Government Operations Committee on March 28th, 2024

[Danielle Smith]

I would say that 60% of the fires were caused by human activity, so we're doing a public campaign to make sure that people are safer. We also have—

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I thought you would say that, Premier, because I looked at a report from your own Ministry of Forestry and Parks, which stated that there were 1,121 wildfires last year. Of those, 91 were caused by arson, and that includes 262 acres out of the 2.2 million acres that were burned.

It's only 0.1% of land that was burned that was caused by human activity.... Can you speak about the vast majority that was caused, again, by drought conditions and the heat conditions in your province? Furthermore, the most important question, Madam Premier, is, what are you doing to fight climate change, the forest fires and the drought in your community that are devastating land in your community and communities?

[Danielle Smith]

Let me correct you. Sixty per cent—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Premier Smith, I apologize, but Mr. Kusmierczyk has used up his time. You can respond in writing, because I understand that we do have to get you out by a certain time.

[Danielle Smith]

Sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I apologize.

Ms. Vignola, welcome back. Go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for appearing before the committee, Ms. Smith. My fellow member asked you about your desire for autonomy and sovereignty. We don't share quite the same view on that, but that's the way it is.

Under the current budget, $250 billion was transferred to Quebec and the Canadian provinces, including transfers to governments, pension benefits and benefits for families.

That's a significant amount of money. Significant though it may be, it clearly falls short of the health transfer Quebec and the Canadian provinces were calling for. As I recall, you also called on the federal government to increase the health transfer to 35% of health costs. How has the federal government's refusal to do that affected Alberta's finances?

[Danielle Smith]

The way the program was initially drafted, it was supposed to be an equal cost-sharing program. I think over time it developed to a 65%-35% cost-sharing program, and all the premiers advocated for the federal government to live up to that spirit. It didn't, but we have to make sure we're providing health care regardless of whether or not the federal government wants to be a partner. We're in the process of doing major hiring of family doctors and nurse practitioners so we can shore up our primary care system. We're working on getting patients who require various levels of care into appropriate facilities for continuing care, addictions treatment and mental health treatment, and we're going to be expanding our surgical capacity. Those are things we're going to do regardless of whether or not the federal government wants to be an equal partner.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I conclude from what you’re saying that the burden on Alberta’s finances is steadily increasing, given ever greater needs. Have I understood you correctly?

[Danielle Smith]

I think it's the case for every province. I believe that when we first started being concerned about the costs of health care, it was consuming 20% of our budget. Now it represents over 40%, and we still have the pressure of the baby boom population, which is going to add not only surgical costs but also long-term care costs, plus we're in the middle of a mental health and addictions crisis. The pressures are going to continue.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Indeed. You were speaking—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid that's our time.

Mr. Bachrach, go ahead, please, for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Premier, previously you mentioned the government's decision to create a carve-out for Canadians who heat with home heating oil. You mentioned the inequity of the way in which that was approached, and I think there's some agreement there. Our proposal was somewhat different—to give Canadians a break by taking the GST off all forms of home heating. Is that an approach that you would support, given that it would create equity and would actually result in more savings for people right across the country, regardless of how they heat?

[Danielle Smith]

I think that's a great idea, because then it would also remove the problem of the tax on tax that we have on both home heating costs and on the price at the pumps. I think that would be a reasonable compromise.

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

Why do you think the government, instead of doing that, chose the approach they did?

[Danielle Smith]

I think they want to take credit for transferring back 75¢ on the dollar, and they think people aren't going to notice that they took the dollar in the first place. I question the approach. I wonder what the Liberal members think is going to happen with those dollars. When they come back with $400, do they think someone is going to go out and buy a $60,000 electric vehicle? Do they think they're going to put $10,000 of solar panels on their roof? Do they think they're going to convert to geothermal, which costs $20,000? If we want to make a real impact on the kinds of vehicles people drive and on the kinds of heating they use, substantially more investments than a token tax rebate are going to have to be made. I would rather see other programs that would stimulate those kinds of choices.

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

You mentioned the emissions plan you have tabled. Now, I assume this is a commitment to reduce absolute emissions in Alberta over time towards this goal of 2050. In that plan, have you done an analysis of the cost per tonne? As I understand it, you're relying heavily on technologies that are not only expensive but also haven't been proven at scale. Has there been an analysis of the cost per tonne relative to that of other approaches, like the pricing approach the federal government has taken?

[Danielle Smith]

I can tell you that we will have three net-zero major industrial operations within the next two years: Air Products' hydrogen, The Dow Chemical Company's petrochemical plant and Heidelberg cement. Let me add Inter Pipeline as well, because it's going to have an ammonia project.

We do have at-scale ability because our former premier, Ed Stelmach, invested over a billion dollars in building out Shell's Quest project so that we could firm up the technology. It has now stored 11.5 billion tonnes of CO2, I believe, over in Saskatchewan—

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

The question was very specifically on the cost per tonne of those reductions. Is there an analysis that shows that using those approaches to reduce emissions on a cost-per-tonne basis is less expensive for Canadians than the approach that the federal government has taken?

[Danielle Smith]

I can tell you that when I hear the federal environment minister say that his approach won't work until 2060 and I've just given you four examples that will work within two years, it does seem to be that the outcome is what we should be looking at. If we can get to a net-zero outcome, that should be the goal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks. That is our time.

We'll have two last four-minute rounds.

Mr. Lawrence, go ahead, please.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you, Premier Smith, for being here today. We appreciate your time.

My question will focus on the carbon tax and productivity. Of course, Canada is, as the Governor of the Bank of Canada said, in a productivity crisis, and one shining exception is Alberta. The average GDP, for example, per hour is about $50. In the energy sector in Alberta, it's $500. My concern is that the carbon tax and other actions by this federal government are putting sand in the gears of our economy and slowing down our productivity when we can least afford it.

Would you share my concern?

[Danielle Smith]

I do share the concern. I can tell you that we have had to take a whole variety of measures in order to be able to assist our individuals so that households are able to manage through the inflation crisis that we're facing and have more dollars in their pockets in order for them to go out and buy the things that they need to, so that we can keep the economy rolling.

We have our fuel tax relief program, which I mentioned saved $2.3 billion because we took it off for two entire years. We re-indexed AISH and income supports. We gave $20 million to food banks. We've reduced the increase year over year in auto insurance. We've re-indexed our personal income tax. We've supported post-secondary students with a cap on tuition increases. We've supported wage growth in the social sector. We've given supplementary rental supports. We've created an affordable housing plan that will spend $8 billion over the next three years. We've reduced electricity costs through rebates at a cost of $500 per household or a billion dollars over the course of that, and we've given affordability payments of $100 per month for six months to our lowest-income individuals at a cost of $625 million.

All of these are to make sure that people have enough money in their pockets to be able to keep our economy going, because that lends itself to businesses being able to have the dollars they need so that they can make the investments they need to make so that they can improve productivity. It would be helpful if the federal government would stop making it so hard for people and would do something equivalent to put the same number of dollars in the pockets of consumers so that we could keep our economy going strong.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much, Premier Smith.

To prove that Ontarians can, indeed, share with Albertans, I'm going to split the rest of my time with Mr. Hallan.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Lawrence.

Premier, thanks again for being here and for always standing up for Albertans.

I'm interested to know this: What are you hearing from our great Alberta ranchers, our farmers, our agri-food industry and producers about this carbon tax scam?