Premier Smith 'sickened' by staggering disruption planned with Trudeau's Just Transition | Edmonton Journal - David Staples:
January 16, 2023 - "The staggering scope of change that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals intend to impose on Canadians with their Just Transition program is made clear in a newly-released government document. The document — first reported by the online new[s] agency Blacklock’s Reporter and now obtained by Postmedia — are department speaking notes from June 1, 2022, for Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.
"The document predicts 'significant disruption' for workers in key Canadian employment sectors in order to meet federal emissions reduction targets. 'The transition to a low-carbon economy will have an uneven impact across sectors, occupations and regions, and create significant labour market disruptions.'
"Included in the 'large-scale' transformation will be jobs in the following sectors — 1.4 million building trades workers, 642,000 transportation workers, 292,000 agriculture workers, 202,000 energy workers and 193,000 workers in manufacturing. In total, 13.5 per cent of Canadian workers in many of the highest-playing blue-collar sectors will face major disruptions.
"The document notes, 'Some regions, particularly in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, where communities are more reliant on carbon intensive industries, will likely be disproportionally affected'.... Whether or not your blood is boiling about now will likely come down to which part of Canada you reside.
"If you’re from Quebec or British Columbia, provinces where hydro is king and where drastic action on climate change is seen as the ultimate moral good, such major disruption might well seem reasonable. Yes, a few eggs might well get broken to make the omelette of a greener world. Yes, some men and women who are earning high wages in a polluting industry might have to take lesser-paying jobs. But climate change is the most alarming existential issue of our times, right?...
"But if you’re from Alberta, Saskatchewan or Newfoundland and Labrador, this plan might well strike you as madness, as a federal government that has lost all humility and common sense....
"Canada might contort itself and slash oil and gas production to lower emissions, but that will have no impact on worldwide emissions. Whatever the country does, the world’s several billion poor people will rightly continue to embrace burning fossil fuels so they can avoid starvation. If they don’t buy oil and gas from Canada, they’ll buy it from Russia, the Middle East or Venezuela. And, yes, we can all buy in to Trudeau’s plan for top-down federal government management of the economy, but we’ll be putting our faith in a government that has run up unprecedented debt, embraced energy scarcity policies that are already ratcheting up inflation, and grossly overspends even as it designs a phone app for incoming travellers that barely works.
"For my part, I note the vast differences of opinion between people in different regions of the country and I applaud the framers of the Canadian Constitution, including Peter Lougheed, for putting in place constitutional measures that can keep Canada united despite such differences, at least if the Constitution is respected... The framers, such as Lougheed, made sure that Alberta and other provinces have exclusive constitutional right to develop their natural resources.
"This latest Trudeau scheme is so out-of-bounds, such a grotesque and misguided example of federal over-reach, that it’s evident either Trudeau has never read the Constitution, or he has no respect for it, nor for Alberta.
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