Smith rekindles fight against Liberal 'clean electricity' regs

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Smith vowed on Thursday to move forward with a legal challenge to Ottawa’s incoming clean electricity regulations, rekindling a fight with the just re-elected Liberal government over its decarbonization agenda. “Today we are taking another step to protect Albertans livelihoods by challenging the constitutionality of (these) regulations in the Court of Appeal of Alberta, and we look forward to making our case,” Smith told reporters in Edmonton. Smith revealed she was readying a court challenge shortly after the Liberals released their final draft of the clean electricity regs in December. Smith said on Thursday that the decarbonization regulations, set to come into effect in 2035 , would wreak havoc on Alberta’s fossil fuel-heavy electricity grid . “These regulations set an emission limit that is completely unattainable and would make Alberta’s electricity system… more than 100 times less reliable than the province’s supply adequacy standard,” said Smith, citing a report from the Alberta Electric System Operator . Roughly two-thirds of Alberta’s electricity comes from natural gas , according to Canada’s energy regulator. A smaller but not insubstantial amount of roughly a fifth comes from coal and coke. Smith said that, in their current form, the clean electricity regs would put Alberta “at serious risk of regular brownouts and blackouts during the cold dead of winter through the dog days of summer.” Smith stressed that the costs of an unreliable power grid would be “grim” for millions across the province. “Albertans would be left to freeze in the dark. In the depths of a minus 40 degree winter cold snap, families would be bundled up in their winter coats while sitting down for (a candlelit) dinner,” Smith warned. “In the heat of summer… hospitals would be overwhelmed by the influx of patients suffering from heatstroke while trusting that their generators keep the lights on for their lifesaving equipment.” Alberta’s electricity grid came under severe strain during a January 2024 cold snap, forcing the province to import power from both Saskatchewan and Montana. Scrapping the clean electricity regs was one of nine demands Smith put forward to the federal party leaders in March , saying whoever emerged from April’s election as prime minister would need to address these issues within his first six months in office to “avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis.” Smith said on Thursday that Prime Minister Mark Carney, the election’s winner, must “immediately commence” working with her government to reset Ottawa-Alberta relations from their acrimonious state under predecessor Justin Trudeau. Carney failed to improve significantly on Trudeau’s performance in Alberta, with the Liberals holding steady at two seats in the province after Monday’s federal election. He wasn’t asked about Smith’s ultimatum, or Ottawa-Alberta relations, at his first press conference since the election on Thursday. National Post rmohamed@postmedia.com Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.