Bronwyn Eyre is a former Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and Resources for four years. She has also held the portfolios of Justice & Attorney General, Education, Advanced Education, SaskPower, SaskEnergy, SaskWater and Status of Women. She resides in Saskatoon.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General Bronwyn Eyre on April 8. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
When I was energy minister, American investors would ask me, “What have you guys got going on up there?…What country does that to itself?”
Speaking on the Trump tariff issue, federal industry minister François-Philippe Champagne said in a media scrum last week that Canada has always “spoken as one voice’ on the world stage.
Was he kidding?
Prime Minister Trudeau offered up the same spin: “One of the things we’ve seen throughout our history, when Canada is threatened … (is that we) pull together across partisan stripes, across the country, to stand up for Canadians.”
Talk about Selective Memory Syndrome.
This from a federal government that’s actively thwarted its own key export sectors by over-taxing, red tape-regulating, and jamming economy-driving projects.
It hasn’t managed to speak as one voice to itself, let alone the world.
It selectively carved out the carbon tax on home-heating for only one region of the country, approved new oil drilling for Newfoundland but not Saskatchewan or Alberta, and has undermined crucial sub-sectors such as LNG—which our world partners desperately want—to the point that major investors, including Warren Buffett (see Saguenay LNG project), walked away.
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When I was energy minister, American investors would ask me, “What have you guys got going on up there? What country does that to itself?” In other words, a federation whose own national government punishes a region that’s trying to make the economy run.
Not exactly a Team Canada approach.
Champagne and his boss should realize, too, that the federal government has profoundly undermined trust with industry leaders, who have traditionally been part of Team Canada efforts. Just look at Bill C-59, the federal ‘greenwashing’ bill (now subject of a constitutional challenge by business groups), which thwarts deal-making, imposes massive fines, and effectively muzzles companies that want to promote their sustainability records.
It’s all part of what the Globe and Mail recently called the Liberal’s “act now, mop up later” approach. Even when the feds are trying to play Santa, such as on the recent GST pause—and when there are significant financial implications for provinces and businesses—they don’t even bother to pick up the phone.
As PEI’s Premier Dennis King put it: “We did not get the courtesy of a call or any kind of request for our input.”
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I’ve called it the Liberal Rules for Radicals:
- Announce a policy with a massive cost impact (Carbon Tax, Just Transition, Fuel Standard, Clean Electricity Regulations, oil and gas cap, et al) with no dollar figure attached or plan on how to pay for it.
- Shame (or try to shame) provinces into carrying the can, cost-wise or otherwise.
- Orchestrate what looks like provincial consultation, but with significant strings and/or poison pills attached (e.g., funding in exchange for tacit agreement to UNDRIP).
- Call provinces “uncooperative” when they cry fowl.
Sadly, as Canada now faces one of the fights of its life on the Trump tariff issue, our federation is in disarray. Trudeau is fair-weather-friending and buttering-up the provinces out of pure desperation.
The Trump tariffs
At Brian Mulroney’s funeral, Jean Charest didn’t mince words. Looking straight at Justin Trudeau, he said that the first duty of any Prime Minister is to keep the country united.
It’s ironic that energy is now one of the great bargaining chess pieces at play on the Trump tariffs issue. In fact, this beleaguered sector may actually be the most strategic tool in Team Canada’s kit.
Of course, we’ve lost valuable time. Since Trump was last president, we’ve become increasingly fractured and landlocked—Northern Gateway, Keystone XL and other energy infrastructure expansions have been thwarted or denied. We’ve also become increasingly reliant for import on rogue countries with subversive motives—most notably Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
But—halleluja!—the U.S still wants and needs our oil and gas. President Trump may speak of renewed “energy dominance” and “drill, baby, drill”—but Midwest and Gulf Coast refineries still want to import Canadian crude as part of an overall energy mix to provide cheaper, more affordable oil and gas to Americans.
Also of note: the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, which represents US refineries, is against the potential 25 per cent tariffs: “American refiners depend on crude from Canada and Mexico to produce the affordable, reliable fuels consumers count on every day.”
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Feds not allowed
Over the last, destructive ten years, trust between the provinces and the feds has fundamentally eroded. Is it any wonder that, increasingly, provinces are doing their own thing?
In Alberta, Premier Smith has effectively taken matters into her own hands, announcing she’s ready to work with Montana to patrol her own damn border.
On the federal oil and gas cap, she has proposed that Alberta ban anyone except company employees, contractors and Alberta-authorized officials from accessing oil and gas sites. Read: federal regulators seeking emissions data will not be allowed.
Smith has also proposed that Alberta take actual ownership of greenhouse gas data, which energy companies collect from their operations—and are theoretically obliged to hand over to the feds. As a result, only Alberta will have the authority to release this information.
My sense is that the province and energy companies worked out this innovative approach behind the scenes. It gets companies off the hook from being caught in the middle between the province and the feds. It also protects them from federal gag law Bill C-59 and baked-in fines for making environmental statements that the federal government will take issue with, according to some UN-approved definition.
What kind of ‘Team Canada’ reduces provinces to this?
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Predictably, federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault has said that Alberta’s approach “manipulates and politicizes” emissions reporting. That’s a bit rich, coming from one whose department hides and only-half-provides provinces with the GHG data used against companies to cap their oil and gas production—and who will not release the insider names of Green Slush Fund participants, which is causing the current impasse in the federal Parliament.
Talk about a threat from within.
Meanwhile, in Quebec, Premier François Legault says he is “open to” examining a Quebec Constitution before the next provincial election in 2026 as a “symbolic element of unity in relation to our values.”
Legault is also considering invoking the Notwithstanding Clause—again: this time, to override the Charter to try to force newly-graduated MDs to stay in the province and to ban public prayer. As the Globe and Mail put it: “It has been a simple cure-all that Mr. Legault seems to reach for it any time he feels governing might cause a headache.”
Be that as it may: provinces are increasingly flexing their muscles—and internalizing the true meaning of “asymmetrical federalism”.
Saskatchewan could do more
As justice minister, I announced last summer that we would not be following the federal Clean Electricity Regulations, primarily because they violate Section 92(A) of the Constitution and provinces’ exclusive jurisdiction over natural resources and power generation.
This was part of our ‘SaskFirst’ approach, which – significantly – we engrained in our own provincial constitution. We can and should do more, across government, ministries, and the Crowns to consistently, regularly assert—as a default position—that we will not follow federal policies that we consider to be unconstitutional or economically harmful.
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I agree with former Supreme Court Justice John Major, who has proposed that instead of provinces’ taking the federal government to court to challenge policies that they consider to be unconstitutional, “the onus should be reversed, and the federal government should have to bring the matter before the court.” If the federal government wants to impose regulations or legislation on provinces, Major has said, “[they’d] better be sure [they’re] doing it constitutionally.”
That’s not lawless—that’s lawfully asserting provinces’ constitutional rights.
Meanwhile, to those who argue that Saskatchewan and other provinces should “get along better” with the feds, I would ask: Why should only Quebec defend itself against federal encroachment-stealth on everything from federal caribou regulations to care home policy? What other choice do provinces have when the feds repeatedly impose harmful, top-down, unconstitutional policies, without warning, consulting, fairly shared data, or basic costing? How does standing up for our economy make us the ones being uncooperative?
The builders and unifiers of this country would be heartbroken. We are at a pretty pass—cynical of anything that crosses the Prime Minister’s lips, particularly when it comes to any notion of national unity or “Team Canada.”
Bronwyn Eyre is the former Saskatchewan Minister of Justice and Attorney General and of Energy and Resources. Eyre and Pipeline Online editor Brian Zinchuk will be hosting the Pipeline Online Grimes Sales & Service Podcast, starting in mid-January. Watch for it on Pipeline Online and on your podcast apps.
Pipeline Online provides the in-depth coverage on energy issues in this province that no other media comes close to. It does NOT receive federal journalism subsidies, and it will NOT allow the federal government to limit its freedom of speech, as it is now moving to regulate podcasts. With recent action from Facebook to block news links, it’s important to follow Pipeline Online in other manners. The easiest is to check each morning at PipelineOnline.ca, with the top story posted at 7 a.m. Monday to Friday, and additional coverage throughout the day and weekend. But you can also follow on LinkedIn and Twitter. You can follow editor Brian Zinchuk online at LinkedIn as well (you’ll see more stories that way). You can subscribe to a weekly newsletter. And if you wish to advertise and support this journalism, call 306-461-5599.
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