Her words were loaded and uncompromising. When the Western Standard’s Nigel Hannaford asked Premier Danielle Smith what she will do to fend off the proposed federal incursion into Alberta’s jurisdiction with electrical generation, she finished her answer saying, “we will go our own way”..Smith isn’t saying the government will pursue an independence referendum any time soon, but she’s well aware that her statement left room for people to take that as an unspoken threat..Alberta’s premier is an experienced and skilled communicator. Her choice of words was no mistake..Alberta will go its own way with the current plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, no matter what Ottawa thinks..The goalposts are 15 years apart and there is little indication that federal Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault or Smith are willing to even entertain the notion of changing their targets..The battle is just beginning..Guilbeault is following the typical Liberal playbook of slapping down the West to win support in the East..The net-zero electric generation targets will be easily met in Ontario and Quebec where they are rich in hydro-electric resources and nuclear generation..The 2035 net-zero target is utterly impossible for Alberta to reach without crippling its economy and threatening domestic energy security. Smith could never support such a target..Fossil fuel supplies 80% of the province’s energy needs and that can’t change much in 12 short years. The province has no major rivers to dam, and the way Canada works, it would take decades to get large scale nuclear power generation plants built if they were ever approved..Despite billions in investment, solar and wind generation projects still supply only a small percentage of the Alberta power grid and they will always need to be backed up by gas-generators for the days when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow..Smith won’t bend and Guilbeault won’t budge..So, what next?.The battle will surely head to Canada’s courts and move at the typical glacial pace. It will be a war fought in slow motion with plenty of heated rhetoric as the challenges creep through the system..Eventually, the Supreme Court will rule on the dispute and it will rule in favour of the Liberal government..The constitution is little more than a set of suggestions when it comes to protecting Alberta’s constitutional jurisdiction in energy generation. That was established when the Supreme Court upheld the carbon tax. The court is stacked and when it feels the public good (in central Canada anyway) is better served by stepping on Alberta’s rights, it will step on Alberta’s rights every time..Premier Smith says she is willing to pull out all the stops to stop Ottawa’s incursion upon the province..Time will tell if she really means it though..Once the battle has finished in the courts and Alberta has lost, the federal government will move on to the punitive stage..Transfer payments will be cut to Alberta as the Liberals demand capitulation and the impact on Albertans will be harsh. Citizens will be starved of the transfers of their own money..At this point, there will be only one thing that would make Ottawa back off..Alberta needs to begin the process of truly going its own way..No double speak. No veiled threats..Alberta needs to work toward invoking a referendum on independence under the Clarity Act..The only other option is a surrender to Trudeau’s Liberals. That would only open the door to more incursions..No, I don’t expect Premier Smith to start threatening a move toward provincial independence yet. Most Albertans would still prefer to see the standoff somehow settled within confederation for now anyway..Once all the legal challenges have failed and all the tools have been used and broken, only one path will remain..The path to full independence..Time will tell if Smith will be willing to take it. She is the most independence inclined premier Alberta has had to date.
