Smith asks for a "do over," oil and gas bobble-heads, and a game of Whac-A-Mole

The Colossally Irrational 2024 Budget: Back on the oil and gas chain gang

My Scottish/Irish ancestors arrived on the east coast of so-called “Canada” 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 like to start every new post by explaining my family’s history and keeping this foremost in my mind (and my writing) at all times. I know I have benefited as a result of colonization, and I find the history deeply troubling. It is what motivates me to understand the true history and advocate for real reconciliation. As a child in the 1970’s, I moved west with my family and am grateful to be writing 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.

Danielle Smith says Alberta’s conservative government is serious this time.

They’re done fooling around and she says the province can’t continue relying on fossil fuel revenues and has to stop raiding the province’s once-healthy savings account.

“I am very concerned about what’s happening with oil and gas prices internationally,” Smith reportedly said - just catching up with reality now?

And she’s probably right to be worried, as journalist Jason Markusoff explained in his budget coverage: “If the actual oil price is just $1 US per barrel below what provincial economists forecast, a $367-million budget surplus becomes a $263 million deficit.”

Provincial government budgets are largely an elaborate exercise in adjusting numbers to create a balance sheet that is politically palatable. It’s whatever the government of the day feels it can get away with, at that moment in time.

But while Smith’s plan calls for loading up the Heritage Savings Fund with $250 billion by 2050, this year’s budget doesn’t include any contribution to the fund. Neither does next year’s budget. They will put nothing into the fund in year three either.

It’s only in the fourth year, also an election year, they actually plan to contribute to the fund. She’s pushed off responsibility for fulfilling her promise of savings to her predecessor (probably because she knows it’s doubtful she’ll be around for a second term).

And while Smith’s pre-budget video vowed to help Alberta become less reliant on the fluctuations of world oil prices, that won’t be happening for another 25+ years of - you guessed it - relying on the fluctuations of world oil prices.

There's not a shred of innovative thinking in this UCP government.

Listen, there is a lot to learn from knowing history, but when your budget speech video cutaways are to black and white film footage from a bygone era, it's pretty clear you have nothing new on offer.

It’s so old, this might even be your grandfather's conservative party (apologies to Alison Redford).

A promise is never a promise

It’s only fitting that Smith would say one thing and do another. She’s been honing her skill at backtracking with the promise to “pardon” anti-vaxxers, the introduction of an Alberta Pension Plan, an extremist transgender policy push, the resurrection of coal projects, and now, the non-reduction of personal income taxes.

Ultimately, her whole plan for the budget is to call for a “do over” on a savings strategy that almost five decades of mostly conservative governments in Alberta have tried and failed multiple times to stick with.

Oh, and we'll all have to suffer as climate change accelerates, while we also have to live under a spending cap until sometime around 2050. What she’s calling for is a major reckoning for Albertans used to a pretty comfortable quality of life (although things are bit off lately, to say the least).

This budget makes former Premier Jim Prentice’s “look in the mirror” threat seem pretty minor by comparison. Smith is smashing the mirror and offering up a lot more than seven years of bad luck and hard times.

Municipalities warn of crumbling infrastructure

The Alberta Municipalities Association reacted to the budget with disappointment saying, the budget “lacks adequate infrastructure funding for municipalities to support the province’s growing population.”

According to Tyler Gandam, president of Alberta Municipalities, “It’s either coming from the province, we’re getting support from the federal government or we continue to raise property taxes at home, or we’re watching our infrastructure crumble — sidewalks, roads, underground infrastructure, water and wastewater, all of the things that municipalities need to maintain the current residents, let alone the growth that we’re seeing across the province.” 

Even if this "cut and save” strategy had a chance of happening, it’s a terrible plan. The whole thing is based on putting off any action on climate change until mid-century. The urgency of the crisis is just not getting through to these oil and gas bobble-heads.

It assumes demand for fossil fuels will be strong longer than the experts predict. The International Energy Agency says oil prices will peak by 2030. There won’t be a cash cow to rely on.

Realistically, Alberta has less than half the years to boost its savings account. This plan comes up short on all fronts. It is not a serious plan and Smith is not a serious person.

And we have to stop saying Smith is a libertarian. Not any type or variation of the philosophy is evident in Smith's actions.

She's an opportunist, not an ideologue.

Her budget lacks any guiding principles, her sudden-onset social conservatism, her new heavy-handed renewable energy regulations - all over the map is the only way to describe her.

The only common thread is a desire to remain in power. It's a game of political Whac -A-Mole and it won't last.

An army of farmers who want wind turbines

I can't help but compare the approach Alberta is taking on renewable energy to a new plan by President Biden in the US to recruit 400 farmers to install wind turbines on their land. In this province, even farmers who want wind turbines will likely not be able to have them.

According to the article in Clean Technica, “While gigantic offshore wind farms have been grabbing most of the wind power headlines of late, the small- and medium-sized turbines that characterize most distributed wind projects can add up to big wattage."

The University of California – Santa Barbara released a study indicating that it is the larger projects in the US and Canada that were more likely to be opposed. For all the reasons you might expect and more.

“The names in articles associated with US opposition were overwhelmingly likely to be White,” the authors added. “This suggests an environmental justice challenge we term ‘energy privilege,’ wherein the delay and cancellation of clean energy in wealthier, Whiter communities leads to continued pollution in poorer communities, and communities of color.”

Doesn’t sound at all like rural Alberta, does it? Oof.

The reviews are in and it’s bad

Here’s a sample of the reaction to the new renewable energy regulations, or at least what we know of them so far:

“No other land use in Alberta is subject to a ban on certain classes of agricultural lands, or not allowed to develop if they are within a 35km radius of a protected area – a zone that could cover up to 76% of southern Alberta."

Jason Wang, Senior Analyst at the Pembina Institute

“The UCP government brands itself as a pro-business party that provides significant benefits to the Alberta economy. But by taking concrete steps to prevent billions of dollars in investment – because they do not like the type of investment, for spurious reasons – the UCP is showing itself to be a government that can be nothing else other than pro-oil and gas.”

Duane Bratt, a political science professor in the department of economics, justice and policy studies at Mount Royal University

“Corporations have invested $6.3 billion in power purchase agreements in the past five years in this province, but I expect the government has now essentially introduced a second “soft moratorium.” By introducing three new regulatory frameworks without details, investors and developers are left wondering what this actually means for their projects. Investors required certainty, and the government offered confusion."

Jorden Dye, director of The Business Renewables Centre Canada

“Danielle Smith is killing an industry and making life more expensive. Today, she essentially announced that with the new 35-kilometre rule, and layers of restrictions, the vast majority of Alberta is off limit. The temporary moratorium has now become permanent.”

Calgary Skyview Liberal MP George Chahal

Coal mines contaminate the water, assuming there is water left

Meanwhile, on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains, a former coal mine is “releasing a contaminant toxic to fish at rates more than dozens of times higher than federal and provincial guidelines, while another periodically disgorges water so iron-heavy it stains local creeks orange.”

This is according to the Alberta government’s own research, but the researcher was not “made available” to speak to the media about what he and two other scientists discovered.

“Our results reveal novel evidence that coal mining activities in the Crowsnest River watershed have been impacting ecosystems downstream for decades,” says the paper, published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Read the full story by Bob Weber of the Canadian Press. And weep.

The Municipal District of Pincher Creek was out digging for water after the Crowsnest River ran dry upstream of the village of Cowley.

“Now unable to extract water from its intake pipe, the Municipal District of Pincher Creek has dug a pit in the river bottom to take subsurface water by truck and emergency pipes.”

Crowsnest Headwaters communications co-ordinator David Thomas was quoted in the Calgary Herald article saying, “If southern Alberta’s drought persists much longer, the reservoir will become a dead pool.”

Residents and businesses in southern Alberta communities, including Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, and the Piikani and Kainai First Nations, rely on water from the Oldman River basin.

They were told, but they didn’t listen

Renowned water expert David Schindler and fellow researcher Bill Donahue wrote a paper for the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal in 2006 predicting this would happen. But it appears, no one listened.

Andrew Nikiforuk wrote an in-depth analysis on the predicted water crisis for The Tyee and tracked down Donahue for some colour commentary on the current situation:

“Today's Alberta government is completely incapable of managing something like climate change, drought and widespread water shortage because they only see environmental problems as political and ideological problems, as opposed to actual problems with potentially catastrophic real-world consequences.”

Bravo Bill Donahue.

Speaking of water, despite the government’s own research showing coal mines are poisoning the water, UCP Energy Minister Brian Jean was busy bringing a project back from the dead.

“A letter from the minister of energy clarifying the application of the (ministerial order) … carries significant weight,” said the regulator (without sarcasm, I’m sure).

The old coal mine application is back, like the zombie project it always was.

A guitar player and a very busy energy minister

Corb Lund had a few things to say about this: “I met with Brian Jean to discuss the coal issue a couple of months ago. And I was alarmed by how little he knew"

“I knew more about the coal issue than he did, and I’m just a guitar player, not the minister of energy. It’s chilling to me that ill-informed politicians are making decisions about our water.”

You and me, both.

Jean will be mighty busy in the future since Smith has plans for Alberta to become one enormous storage facility for CO2 - 100 billion tonnes to be exact - and apparently he alone will be approving the permits.

Alberta’s Energy Regulator (AER) won’t be asking for public input into these carbon capture and storage project permits, which will henceforth be approved directly by the energy minister. I kid you not.

First Nations in Alberta have questions about why the regulations do not mention public input.

Oh, and Renato Gandia, spokesman for the AER said the agency will only review facilities that capture carbon, pipelines that transport it and wells that inject it.

It won’t consider what’s injected or how it behaves after injection. No biggie, right?