Government Operations Committee on March 28th, 2024

[Danielle Smith]

We have taken it further. We have asked for a recognition from ECCC to be able to acknowledge our TIER program as being equivalent, and they did until 2030.

Part of the way we did that is that we matched our increases with the federal increases, so by 2030 it will go up to $170 on industrial emissions. We're talking today about retail emissions. I look at those as being two totally different things—

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I understand. Yes. I appreciate that and—

[Danielle Smith]

I'm sorry, MP Sousa. I also want to say we expanded it to include more. We included anyone under 2,000.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I have about a minute left, so—

[Danielle Smith]

My apologies....

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

No, I appreciate what you're saying. We do offer rebates as a result of the consumer spending so that they get more than they receive. About eight out of 10 families get that benefit.

On another note, in Ontario, we also are looking at providing an Ontario pension plan to supplement the Canada pension plan, to add to it. The whole intent was to enhance CPP to make it even stronger. It's also a matter of unity. It's a matter of protecting all Canadians.

You spoke at the start about Albertans and Canadians for the nation's benefit. Can you explain what benefit there is to Albertans from withdrawing from CPP, creating more costs and putting at risk their retirement?

[Danielle Smith]

There is a formula in the act that was insisted upon by Ontario, so that if Ontario ever wanted to get out of the Canada pension plan, there would be clear rules for how to do that. We applied that methodology and found that, every year, Albertans pay more in premiums than they get back in benefits. With that invested over time, it has grown to about $334 billion that we would be entitled to based on the formula in the act.

I think it's important for all Albertans to know and also all Canadians to know just how unbalanced Confederation is and just how much Alberta pays into Confederation.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I understand.

When Ontario was a so-called have-not province, it still provided $11 billion more to the rest of the federation than it received, whereas other provinces...and that has happened with Alberta. It is a national unity issue. It's about protecting Canadians. It's also about protecting Albertans for their future retirement.

Before I let you go, can you document the times you were called upon to come to this committee so that we can have that report back as well?

[Danielle Smith]

Certainly. It was just the one time and we said yes immediately.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks. That is our time.

We have Mr. Savard-Tremblay for six.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Premier. Thank you for your presentation.

Federal spending tends to be synonymous with federal interference or encroachment.

Not long ago, you passed legislation on Alberta's sovereignty. As you might imagine, I'm rather sympathetic to the idea, being a member of the Bloc Québécois and someone who fights for my nation's full independence.

I'd like to know your reasons for bringing forward the legislation. Did it have to do with federal spending? What caused you to do that? What was at the root of it all? Was it a failure to respect the Constitution? What kind of interference made you want to bring in the legislation?

[Danielle Smith]

Mostly, it's been the various legal actions that we've had to take against the federal government. We've had a victory on the Impact Assessment Act, which you know as Bill C-69. We had a success initially on the declaration of plastics being toxic also being deemed to be unconstitutional, but I can tell you that my justice department is very busy. We have about 14 different actions that we are going to be taking against the federal government for the various ways in which it's interfering with our jurisdiction.

If you read the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act—so I don't share your aspiration on separation—we just believe that the Constitution should be abided by, and that the Constitution was written in a way that gives sovereign powers to the provincial levels of government and sovereign powers to the federal level of government. It talks about the need for co-operative federalism: that the federal government cannot interfere in an area of provincial jurisdiction unilaterally. I think that's being borne out with some of the court decisions the federal government has now lost.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

All right. Thank you.

I’m well aware that we do not quite share the same aspirations. Although Quebec is not a signatory to the Constitution, we would still like it to be upheld. That would probably be best, though that doesn’t take anything away from our fundamental option. We’d like it to be upheld and, at the very least, for there to be no intrusions that run counter to the Constitution.

On federal spending, there have often been questions related to new programs. In recent budgets, we’ve seen a raft of new taxes and levies that don’t go to the intended areas of jurisdiction. We’ve also witnessed the creation of programs that, without being outright intrusions, will often establish the spider’s web that could lead to future intrusions. Is that a concern for you?

[Danielle Smith]

Certainly.

In one way, we've been inspired by Quebec, by your premier, in some of the policies he has established to establish guardrails around provincial jurisdiction. ln particular, one of the things we like to emulate is that if there is an area of federal encroachment using the spending power, we've observed that Quebec has particular success at being able to opt out and receive the full compensation. That is a strategy we have started to employ, and we'll continue to do that.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

If I may ask the question, beyond respecting current jurisdictions, would you like to acquire more powers for Alberta, and if so, which ones?

[Danielle Smith]

We would certainly like for our full area of constitutional jurisdiction to be respected. I recognize that the federal government is responsible for the military, for international trade agreements, for international agreements, even like those signed at the COP meetings, for passports, for immigration and for currency. There are some areas that are concurrent that we would like to be able to collaborate on—like immigration—but I don't have any interest in encroaching on any of those areas.

In fact, if I tried to set up my own currency or establish my own passport office, then people would say, “That's crazy—that's federal jurisdiction.” I think people should say exactly the same thing when the federal government encroaches on our jurisdiction. They should say, “You can't do that—the Constitution doesn't allow it.” Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that it works both ways, and we're trying to assert that it should.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

That said, Ms. Smith, I can tell you that, if you were in charge of passports, you certainly couldn't do a worse job than Ottawa's been doing for a while now.

That being said, my takeaway is that you seem to look to Quebec as a model. I know that, at one time, a group of prominent westerners, specifically Albertans—including Stephen Harper—had written a letter saying that they wanted Alberta to be like Quebec, with powers similar to Quebec's. Ultimately, Quebec is something of an inspiration to you.

[Danielle Smith]

It is. Let me give a recent example. I noticed that your premier asked to be able to choose 100% of the newcomers coming to his province through the provincial nominee program. I would like that same aspiration. We have been home to 57,000 evacuees from Ukraine. Many of them are using our provincial nominee program, and instead of increasing the number of provincial nominees we've asked for to 20,000, the federal government reduced them.

I think that's a violation, quite frankly, of section 95 of the Constitution, which gives us concurrent jurisdiction, and we'll be pressing that. Perhaps Quebec would like to work with us on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much. That is our time.

Mr. Bachrach, go ahead, please.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier Smith, for being with us.

Maybe I'll pick up where my Bloc colleague just left off.

You mentioned that Quebec is an inspiration to Alberta. Quebec has taken a different approach to this whole issue of carbon pricing. It's the only province in Canada to be part of the cap and trade or carbon market, with, I believe, California and Washington. Is that something that Alberta has looked to participate in as an alternative to the federal backstop?

[Danielle Smith]

Well, I think we have our own program. If I understand the Quebec program, there are 172 industrial outfits that operate under their cap and trade system. I believe that actually ours is more expansive. I'm not sure of the total number, but we did have large emitters that were under the program. We recently reduced the threshold so that anyone who emits, I believe, more than 2,000 megatonnes a year can also participate in our emissions reduction program. If they are able to do better than the average in their industry, then they will generate credits. Those credits can then be sold, so that they can turn it into a revenue stream.

Yes, we've modelled our industrial program similarly to Quebec's. At the moment, it is just internal to trade within Alberta, but it has been advocated to me that we should be looking at ways of expanding it.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

For instance, if you participated in the same carbon market as Quebec, then this whole issue of the carbon tax wouldn't be an issue for Albertans. It's not an issue for Quebeckers, because they're part of a different system that they've signed up for.

Are you currently looking at whether to participate in that same system?

[Danielle Smith]

No, we won't participate in that system, because quite frankly we transfer enough money to Ottawa that then gets spent in equalization to Quebec, so we're not looking for another way of transferring dollars out of Alberta to Quebec.

We are interested in finding ways of generating our own offsets through our investments in Dow chemical and petrochemical, which is net zero; Air Products hydrogen, which is net zero; and Heidelberg, which is net-zero cement. We also are keen to work with the federal government on establishing an ammonia market, so that we will be able to reduce emissions internationally. Article 6 has been mentioned by previous premiers. If we could simply reduce China's reliance on coal by 20%, that would offset the emissions of all of Canada. We also have geothermal that we are investing in. We just launched our very first commercial hydrogen fuelling station, and we'll be building out our hydrogen infrastructure. We've partnered with the federal government on dual-fuel vehicles for long haul. We've partnered with the federal government on hydrogen buses.

Those are the kinds of ways in which we want to generate our own credits that can be used to offset our emissions, so that we can get to net zero by 2050.

At some point, once that market is more developed, perhaps we would look at having those emissions credits traded more broadly, but at the moment we're keeping it as an internal market.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You mentioned article 6 and this idea that we can get some sort of credits for our exports, even when those products are consumed in other jurisdictions.

Canada does export some clean products. However, we also export some products that aren't so clean, including thermal coal.

Should the impact of burning thermal coal in other jurisdictions also count against our domestic emissions?

[Danielle Smith]

We don't export thermal coal, as I understand it. I think it's mostly British Columbia that does that.