The federal government has announced it won’t appeal the quashing by the courts of Bill C-69 — former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s “No More Pipelines” bill. It acknowledges that the bill is and always was unconstitutional. It’s rare for the federal government to admit it’s wrong, so I guess this is a victory of sorts, but don’t break out the champagne yet. The feds didn’t say they will dump the bill. They said they will be working to amend the bill. They will rephrase a few things, and the legislation will continue. The bill will continue to hinder Western Canadian economic development, and it will take years in the courts to pull it down again.The ideology of the federal government hasn’t changed, and it intends to bring Canada into some sort of mythical decarbonized world, which will be celebrated by the European nations, Prime Minister Mark Carney is smitten with. Bill C-69 was just one tool the feds had to stunt energy development in Western Canada. Rest assured, they have plenty more.Premier Danielle Smith is declaring the ruling a victory, as is to be expected. Having invested a year of political capital into snuggling up to Carney on the pipeline file and still having no tangible results to show for it makes her desperate to show progress. If her new political bedmate from Ottawa was serious about encouraging the development of new energy infrastructure, he could have amended or repealed Bill C-69 long ago and saved the courts the trouble. Instead, Carney reaffirmed the tanker ban on the West Coast that selectively hinders Canadian energy exports.While energy prices remain high and demand for oil and gas surges around the world, Canadian oil and gas drilling is projected to slow through 2029. The private sector understands that the Carney government has no interest in facilitating Canadian oil and gas development, even if the premier of Alberta apparently still doesn’t get it. Her passive approach with Ottawa has led to the proposition of a nationalized pipeline, which will probably never go into the ground and now announcements that she will be cutting royalty rates for oilsands companies in a desperate bid to keep them investing in Alberta..Carney has nearly finished his second year in power, and while he has said all the right things regarding energy development, he hasn’t actually done a thing. When a prime minister wants to get something done, it gets done. The unilateral power held within a prime minister’s office in Canada is strong.Alberta lost leverage since the referendum passed with 75% of Albertans choosing the status quo. What’s pathetic is that Alberta needs leverage to deal with the federal government to develop its industries in the first place.Holding hands with the prime minister has failed. Begging and grovelling will fail if it comes to that as well. The only way Alberta will get the true attention of Ottawa is by taking the offensive. It took the throttling of oil shipments to Eastern Canada by former premier Peter Lougheed to get then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s attention during the National Energy Program. It will take something on that scale to get Ottawa to back off on its ideological attack on Alberta’s energy development.One card that still remains in the Alberta premier’s hand is the ability to opt out of the Canada Pension Plan and form its own. Alberta contributes over $3 billion more per year than it draws from the federal plan. Not only would withdrawing from the plan benefit Albertans, but it would remind the rest of Canada just who pays the bills in this federation as they suddenly face either higher premiums or lower benefits. Equalization isn’t going anywhere, but the ability for Alberta to get out of the pension plan is in our hands, and it can be done quickly.Premier Smith must quit pretending the interests of the prime minister match the interests of Alberta. The relationship is adversarial, even if he smiles while offering fake promises of future changes. The prime minister will only concede to allowing Alberta to expand its energy exports if he is put under pressure. The nice guy approach has failed, and the pension plan option can show that Alberta still has teeth, even if the independence movement is put on ice for a while.
