The Alberta government is set to adopt a new tool box of measures under its sovereignty act to fight Ottawa’s emissions cap on the oil and gas industry — with one device designed to impede the incoming policy right from the get-go.
Its thesis appears simple: Don’t allow the oilpatch to share any greenhouse gas emissions data with the federal government, unless the province specifically approves it.
If successful, it raises the question of how the federal government could successfully operate its program to limit the sector’s overall emissions if it can’t get data from individual operators.
But could such a policy put companies in the difficult spot of possibly disobeying federal reporting requirements.
It’s one of several measures being contemplated under the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada draft motion, unveiled by the Smith government on Tuesday — and being introduced in the legislature next week.
“Ultimately, these numbers are being used to put a production cap on our industry that’s an area of provincial jurisdiction, so we will collect that data and then report it to the federal government,” Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz said in an interview.
“They are asking companies to report their emissions. From everything I know about this federal government, they can’t be trusted . . . It is one tool that we have.”
Without Alberta's money, the only part of Canada the Trudeau government does care about flails.
Good.
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