas does not make the grade by any standard. This is a level of audacity rapidly becoming Smith’s signature, much to the embarrassment of most Albertans.
She goes on to say:
“Alberta will not recognize, cooperate with or enforce any attempt to phase out our province’s oil and gas industry or its workforce. This is non-negotiable.”
Smith claims this approach will “unlock hundreds of billions in investment dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs for Albertans and Canadians.” It’s probably fair to say that no one outside of a small contingent of Take Back Alberta members believe this to be true.
The statement also references the “increased export of Alberta LNG to replace higher-emitting fuels internationally.”
So, there you have Alberta’s climate plan in a nutshell, folks.
Don’t say climate change
Meanwhile, others welcomed the announcement. Paul McLauchlin, president of Rural Municipalities of Alberta said, “rural Albertans and Albertans in general, we're experts in energy. We're also quite innovative and quite entrepreneurial. I do really see that there's a significant opportunity here that we can take advantage of.”
Dr. Ellen Goddard, an agricultural economist at the University of Alberta, said while she would have liked to have seen an explicit recognition of the agricultural sector, she thinks it’s good the government is making a commitment to the process of transition.
“(This transition is) happening, regardless of climate change, and climate change is going to be a big one, if we're going to be able to deal with it productively. I think it's a good thing that the government's seeing the need for transition funding,” she said.
McLauchlin had some ideas around “depoliticizing” the discussion around the bill. He’d like to see it “delinked from the climate change goals” and move towards future energy opportunities. This is an idea worth considering, but it’s unlikely politicians like Smith will listen to reason since she’s built her whole leadership platform (similar to her predecessor, Jason Kenney) around sparring with the federal government.
Smith, along with Minister of Energy and Minerals Brian Jean and Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz later announced they had met with federal Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson and federal Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities Dominic LeBlanc.
The tone of the resulting news release was more positive but the proposal? Alberta pitched the idea of a “bilateral working group” to complete work on a “collaborative approach to incentivize carbon capture, utilization and storage and other emissions-reducing infrastructure for the oil and natural gas and electricity sectors, as well as to set reasonable and achievable milestones for emissions reductions in these sectors through to 2050.”
It’s sad that an idea to set up another committee (in addition to the committee announced by Bill C-50) to work on how to collaborate is given the flourish of a 300-word news release.
All the while, Alberta commemorated the 10-year anniversary of a catastrophic $5B flood, experienced an early wildfire season requiring the distribution of $45.5M in direct payments to evacuees (so far!), and saw the destruction of 1.4M hectares of forest.
Recent reports say that as a result of the extremely dry conditions, 2023 is also the worst year for grasshoppers in more than two decades. These little critters can get out of hand and even a moderate infestation can devour up to 60 per cent of the vegetation.
According to CBC News, “the current surge in numbers has been made possible by sequential years of drought: warm, dry springs and hot early summers. If the trend continues, serious infestations will continue to escalate.” Grasshoppers and locusts are a global threat to food security.
To the bitter end and the last barrel
In other tone-deaf news, Alberta’s Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz also announced she had sent a strongly worded letter (sensing a trend here?) to the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change asking him to “immediately halt the implementation of the federal Clean Fuel Regulations on July 1.”
Alberta’s ENVIRONMENT minister (yes, you heard that right) said she was joining the governments of Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces in opposing the act claiming the regulations will “harm provincial ECONOMIES.”
The environment is barely mentioned anywhere in the letter, other than in oblique references, but this is par for the course in Alberta’s conservative government lexicon.
It’s starting to look like defending the fossil fuel industry to the bitter end is going to be the mandate of all the ministries under Smith’s leadership.
Alberta’s Finance Minister Nate Horner told the Ponoka News that “while the government continues to reduce its dependency on oil revenue and move toward a carbon-neutral economy, it will not abandon the fossil fuel industry.”
“Alberta is well positioned. We’ll be producing right to the end of oil’s useful life. We’ll be one of the last jurisdictions producing that last barrel.”
Okay Nate.
I’m giving the final word to Meghan Vankosky, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and co-chair of the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network who quipped to CBC News about the grasshopper invasion: "With the fire and the flood, we're talking about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right?"
Postscript:
I try to include something about bicycles at the end of most of my newsletter posts. This week, I combined the search terms “bicycles” and “Apocalypse” with some surprising results.
Several bloggers have asked the important question of why more movies and TV shows about the end of the world don’t have survivors riding bicycles (an intriguing question).
“There are an estimated 1 billion bicycles worldwide and yet, when somebody drops the nuke or a zombie virus decimates the whole population, every single one of them magically disappears. In movies, bikes just don’t seem to stick around when it comes to rebuilding a society. Why is that?”
The blog post goes on to detail the few times that bicycles factor into those end-of-times dramas. Enjoy!
Here’s a short musical composition just waiting to become the soundtrack for someone’s bicycle Apocalypse film.