“We can’t shut down the oilsands tomorrow. We need to phase them out. We need to manage the transition off of [sic] manage that transition.".Thus Prime Minister Trudeau, speaking off the cuff nearly five years ago..At the time, Albertans bristled. But Trudeau was allowed to pass it off as a gaffe. The following day, he said he ‘mis-spoke, I said something the way I shouldn’t have said it.’.Fast forward to this week, where two related news items appeared..First, The Western Standard reported in eastern Alberta north of Edmonton, a Metis community is working with the federal government to establish a so-called ‘Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area’ (IPACA) near Lac La Biche. Right on the edge of the proposed set-aside is an in-situ oilsands production owned by CNRL. Within it are the producing wells of CNRL’s Manatokin property, among those of other operators. All heading for a ‘phase out’ perhaps?.Second, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith introduced the Alberta Sovereignty Act, which if passed will give the provincial government the legal basis it says it needs to deal with federal intrusions upon its jurisdiction..Such as, one would think, any action by the federal government that sequestered provincial lands from the development of much-needed energy..So, what is an IPACA?.The federal government decides what lands it wishes to exclude from development, invites the nearest indigenous group to apply to ‘protect and conserve’ it, funds them to make the application and upon approval, hands them the keys. If that is an over-simplification, it’s not over by much. Then, in due course, the IPACA transitions into a National Wildlife Area and becomes subject to the stringent regulations that go with it. How stringent? No development. It is illegal to even pick a wildflower..The IPACA program was launched in 2018, as the Nature Legacy Initiative. That year, then-Environment minister Catherine McKenna announced the first of its kind in the Northwest Territories..These legal devices in the hands of indigenous (and now also apparently Metis) groups run under the cover of the Trudeau government’s commitment to the UN Convention on biodiversity. The stated goal is to remove a quarter of Canada’s lands and a quarter of its oceans from development by 2025..By 2030, the goal is 30%. Environment Canada, noting a $2.3 billion funding a commitment in Budget 2021, added, “This Funding [sic] will support work with other governments, Indigenous (sic) groups, non-profit organizations, and others.”.So there it is. Year by year, acre by acre, square mile by square mile, Ottawa limits opportunities for Alberta’s energy industry and indeed for developers across the country. To meet its 2025 goals, says Environment Canada, “we still need to protect new land areas almost the size of Peru. We are doing this by continuing to establish new federal protected land and support indigenous-led nature conservation.”.Peru is no small goal: It is one eighth the size of Canada..As this particular form of jurisdiction is by the minister’s account likely to become widespread, what are the rules and what relationship will IPACAs have to the provincial regulator?.Where exploration companies suddenly fall within the boundaries of a designated IPACA that it redefines as a National Wildlife Area, will their space be carved out? Or will they be required to disengage over a period of years?.It is precisely for reasons such as this that Alberta needs to be on guard. The truth of the matter is setting potentially rich land off-limits to development — and not just for energy but also for mining, forestry and likely recreational hunting by non-aboriginals — is just one part of the federal plan..There are three more silos operating more or less without reference to each other at lower levels of operation through which the federal government works to frustrate energy developers..• The Liberal legislative and regulatory actions — Bill C-48, Bill C-69 and the obstructionism that led to the cancellation of Energy East and the withdrawal of Teck’s $20 billion Frontier investment..• The Clean Fuel Standard which does not produce fuel with fewer impurities, but simply raises the cost of production..• The Liberals’ adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, that for all its noble title merely creates legal glue in which development gets stuck..Put together with the creation of protected and conserved areas that are off limits to development, and it all sounds suspiciously like all along it was the plan the prime minister carelessly blurted out..Pass the Sovereignty Act, and be quick about it.
