The gloves are off.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on Saturday unofficially confirmed what most observers had been expecting for months: that Alberta will officially invoke the Sovereignty Act against Ottawa’s punitive electricity regulations on Monday morning.Speaking on her weekly radio program, Smith confirmed she will be making the motion in the Legislature on Monday before she flies off to Dubai for the UN COP28 climate change conference.In response to a questioner, she said she’s “had enough” of Ottawa’s interference and specifically dealing with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, whom she called a “maverick” on the climate file.“I've had it with Stephen Guilbeault, the Environment Minister. They've lost two court cases now, one of the Supreme Court level one at a federal court level, saying they have to stay in their lane. Their lane is clearly not electricity — electricity, if anyone wants to read the Constitution under Section 92 falls to the provinces,” she said. “And so we have been trying to work collaboratively with them on aligning their targets with our targets, which are 2050. I think that there's a lot of reason to believe that our power generators would be able to get to 2050 but they cannot get to 2035..“I've had it with Stephen Guilbeault, the Environment Minister.“Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.“We will not put our operators at risk of going to jail if they do not achieve unachievable if they do not achieve the targets that have been set which we believe are unachievable we have to have a reliable grid. We have to have an affordable grid. And we're going to make sure that we defend our constitutional jurisdiction to do that.”Smith described it as a “last resort” after it became increasingly clear that Ottawa is dealing in bad faith on a whole other range of issues.“I have to tell you, I don't want to do this. I really did from the very first conversation I had with Justin Trudeau say I wanted to work with him on this we put it together the table with negotiators so that we could find areas of common ground. But Stephen Guilbeault, I don't know he's a maverick. He doesn't seem to care about the law doesn't care about the Constitution. I do. And we're going to make sure that we assert that.”.”We have an awful lot of work to do to make them realize that the country doesn't work the way they think that it works.” Danielle Smith.As for what that will actually look like? Smith said Albertans — and the Liberal government in Ottawa — will have to wait until Monday to find out.But speaking to an audience of oil patch executives on Friday, Smith said the purpose of the Act is to deflect potentially years of litigation and throw the ball back into Ottawa’s court by forcing them to justify their laws — not the other way around.“They assert that they have the power and then they make us go to court and fight it for years and look at the uncertainty it causes in the industry. Part of the reason we've had to fight back and whether the courts have been on our side, but we have an awful lot of work to do to make them realize that the country doesn't work the way they think that it works.”
The gloves are off.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on Saturday unofficially confirmed what most observers had been expecting for months: that Alberta will officially invoke the Sovereignty Act against Ottawa’s punitive electricity regulations on Monday morning.Speaking on her weekly radio program, Smith confirmed she will be making the motion in the Legislature on Monday before she flies off to Dubai for the UN COP28 climate change conference.In response to a questioner, she said she’s “had enough” of Ottawa’s interference and specifically dealing with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, whom she called a “maverick” on the climate file.“I've had it with Stephen Guilbeault, the Environment Minister. They've lost two court cases now, one of the Supreme Court level one at a federal court level, saying they have to stay in their lane. Their lane is clearly not electricity — electricity, if anyone wants to read the Constitution under Section 92 falls to the provinces,” she said. “And so we have been trying to work collaboratively with them on aligning their targets with our targets, which are 2050. I think that there's a lot of reason to believe that our power generators would be able to get to 2050 but they cannot get to 2035..“I've had it with Stephen Guilbeault, the Environment Minister.“Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.“We will not put our operators at risk of going to jail if they do not achieve unachievable if they do not achieve the targets that have been set which we believe are unachievable we have to have a reliable grid. We have to have an affordable grid. And we're going to make sure that we defend our constitutional jurisdiction to do that.”Smith described it as a “last resort” after it became increasingly clear that Ottawa is dealing in bad faith on a whole other range of issues.“I have to tell you, I don't want to do this. I really did from the very first conversation I had with Justin Trudeau say I wanted to work with him on this we put it together the table with negotiators so that we could find areas of common ground. But Stephen Guilbeault, I don't know he's a maverick. He doesn't seem to care about the law doesn't care about the Constitution. I do. And we're going to make sure that we assert that.”.”We have an awful lot of work to do to make them realize that the country doesn't work the way they think that it works.” Danielle Smith.As for what that will actually look like? Smith said Albertans — and the Liberal government in Ottawa — will have to wait until Monday to find out.But speaking to an audience of oil patch executives on Friday, Smith said the purpose of the Act is to deflect potentially years of litigation and throw the ball back into Ottawa’s court by forcing them to justify their laws — not the other way around.“They assert that they have the power and then they make us go to court and fight it for years and look at the uncertainty it causes in the industry. Part of the reason we've had to fight back and whether the courts have been on our side, but we have an awful lot of work to do to make them realize that the country doesn't work the way they think that it works.”
