What's really behind Alberta's 'scrap the cap' ads?

Danielle Smith is seen in an undated file photo.

Alberta’s $7-million ad campaign, railing against a proposed federal industrial emissions cap, comes just weeks before a leadership review for Premier Danielle Smith whose party members are hungry for conflict with Ottawa.

The cap, which will rein in rising oil and gas sector emissions, is one of the federal Liberals’ key climate policies to lower Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions which cause global heating. Political analysts say they were not surprised by the timing of Alberta’s latest salvo.

“Everything that's happening coming out of the Smith government right now is focused on the upcoming leadership review,” Lisa Young, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, told Canada’s National Observer in a phone interview on Oct. 17.

“One of the things that's very important to parts of the UCP (United Conservative Party) base is that the Alberta government is standing up to Ottawa,” Young said. “The range of opinions within the party goes from wanting to have a highly conflictual relationship with the federal government to outright separatism.”

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A handful of policy resolutions up for debate at the UCP’s annual general meeting on Nov. 1 and 2, illustrate this anti-federal sentiment.

One states that the province should “continue to distance itself from the federal government in as many facets as possible,” and another proposes to model a new federal agreement on the Quebec-Canada Accord to give Alberta more control over immigration.

Another calls for “continued vigorous opposition to the federal carbon tax while supporting our federal Conservative Party efforts to ‘Axe the Tax’.”

Battling with the federal government is a time-honoured provincial strategy that is particularly effective in Alberta, said Lori Williams, an associate professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

She pointed to former premier Peter Lougheed’s fierce opposition to the Trudeau government’s National Energy Program in the 1980s.

“The strategy of basically saying, ‘I'm defending you against this tyrannical or invasive federal government,’ serves to distract from some of the shortcomings of a provincial government,” Williams told Canada’s National Observer.

Since she took over as UCP leader in 2022, Smith has been in almost constant conflict with Ottawa.

She has picked fights with the federal government over policies that will not apply in Alberta, like a proposed program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cattle feedlots.

Along with sustained opposition to the federal government’s carbon pricing system, her government launched a similar ad campaign last fall against federal regulations aimed at decarbonizing Canada’s electricity grid by 2035.

That campaign inspired more than 21,000 people to write to their MP asking them to oppose the clean electricity regulations, according to an emailed statement from Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz’s press secretary Ryan Fournier.

Like last year’s campaign, the new “Scrap the Cap” campaign announced Oct. 15 will run ads in a variety of provinces.

Ads will run on TV, online video, print and social media in Alberta, B.C., Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia until the end of November.

The campaign website’s claiming the oil and gas emissions cap will cripple the Canadian economy are based on industry and government-commissioned studies that use “the most extreme case that could be conceived,” according to Chris Severson-Baker, executive director of the Pembina Institute, a think-tank that has analyzed and found numerous shortcomings in the studies.

The ad campaign is one of Smith’s latest attempts to shore up support among UCP members before they vote on her leadership performance at the UCP’s annual general meeting in Red Deer next month.

“No conservative leader, whether Progressive Conservative or UCP, since Ralph Klein has finished the term,” Young said.

Former Premier Jason Kenney stepped down as party leader after receiving a slim majority — 51 per cent — at his leadership review in 2022.

“The internal dynamic in the UCP is such that there is a real desire to hold the leader accountable to the grassroots on policy issues, even if it means potentially pulling them to positions that aren't saleable to the general population of the province,” she explained.

“Smith has correctly assessed herself as being at risk here, and she has spent the last two months, travelling the province, attending town halls with UCP members and responding to their concerns,” Young said.

Some of these grassroots positions are illustrated in the 35 policy resolutions up for debate at the party’s annual general meeting.

This includes a proposal to stop labelling carbon dioxide as a pollutant and instead, celebrate it as a "foundational nutrient for all life on Earth” as well as abandon the government’s “aspiration” to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Young says she believes Smith will get more than 50 per cent of the vote but it's not clear whether she will surpass 80 per cent. Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi won the NDP leadership race with 86 per cent of the vote in June.

Williams thinks there’s some risk to Smith’s decision to spend millions on ad campaigns opposing federal climate policy when Albertans are “very worried about other issues, like affordability and health care.”

“What benefit can be shown for this, this very significant expenditure of dollars, $15 million in all?” Williams asked.

When asked about the impact of the 2023 “tell the feds” campaign and the metrics used to gauge its effectiveness, Fournier said it was “a huge success,” and “helped raise awareness of how these federal regulations will increase costs and threaten grid reliability, and sparked organizations and individuals from across Canada to raise similar concerns about this dangerous approach.”

“Wouldn't this money be better spent trying to deal with these health care issues or affordability issues that Albertans are facing?” Williams asked.