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CBC
6 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
Why Danielle Smith has eased off the 'Kill Bill C-69' language in the Carney era
Premier Danielle Smith wasn't doing anything politically revolutionary when she demanded the repeal of Ottawa's environmental assessments act during the federal election campaign. Then she demanded it again, many times, when the Conservatives who promised to do so lost and the Mark Carney Liberals won. It was a longstanding, years-old cry from Alberta leaders, ever since the moment that the Trudeau-era Bill C-69 — what former premier Jason Kenney dubbed the "no more pipelines act" — was first passed in 2019 (and became repealable). Then, a few weeks ago, Smith's tune began to change about the legislation that has been strongly contested by energy companies. Her rhetoric softened from urging the guillotine to a blade with more precision on the law now known as the Impact Assessment Act (IAA). Some revisions Since June, she's thrown in alternative recommendations. They include: " overhauling" in a June 17 comment; " substantially revised" in a July 2 reply to a reporter; and " repealing or amending" in a July 7 joint press conference with Ontario's premier — and the same dual-option language at Tuesday's announcement at the premier's summit. Smith put some rationale behind her refined stance in a mid-June interview on Rosemary Barton Live, when she expressed support for Carney's major bill to expedite project approvals, but reiterated her hopes he'd still address the IAA. "Let's be practical: the federal government has jurisdiction for linear projects that go cross-border … whether it's pipeline or whether it's transmission lines but … there's measures that they've put into the bill that are not technical, that are ideological and that don't really have any measurables around them and create confusion," Smith said. "So that's part of the reason why C-69 needs to be substantially revised." But Smith didn't explain her shift in tone that day, or otherwise. It was a quiet pivot after years of a provincial fight for the outright demise of legislation that became so notorious that protestors made Quentin Tarantino-style posters demanding "Kill Bill C-69." When asked about the moderated message, the premier's office wouldn't say there's been a change from her past language. But the revised tone that observers have noticed could be Alberta's premier offering a spirit of greater compromise, in line with Carney's own different direction than his Liberal predecessor Justin Trudeau. It could also be a reflection that the oil and gas companies don't actually want the Impact Assessment Act swept off the books. When the coalition of energy CEOs issued a "Build Canada now" open letter during the election campaign, it instead called on the IAA to be "overhauled and simplified." As much as the oil sector dislikes the federal law, businesses' opposition to full repeal boils down to this: scrapping the IAA means there's no environmental assessment law, and Parliament must start all over again. And if there's one thing the oil industry dislikes, it's uncertainty, said Heather Exner-Pirot, a senior fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute think-tank. "From the industry's perspective, that could much more likely be a nightmare than be a smooth path toward clarity on regulation," she said. "Everyone hates the idea of just going back and forth with a whole new federal environment assessment process after every election or after every government." Industry would prefer amendments that keep the basic system in place but alter the "project list" to remove from federal scrutiny proposed mines and resource developments wholly situated within provincial jurisdiction, said Exner-Pirot, who is also a special adviser to the Business Council of Canada. She believes the Smith government's harder stance was "for obviously political reasons," but that may also account for recently easing it. "I think they believe [Energy Minister Tim] Hodgson and Carney and they're giving them some extra leash." While the Carney government's new Building Canada Act would let the federal government bypass some review processes for projects deemed to be "nation-building," that has not eased the pressure it's faced to further neutralize the IAA. The Liberal government already did so last year, amending the bill to bring it into compliance with a Supreme Court ruling that found the bill unconstitutional — a court victory for Alberta after the province challenged the bill. Smith laid out several demands for further amendments to the IAA in a letter last October to Trudeau, and a month later Alberta brought another court challenge to strike down the updated law. In an email to CBC News, Smith spokesman Sam Blackett referred to the premier's letter last fall and said she "has consistently called for the repeal or significant overhaul of [the] federal Liberal government's bad laws," including C-69. The IAA aside, Alberta's premier has continued to demand straight repeal of other federal laws or policies, including the West Coast tanker ban and the carbon emissions cap on the oil and gas sector. Smith has said she's hoping for such changes when Parliament returns this fall from summer recess, and that it could help cool Albertans' lingering frustrations with Ottawa, as well as separatist sentiment. A brighter assessment The Carney government has not indicated it's about to significantly weaken existing climate and energy policies. Asked about potential IAA reforms, a federal spokesperson said the recently passed Bill C-5 will expedite "projects of national significance," and that Ottawa wants to strike deals to recognize provincial or Indigenous-led assessments as substitutes for federal ones. "Canadians know that we don't have to choose between rigorous impact assessments and building projects in our national interest — we can do both," said Keean Nembhard, press secretary to Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, in an email. Were there to be additional revisions to the federal assessment act, that could provoke further pushback from the environmental and Indigenous groups the IAA was initially designed to cater to, with its enhancements to the review and consulting processes. There could be some concessions to Alberta, said Martin Olszynski, a University of Calgary law professor who was co-counsel for WWF Canada as intervenor in Alberta's IAA court challenge. And that might help explain Smith's call for amendments instead of repeal. "Symbolic pandering to your base apparently has limits when there are potentially concrete policy gains on the table," Olszynski told CBC News. Discarding the IAA remained part of federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's election platform this spring, and it's still in his rhetorical repertoire. Earlier this month, he told CBC Radio's The House he wants "the full repeal of C-69, the anti-pipeline and anti-energy law." Former oilsands executive Richard Masson deems the current law largely a failure at helping build anything. According to a recent analysis by the law firm Torys, no major project has been approved yet though the IAA process other than the Cedar LNG project, whose review was mostly done through British Columbia's provincial assessment process, substituting for the work of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. A spokesperson for the federal agency told CBC News that the 2024 amendments have narrowed the scope of the act, and that the agency has been "doing things differently to ensure all projects can be assessed in two years moving forward" — in line with a Liberal campaign promise. Despite his criticism, Masson agrees that scrapping the IAA runs counter to industry wishes to ensure predictability and avoid disruption. He credits Smith for finding a more nuanced position than before. "It's an example of figuring out what's possible, what has a chance of success," says Masson, an executive fellow at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy. "Otherwise we're just going to disappoint a lot of people pushing for something that can't be achieved." It's not, however, clear that substantial revision is in the cards either, for the bill that's long been disdained by Alberta political and business leaders alike. But now, at least, the oil executives and the pro-oil premier who champions them are singing the same tune.
National Observer
26-06-2025
- Business
- National Observer
Danielle Smith is putting out a fire with gasoline
Here we go again. Faced with another surge in separatist sentiment in Alberta, the UCP government has decided to strike a panel in an attempt to let off some of the political steam it has spent the last two years deliberately creating. As with former premier Jason Kenney's 2019 'Fair Deal' panel, Danielle Smith's 'Alberta Next' will tour the province in an attempt to give their supporters an opportunity to vent about the federal government and its supposed hostility towards Alberta. In the process, it will whip up the very frustrations it claims to want to address. In reality, Smith's panel is an elaborate (and expensive) exercise in manufacturing consent, one that will cost Alberta time and political oxygen that would be better spent addressing its real challenges. It's an obvious attempt to distract Albertans from her government's growing list of failures, ones that range from a messy attempt to reorganize the healthcare system (and open the door to more private sector involvement) to a shameful surrender to Australian coal-mining magnates. Oh, and there's the ongoing ethical scandal that began with her government's ill-fated purchase of Turkish tylenol, one that seems to keep metastasizing with each passing month. The premier's 15-member panel, which is headlined by Environment Minister Rebecca Schultz, three UCP MLAs and a predictable assortment of oil and gas executives and business leaders, will assess ways in which Alberta can 'better protect ourselves from Ottawa's attacks.' It's worth reiterating that said 'attacks' have resulted in record-high production from the oil sands, the first LNG facility in Canadian history, and the expansion of TMX, which will deliver billions of dollars in additional revenues for both oil companies and the Alberta government. If the premier is unclear about that last point, she can ask Trevor Tombe, the University of Calgary economist who ran those numbers — and sits on her shiny new panel. But facts like this are clearly going to have very little purchase over the findings of her panel, Tombe's presence notwithstanding. Let's use its public survey on immigration as an example here, and set aside its unmistakably xenophobic undertones for the moment. It begins with a three-minute video — one people can't click through — that's littered with partisan talking points about 'Justin Trudeau's Liberals' and even a few outright falsehoods. It talks about the need to 'counter Ottawa's open-border policies' and suggests 'Ottawa has ignored the request of Alberta and other provinces to cut refugee claimants and student visas.' But Ottawa already did that last year, and it's already resulted in the slowest population growth on record — and maybe in Canadian history. Smith's government isn't interested in actually gauging people's genuine opinions here. Its panel has been tasked with massaging and managing them, and the public survey portion — forced preamble and all — is little more than a publicly-funded push poll. The inevitable result will be a report that blames Ottawa for Alberta's frustrations and then makes a set of recommendations that either won't address them or can't actually be implemented — which, in turn, sows the seeds for even more frustration. This is not an accident. Danielle Smith knows she can't single-handedly amend the constitution, and that other provinces not named Saskatchewan and Quebec aren't going to indulge her fantasies. She knows that eliminating equalization would do nothing to actually change the flow of dollars between Ottawa and Alberta. She knows that collecting income taxes in Alberta would simply add expense and bureaucracy to a province that claims to hate both. And she knows the idea of an Alberta pension plan is a dead letter, as the government's own survey — one whose results it refused to release until compelled by the privacy and information commissioner and persistent hounding by Postmedia's Matthew Black — confirmed in glorious detail. None of these dogs are going to hunt. Most of them won't even get up off the carpet for a sniff. But Smith also knows that she'd much rather spend — or waste — time talking about these things rather than her own government's various failings. By keeping the focus on Ottawa and its supposed 'attacks' on Alberta, she is able to distract both the opposition NDP and her own party's constituency of increasingly rabid separatists. While the upstart Republican Party of Alberta may have only won 17.6 per cent of the vote in this week's byelection in Olds-Disbury-Three Hills, those votes appear to have come almost exclusively at the expense of the UCP. 'We are still here and fighting, and we aren't going away any time soon,' Republican Party of Alberta candidate (and leader) Cam Davies said. 'This is just the beginning.' Danielle Smith has spent years riling her supporters up against Ottawa with half-truths and flat-out-lies. Now, she's going to placate them with a panel. Sound familiar? It should: it's exactly what her predecessor, Jason Kenney, did in 2019. If Smith actually wanted to end the separatist threat in her province, she would stop feeding her supporters the endless diet of Ottawa-based grievances to which they've grown accustomed. Then again, maybe they'd just find someone else to feed their appetite for victimhood, just as they did when they turfed the last UCP leader. And so, they'll get another do-nothing panel that stokes their anger and spends their money without solving their problems. At some point, they might just figure out who their real problem is.
CTV News
17-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
‘You're talking about a war criminal': Trump slammed for calling Russian G7 expulsion a ‘mistake'
President Donald Trump walks during the official welcome of the G7 Summit, Monday, June 16, 2025, in Kananaskis, Canada. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) U.S. President Donald Trump's criticism of Russia being expelled from the G7 is drawing sharp criticism from Canadian officials and diplomats, as Prime Minister Mark Carney navigates a summit agenda that includes both war and tariffs. 'Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in, and I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn't have a war right now if you had Russia in,' Trump told reporters Monday, in an apparent reference to Russia's expulsion from the group of major industrialized democracies in 2014, and to former prime minister Justin Trudeau, who was not yet elected at the time. 'There are a bunch of factual errors there,' said former Alberta premier Jason during a panel segment with CTV's Power Play Monday. 'It wasn't always the G8. It started as the G7 in the 1970s, precisely to bring together the major democratic economies of the world as a counterpoint to the coordination going on in the Soviet bloc.' Russia was only invited as part of an effort to encourage reform in the post-Soviet era, said Kenney, a move he called a 'failed experiment' as Russia later annexed Crimea and invaded Ukraine. 'Bringing Putin in … all that does is create an impossible group to discuss anything in terms of shared values or strategic interests,' Kenney said. Derek Burney, former Canadian ambassador to the U.S., was even more blunt. 'You're talking about a war criminal,' Burney said. 'There's no way anybody can pretend that Russia is a democracy today.' Burney said Trump's comments reflect a comfort with autocratic leaders, adding that Canada and other G7 members 'are going to stand firm on this.' Trump has continued to insist the war in Ukraine wouldn't have broken out had he remained in office, a statement Burney dismissed as 'nonsensical.' 'Thank God (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky is at the G7 summit in Canada, and not Putin,' he said. Carney has invited Zelenskyy to attend alongside G7 leaders and select guests. John Manley, who served as both foreign affairs and finance minister during Jean Chretien's premiership, noted there may be 'a little piece of truth' in Trump's emphasis on keeping lines of communication open, but said that doesn't justify reinstating Russia. 'I don't think that Vladimir Putin is on the same wavelength as the other countries in the G7,' Manley said. 'His exclusion was done at a time that wasn't accompanied by enough other firm measures … but I've never believed in pulling our ambassadors out of countries.' 'We deserve what we negotiated' Despite the foreign policy fireworks, Trump said his focus at the summit was trade and Canada. 'I think our primary focus will be trade, and trade with Canada, and I'm sure we can work something out,' Trump said at a bilateral meeting with Carney. 'I'm a tariff person. I've always been a tariff (person). It's simple, it's easy, it's precise and it just goes very quickly, and I think Mark has a more complex idea, but also very good.' The two leaders met privately following weeks of calls and text exchanges in a bid to de-escalate tensions tied to tariffs and market access. Kenney said Trump's fondness for tariffs is deeply ingrained. 'He has said before that his favourite word in the English language is tariffs … and in 40 years of public commentary on issues, it is the one issue on which he has been most consistent,' he said. 'I hope that what we're going to get out of some agreement is a minimization of tariffs.' Kenney noted Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada during his first administration, only to later walk them back and sign the Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA) trade deal. 'The challenge for Prime Minister Carney is to bring him back to that,' Kenney said. 'The early evidence of growth in the U.S. economy… is probably not a good sign. It will probably be seen as wind in the sails of Trump tariff protectionism.' Burney said Canada must hold the line. 'We have an agreement … which reduces almost all of the tariffs between our two economies. For us to backslide on that under whatever pretext is not something we should be jumping into,' he said. 'We don't deserve modest relief. We deserve what we negotiated.' Manley echoed that concern, questioning whether Canada can rely on Trump as a trading partner. 'We did have an agreement with him before, and his first day in office, he breached it,' Manley said. 'So do we have a reliable counterparty?' Manley added that Canada needs more than promises. 'We absolutely want to have preferential access to the U.S. market,' Manley said. 'We need some stability and certainty… not something we're reviewing every year.' With files from The Canadian Press
Vancouver Sun
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Vancouver Sun
Oh, Canada — Oilers' mass anthem karaoke not a (slap) shot against Alberta separatists
It's loud and proud, and if the full-throated Rogers Place rendition of the national anthem does not square with your impression of separatist leanings in Alberta, that doesn't make it an incongruity. Nor is it necessarily a targeted display of Canadian unity, which is what former Alberta premier Jason Kenney insinuated in a June 5 social media post, headlining a video clip of another raucous O Canada performance with 'thoughts & prayers for separatists.' His wasn't the only attempt to leverage the sight and sound of Edmonton's boisterous hockey fans against Alberta's oft-misrepresented desire to secede from Canada. There has been plenty of back and forth on that topic this spring, with the anthem at the core of petty and pointed arguments playing out in typical social media style. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. So, what is actually motivating the Rogers Place citizen-initiated choir on game nights? For starters, it's kind of their thing, and has been since 2006. It happened first at old Rexall Place, when the late, great Paul Lorieau pioneered the act of mass anthem karaoke prior to an early-round playoff tilt, and Edmonton hockey fans made it their signature. They handled vocals with aplomb throughout last year's playoff run, too, but nobody conflated those happy happenings with a slap at separatists because there wasn't much noise being made by what was then and remains today a minority of Albertans who favour an as-yet-undefined independence. However, the volume has been cranked up outside the rink, too, in part because of recent moves made by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. She routinely pledges devotion to Canadian unity, but is also enabling the separatists among her base with reduced benchmarks to allow for a referendum, meaning they will probably get to put their claims of sovereignty strength to the test in a 2026 vote financed by the taxpayers. If polling data from this year is accurate and support for independence is in fact running somewhere between 18 and 45 per cent, the referendum should still confirm Alberta's commitment to the nation and put the separatist movement on pause. Dissent has simmered for decades in a province that boasts the highest per capita gross domestic product in the country — and at a total of about $350 billion is larger than that of Hungary, Greece, Portugal, Finland, New Zealand, the Czech Republic and many other countries — yet still contains a disgruntled segment of the populace adamant that their economic well-being has been unfairly hampered by equalization, the federal transfer system and climate policy, to name a few major complaints. Former premier Kenney wrote that he suspects the Venn diagram of 'hard-core Alberta separatists, anti-vaxers, MAGA North enthusiasts and anti-Ukraine types' would be a circle, and in so doing, he was tapping into the stereotype that personifies the province's perception problem. A distinct and obvious group has become a de facto caricature: red-necked, right-wing, oil-based, freedom convoy supporters who hate all that Ottawa is and does. Surely, some of those folks still take pride in singing O Canada before a hockey game. It's an anthem, not a referendum. It's also a safe bet that much of Canada is not aware that in hockey parlance, Edmonton would be a gritty left winger, and as such, it bucks the province's political trends. Though the right-wing United Conservative Party formed a majority government with 49 seats in the 2023 provincial election, all 20 Edmonton ridings and two in neighbouring bedroom communities were won by New Democrats. And in the May federal election, Conservatives took 34 of 37 seats in Alberta, but Edmonton Centre was won by a Liberal, Edmonton Strathcona by a New Democrat. It stands to reason, then, that a chunk of those voices inside Rogers Place would belong to people whose politics skew away from the right side of the ice. But to suggest the majority has been singing support for confederation at this uncomfortable political juncture? Seems a stretch. That theory might have held more water when U.S. President Donald Trump put his '51st state' nonsense on repeat and Canadians in every province felt threatened. Today, though, Occam's razor would point elsewhere. The Montreal Canadiens were the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup in 1993. The Oilers took the Florida Panthers to Game 7 of the Final last spring and lost. They went the distance with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006 and dropped that one, too. Once again this spring, the Oilers are the last Canadian team standing in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Should you feel compelled to link the fervour behind an anthem to a particular motivation, that's as simple and as good as any of them. Edmonton hockey fans want their team to win and will buy wildly over-priced tickets and beverages, cheer, stomp their feet and sing the anthem for all they're worth as a means of getting into the spirit and furthering the cause. It all happened again on Saturday before the Oilers and Panthers go at it in Game 5 of the Final in Edmonton's downtown puck palace (and will hopefully happen again Friday night for Game 7). Anthem singer Robert Clark, embedded in the Rogers Place pews, will belt out the first 15 words of O Canada before handing over the mic to about 18,000 backup singers who will bring it home with glowing hearts and gusto. They won't all be singing from the same song sheet politically, and the team they support might lose another shot at the Cup, but the sound of a Rogers Place anthem at playoff time is hard to beat. So you can sing and enjoy it at face value, or you can pick your side of the debate and blast off a rejoinder on social media. It's a free country. dbarnes@ Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don't miss the news you need to know — add and to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here. You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.
CTV News
02-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Premiers need to ‘put up or shut up' on internal trade at first ministers' meeting: Jason Kenney
Former premiers Jason Kenney and Kathleen Wynne weigh in on trade with the U.S. and what Canada should be focusing on. Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney says the provinces and territories need to maintain the momentum spurred by U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war and make quicker progress on eliminating interprovincial trade barriers. Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to meet with all of Canada's premiers on Monday, with interprovincial trade — and his promise to eliminate barriers to that trade by Canada Day — on the agenda. During a panel interview with former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne for CTV's Question Period, Kenney said while he has 'a bit of skepticism' based on his previous experience trying to negotiate internal trade, he's hopeful. 'It's time for the premiers to put up or shut up,' Kenney told host Vassy Kapelos. 'This is, again, the time to be bold.' 'We had a sense of real urgency about 10 weeks ago because of the Trump threats,' Kenney added. 'Let's not lose that. Let's grasp this opportunity. Let's not waste a good crisis.' Repeatedly stating the longstanding Canada-U.S. relationship is 'over,' in the face of Trump's sweeping global tariffs, Carney vowed during the election campaign to diversify Canada's trading partners and 'create one Canadian economy out of 13.' Kenney said Monday's meeting has the potential to be 'hugely' significant, especially considering Carney 'has inflated expectations to sky-high levels.' He said while he's hopeful progress could come from the gathering, he also worries the prime minister could be 'setting himself up for great disappointment.' The former premier pointed to his previous efforts to 'create some momentum' on eliminating interprovincial trade barriers, but adding 'virtually no one followed suit.' 'Every premier is going to come with their own shopping list,' Kenney said, adding meetings between the prime minister and the premiers 'often devolve into what I call, derisively, begging-bowl federalism.' 'I hope they think in the national interest, they see the big strategic imperative to expand our economy, turn around the decline in productivity, expand our export markets,' Kenney said. 'This isn't an opportunity to go in front of the prime minister and just pitch for that highway you've been trying to finance or that new hospital you want to build.' Wynne said she thinks much of the provincial jockeying in service of regional self-interests will be put on pause for the sake of the national interest. The former Ontario premier added she doesn't think Carney will put up with the 'begging-bowl scenario,' which she called 'kind of a harsh version of it.' 'I think that he is going to be extremely clear about what the agenda has to be,' Wynne said. 'All the premiers have got their priorities, they've laid out their priorities. They're not going to get everything.' 'So, my hope is that there will be some clarity around at least what the plan is going forward,' she added. Some provinces have been taking action to remove some internal trade barriers, including New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt pushing for an Atlantic Canada free-trade zone. Ontario and Prince Edward Island are also working with Nova Scotia to introduce reciprocal legislation with the aim of eliminating internal trade barriers. And, on Friday, the Quebec government tabled what the province's economy minister called an 'ambitious' bill, which would help open the province's borders to products from other regions. Despite this, several sticking points remain in place and many interprovincial trade barriers continue to exist, such as geographic restrictions on the sale of certain goods, regulatory and policy differences across jurisdictions, and hurdles to labour mobility.
