At least one federal cabinet minister won’t be getting a Christmas card from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith this year — although he might get a lump of coal.And in fact, it’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who’s likely to be on the end of a strongly worded missive admonishing Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault for a ‘disgraceful’ performance at last week’s COP28 summit in Dubai..“It's pretty clear we can have no relationship with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.“Premier Danielle Smith.In her first media availability since returning from the United Arab Emirates, Smith confirmed Monday she is drafting a letter to Ottawa condemning the climate change boss’ performance at the United Nations summit to all but call for his dismissal.She also said the future of ‘round table’ negotiations announced to much fanfare alongside the prime minister at the Calgary Stampede are in jeopardy thanks to Guilbeault’s ongoing blitz of punitive policy announcements against Alberta on the global stage.“It's pretty clear we can have no relationship with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. He went to COP with an agenda in mind. He didn't let us in on it. He had a number of pronouncements that he made not his area of jurisdiction. He forced us, if we wanted to even hear what he was going to announce, to sign non-disclosure agreements,” she fumed.“I'm telling you that's not the spirit of collaborative federalism, so we are finalizing a letter on what our future engagement will be with the federal government.”.It comes after she and Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz issued a joint statement of accusing their federal counterpart of “treachery” for his conduct at the summit, marking a new low in bilateral relations.Smith defended her decision to attend the gathering by saying the outcome would have been worse if it had not been for the presence of strong delegations from both Alberta and Saskatchewan to keep him in check.“I can tell you that the federal government would have gone much further, they wanted to announce a complete phase out of fossil fuels. Within a very short timeframe. I'm very disappointed that we have a federal government that is actively working against the interests of the oil producing provinces and actively making policy pronouncements in an area that they have no constitutional authority,” she said.“So I think what you saw with cop is a strong presence of myself and Scott Moe from from Saskatchewan, as well as many of the other oil producing nations, we were able to get something far more reasonable, which is a recognition that carbon capture utilization and storage is going to play a key part in reducing emissions. The the assertion that we need transition fuels like natural gas, which is what we have always said, and that will ultimately be moving towards a balanced energy usage. And we all agree with a balanced approach.“
