Alberta’s environment minister is accusing the federal government of delivering a blow to Canada’s economy and silencing businesses with new environmental advertising rules.In a sharply worded statement Wednesday, Rebecca Schulz, Minister of Environment and Protected Areas, said the Competition Bureau’s final guidelines on environmental claims are “extreme” and “ideological,” warning they will hurt families and make Canada less globally competitive.“The guidelines will not reduce emissions or improve environmental performance, but they will make it harder for companies to attract investment,” Schulz said. “This sends the wrong signal to markets and industry at the worst possible time.”.Schulz criticized the guidelines for holding businesses to “international standards that don’t even exist” and argued that the Bureau is neither qualified to enforce such standards nor capable of assessing them fairly.“These guidelines aren't just unfair; they enshrine a dangerous double standard,” she said, claiming Ottawa allows “anti-energy and anti-business activists” to spread misinformation while gagging companies working to reduce emissions and grow the economy.She said the measures contradict the federal government’s stated goal of making Canada an energy superpower and called on Prime Minister Mark Carney to immediately scrap the guidelines if he is serious about attracting investment and building major projects.
