Trudeau’s zeal for net-zero electric grid causing fights with premiers

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Net-zero by 2035, that’s the pledge by the Trudeau Liberals when it comes to Canada’s electricity system.

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The feds announced their plan to great fanfare on Thursday in Toronto promising it will make the planet cleaner, lower your bills and create thousands of jobs in the process.

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If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Trudeau’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, was quick to point out that already 84% of Canada’s electricity is created by clean sources such as hydroelectric system, nuclear or wind. That dependency on what are now considered clean or good sources and those that are not, is not even across the country.

In Manitoba, 97% of electricity come from Hydro. In Quebec it’s almost 95% and in British Columbia it’s close to 90%. Other provinces don’t have the ability to tap into water dams to generate power, which is why Nova Scotia generates 52% of their energy from coal, Saskatchewan generates 39% from coal and Alberta’s main source – generating 60% of electricity – is natural gas.

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These provinces are moving to clean up their grids already with Saskatchewan operating a massive carbon capture and storage facility at the Boundary Dam coal plant and Alberta investing heavily in solar. Meeting the federal targets though will be difficult, which is why the various provinces are pushing back.

“Trudeau’s net-zero electricity regulations are unaffordable, unrealistic and unconstitutional,” Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said in a statement. “They will drive electricity rates through the roof and leave Saskatchewan with an unreliable power supply.”

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Alberta’s Danielle Smith was a bit more direct.

“We are going to assert our rights under the Constitution to tell them to pound sand,” Smith told the Calgary Sun’s Rick Bell in an exclusive interview.

Like Moe, Smith said the federal plan would result in an unreliable electricity grid, one that would potentially leave people freezing in the dark in the harsh winter months.

“We are not going to harm Albertans because we’re trying to achieve some target pulled out of the sky by someone who doesn’t even understand the electricity grid in Alberta. We have to get real here,” Smith said.

Both premiers are promising to challenge any regulations directing how they run their electrical systems in court claiming constitutional jurisdiction. On the plain reading of the constitution, it would appear both Smith and Moe would be correct, the wording is clear.

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“In each province, the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to development, conservation and management of sites and facilities in the province for the generation and production of electrical energy,” the constitution reads at section 92 C.

That said, courts have long ruled that the environment, which is the justification for making these moves, is a shared jurisdiction. The courts have also been more deferential to federal attempts to expand their power than provincial attempts to protect their ability to legislate as they see fit.

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There is also the possibility that the feds could use their criminal code powers to make certain forms of energy illegal. While that may seem like a stretch, they’ve stretched before and been aided by the courts.

Of course, to avoid this fight, the federal government could have worked with the provinces, as they said they would shortly before announcing their plan to move ahead with the controversial regulations.

Working with Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, though, would require common sense and compromise, two things Guilbeault doesn’t believe in. The main problem with Trudeau’s environment minister is that he has the outlook of a religious zealot – he’s not trying to implement policy so much as convert you to his secular green religion and nothing will stand in his way.

It’s why he should have been shifted during the cabinet shuffle two weeks ago.

Instead, we’ll be treated to another round of court battles, divisive rhetoric and alienating one part of the country for the sake of another.

blilley@postmedia.com

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