I don't actually like that I spend so much time writing about Pierre Poilievre and Danielle Smith - God knows, I begrudge them the airspace - but they do need to be called out on some of their worst policies.
7 months after Ms. Smith unceremoniously called a moratorium on renewable energy projects in Alberta - because, well, it's an oil-and-gas province, don't you know? - the Alberta government has now technically lifted the moratorium, but has effectively just reimposed it in a different way. Because, well, it's an oil-and-gas province, don't you know? (I stress this because no-one can figure out any other good reason for it.)
Technically, renewable projects can proceed in Alberta: provided they are not on (private) property the province deems to have "good or excellent irrigation capability" (undefined); provided that it can be demonstrated that crops or livestock can co-exist with the power infrastructure; provided developers post bonds or securities with the government for future clean-up costs; and provided they are at least 35km from "protected areas and other pristine viewscapes" (also undefined), and subject to a "visual impact statement" before approval.
It has escaped no-one's notice that these obstacles have been put in the way of clean, profitable renewable energy projects, but not in the way of dirty, moribund oil-and-gas development. Nor that Ms. Smith, one of the most outspoken proponents of the free market and small government, is telling private landowners what they can and can't do with their land and property (but then we've seen before her inconsistency on that issue).
How tempted would you be as a developer of renewable energy projects to do business on these terms? Might you not just move along to the next more welcoming province? Despite Ms. Smith's insistence that "renewables have a place in our energy mix", that place is clearly a long way down the pecking order. Alberta Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf claims that the move will strengthen investors certainty by providing clear expectations, but that's not how past and potential future energy developers are seeing it.
Once again, Alberta has drawn the lucky straw in the energy stakes; southern Alberta in particular is blessed with not only oil and gas, but with copious amounts of sunshine and prodigious wind resources. Renewable energy projects have been a game-changer for many struggling rural municipalities in the south of the province. But its booming wind and solar industries - 92% of Canada's new renewable energy capacity was built in Alberta in 2023, and there are at least 26 large projects awaiting approval as we speak - just came to a grinding halt. For example, the 35km buffer zone around "protected areas and other pristine viewscapes", automatically puts 75% of Southern Alberta (ideal wind-generating territory) off limits to wind farms, although not to new oil and gas projects.
Of course, provided you jump through all these hoops, and do not blight the "viewscapes" of Alberta's giant monoculture farms and its dead orphan wells, you are welcome to do renewables business there. Unless they change the rules again, that is... The whole province is in thrall to the fossil fuel industry, and its government is shot through with current and former oil-and-gas executives and lobbyists (including Ms. Smith herself), so it's hardly a surprise.
Michelle Smith's new rules, tilting the playing field firmly away from renewables and towards oil and gas, constitute an attack on private business, an attack on landowners' rights, and an attack on the entire free market that she claims to hold so dear.
UPDATE
I see the Globe and Mail's cartoonist had a very similar image in mind to mine above:
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