Guilbeault accuses Danielle Smith of 'posturing' on carbon tax

Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault says Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is playing politics with people’s future, hours after she announced a plan to legally challenge the carbon price once more. 

In an interview with Canada’s National Observer, Guilbeault said Canadians shouldn’t accept Smith’s brand of politics — upending billions of dollars of investment in clean energy while supporting the fossil fuel industry against climate policies — as the “new normal.” 

“It's more posturing… for her own personal benefit,” he said. “It's so transparent. Everything she's been doing over the last few weeks is all in light of her leadership review that's starting this weekend.”

Alberta’s legal challenge comes days before Smith faces a leadership vote on Saturday by members of her United Conservative Party. 

Former Premier Jason Kenney resigned in 2022 after a similar leadership review, though recent polling suggests Smith is more popular among the UCP base than Kenney was. But as The Globe and Mail noted last month, Kenney isn’t the only Alberta premier to be taken out by his own party. Others include Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford, which may explain Smith’s efforts in recent weeks to appeal to supporters, including entertaining conspiracy theories about chemtrails.

Even though Smith’s critics say battling with Ottawa wastes time, resources and ignores opportunities to align the province with climate goals, as the CBC reported earlier this year, polling suggests that fighting Ottawa is popular with Albertans. 

On Tuesday, Smith told reporters the carbon price is “cruel and punitive” and “blatantly unfair.” As a rationale for launching the latest legal challenge, she said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is attempting “to divide our country,” by carving out home heating oil from the federal carbon price to lower heating costs predominantly for Atlantic Canadians. 

“We're not going to sit back and let this unfair carve-out disadvantage Albertans for another winter,” she said. “We're asking the court to declare the exemption both unconstitutional and unlawful.” 

Alberta’s charge that the decision to pause the carbon price on home heating oil is unconstitutional rests on how the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on the constitutionality of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act. In 2021, the court agreed the federal government had the right to address climate change using a carbon price because climate change causes harm beyond provincial boundaries and is a matter of “national concern” under the “peace, order and good government” clause of the Constitution.

But according to Alberta, the decision was limited to the federal government’s ability to create minimum national standards for carbon pricing, and by pausing the carbon price on home heating oil, the federal government violated those minimum standards. Alberta argues that Ottawa is unevenly applying the rules to favour one region and fuel over others. 

“This exemption is not only unfair to the vast majority of Canadians, but it is also unlawful as the federal government does not have the authority to make special exemptions for certain parts of the country under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act,” said Mickey Amery, Alberta’s Minister of Justice, in a statement. 

Smith clarified she isn’t looking for an exemption of the carbon price on natural gas, which is used by most Albertans to heat their homes, nor is she looking for the carbon price to be reapplied to home heating oil, which is used significantly more in Atlantic Canada. Her target is the carbon price itself. 

“We hope this will force Ottawa to recognize the burden the carbon tax places on Canadians and eliminate the tax altogether,” she said, adding that she’s already in talks with freshly re-elected Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe about joining the challenge.

Regardless of what happens with Alberta’s latest legal challenge, Smith said she intends to fight Trudeau until the bitter end. She described regulations like the proposed oil and gas emissions cap, and clean electricity standards, as undermining Alberta’s oil and gas sector and said she doesn’t believe Trudeau has the mandate to tackle an issue of such importance. 

“He should seek a mandate to be able to do this, and that's why we would be quite happy to see an election called sooner rather than later,” Smith said, adding that even if Trudeau won again, she wouldn’t drop the fight. 

“If he gets a mandate, then I guess we deal with it through the courts afterwards,” she said. “But if he doesn't get a mandate, then hopefully we'll be able to have a constructive conversation with the next government.”

On Tuesday, the Conservative Party of Canada issued a press release supportive of Alberta’s case, calling the carbon price “an expensive scam,” and citing Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) reports that seemingly confirm the Conservative position. 

However, as previously reported by Canada’s National Observer, the PBO analysis of the carbon price has been roundly criticized for failing to consider the impacts of climate change in its study of whether people are better or worse off with it in place. Essentially, the PBO finds more people receive more money back through rebates of the carbon price than they pay, but also that the carbon price could be a drain on the overall economy, resulting in people having less money. It did not consider climate change’s impact on the economy, even though experts agree climate change is a significant threat. 

The dual findings created the opportunity for political leaders to cherry pick facts to suit their narrative. Indeed, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux took to the media after its report was published last year to say he was “concerned” about the political spin at play.

Experts interviewed by Canada’s National Observer say defenders of the carbon price are right that more people receive more money back than they pay, making it a useful tool to address climate change and affordability.

But defenders of the carbon price appear to be steadily dropping away. The federal NDP distanced itself from the carbon price in September, and shortly after, the British Columbia NDP, then in the midst of a close election, said it would ditch the carbon price if Ottawa allowed it. 

Guilbeault said the Liberals will continue defending it, pointing to the federal government increasing the carbon price as scheduled in April even while still under intense pressure to scrap it. He also noted the party’s efforts to better promote the Canada Carbon Rebate.

“We've worked and will continue to work really hard to support and defend carbon pricing,” he said. “Frankly, and I would say unfortunately, we're one of the only governments in the country to be doing that.”