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.
Bronwyn Eyre on April 8. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
For those who bleed green, including the media, the slush has become hush
You’d think that a two-month Parliamentary gridlock in Ottawa, which risks no-confidence by default and a snap election, would get people’s attention.
Since the Conservative-led (and NDP-Bloc-supported) filibuster started on September 26, no federal government bills, including money bills, have been able to move forward.
Note: without funds, the Liberals can’t run the government.
Of the $24.8 billion in new spending tabled in supplementary estimates last week, $21.6 billion requires a vote of approval by the House of Commons. And that was before the Prime Minister announced his Santa Claus stimulus cheques ($6.28 million) and GST break on everything from gaming consoles to apple cider. They might not get through, either.
The good news is that while the filibuster-gridlock continues, no damaging federal government bills on anything can move forward. There is that.
Meanwhile, Speaker Greg Fergus has urged the parties to resolve the situation, but appears stymied. “Parliamentary jurisprudence has not been established for this particular usage,” said Don Boudria, House Leader under Jean Chrétien.
In the meantime, Opposition MPs can continue “this particular usage” and filibuster the yin-yang out of this motion until they get either the dossier they want (see below) or the Bloc and NDP join with the government to end this.
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What happened
So why is this conundrum not dominating every newscast? Because the gridlock’s root cause is the ‘green slush fund,’ so-named by the federal Conservatives, a Liberal boondoggle of millions of dollars in unaccounted-for ‘sustainability’ spending, inside dealing, and conflicts of interest.
In other words, for those who bleed green, including the media, the slush has become hush.
In June, federal Auditor General Karen Hogan raised serious concerns about now-defunct Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), which reportedly awarded tens of millions of dollars to companies with ties to its own directors and managers. Hogan’s audit found that $59 million of pay-outs failed to meet SDTC’s eligibility requirements and another $76 million were awarded despite clear conflicts of interest.
Now, the federal Conservatives are demanding that the Liberal government produce documents relating to Hogan’s report. The Liberals are refusing to—they say because the Opposition wants them handed over to the RCMP.
Canadians should be demanding the documents—and not the redacted ones that the Liberals are offering. In this case, the House has absolute power both to order and produce them.
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Show us the money: the connection to the oil and gas cap
The green slush/funny money fund highlights a pathological pattern of behaviour within the Liberal government, which goes like this:
- 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 repercussions attached (e.g., funding in exchange for tacit agreement to UNDRIP).
- Call provinces “uncooperative” when they raise the alarm.
You’d think the Prime Minister would have been peppered with questions about the filibuster/gridlock when he announced his Christmas GST rebate last week—or, for that matter, when the grim line-up of federal ministers recently announced the oil and gas cap.
Instead, Jonathan Wilkinson and Steven Guilbault were indulged as they continued to insist that the cap is not a production cap but an “emissions” one—and not questioned on how it’s all going to be paid for.
The answer is, it isn’t. Just follow the trail of green slush.
In September, as reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, federal auditors cited Environment Minister Steven Guilbault’s department for poor oversight of millions of dollars spent on green subsidies:
“Management of taxpayer funds was so sloppy,“ their report stated, it could lead to “legal and reputational damage.” Auditors further found that there was “no overarching strategy guiding the federal investment in the pursuit of clean technology for either economic or environmental outcomes. The cumulative impact of these decisions, from research through to adoption, is not monitored, measured, or attributed.”
Not monitored. Measured. Or attributed.
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And the slush doesn’t end there.
For example: Wilkinson’s department has “subsidized” only “six per cent of the charging ports it predicts Canada needs to comply with electric vehicle mandates. Budgeted costs so far are $1.2 billion before only electric vehicles are sold to Canadian new car buyers by 2035.”
Back to the oil and gas cap: the so-called Regulator Analysis Statement, which outlines costs, has not yet been released. Of course it hasn’t. But we already know that the costs will be devastating.
Relying on many of the same experts that the feds do, the October report on the cap and methane emission mandates by the independent Saskatchewan Economic Impact Assessment Tribunal found that by 2050, Saskatchewan’s oil production would fall by up to 52 per cent, the province would face cumulative royalty and tax revenue losses of between $4.8 and $7.1 billion, total lost government revenues would be up to $43.3 billion, and employment losses up to 34,000 people.
That’s pretty much every energy job in Saskatchewan right now.
Wilkinson continues to insist that the cap will create “thousands of jobs.” But the non-profit Montreal Economic Institute has found that it will, instead, lead to at least 113,000 jobs being lost across the country by 2040—with next to zero effect on the environment.
Oil and gas companies have said they will curtail production rather than invest in “untested technologies.” Last summer, a Deloitte report cited companies saying that it would be cheaper to leave the oil in the ground.
On the cap, an oil sector contact put it this way: “No details have been shared; it’s not clear what technologies will be applied. There’s no way to examine assumptions and meeting reductions will be unfeasible. The framework doesn’t get into or outline how emissions allowances will actually be calculated and allocated, which makes it extremely challenging to estimate the price of traded emissions.”
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What happens now?
One of the discussions that Pipeline Online’s Brian Zinchuk and I plan to have in the coming weeks, on our in-development podcast, is what the sector wants provincial governments to do about the cap and other harmful federal policies. Alberta, for one, has called the cap a “deranged vendetta,” launched a $7 million “scrap the cap” ad campaign, and is threatening constitutional legal action.
Certainly, the constitutional law is on the provinces’ side if they want to challenge the oil and gas cap, for example, in the courts. Under Section 92(a) of the Constitution Act, provinces have exclusive jurisdiction over their natural resources and power generation.
I was often asked, “But hasn’t the Supreme Court already decided all this?”
Keep in mind that the Carbon Tax Reference case was argued on the very narrow issue of national standards of price stringency on emissions—and the Supreme Court was very clear that the federal government would not have free rein to regulate the environment and/or specific provincial industries whenever it feels like it. The Justices emphasized that the federal Peace Order and Good Government (POGG) power was an exceptional one, which should be resorted to only in extraordinary cases—not any set of regulations that comes along.
They also expressed concern that the Carbon Tax and other regulations risked picking industrial winners and losers and targeting certain areas of the country.
’Guess they were right about that one!
In terms of future legal strategy, there is also the John Major school of thought. The former Supreme Court Chief Justice has floated the idea that, rather than taking the federal government to court to challenge legislation that a province considers to be unconstitutional, “The onus should be reversed, and the federal government should have to bring the matter before the court.”
I was always partial to that approach. “What’s so terrible,” Major wrote, “about a province saying that if you want to impose that on us, you’d better be sure that you’re doing it constitutionally?”
That’s not “lawless”—it’s lawfully fighting for your constitutional rights.
Most provinces will likely opt to wait for the anticipated Conservative win in the next federal election—which, by the time constitutional actions make their way through the courts, may not be a bad tactic.
In the meantime, however, it remains deeply concerning that as the Liberals go down, they’re doubling down on their ideological anti-energy vendetta. That Guilbeault has the ear of the PMO ‘center’ is a disaster for both the Liberals and the country. His ‘green slush fund’ discredits every single, federal green economy initiative on the books.
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“You shouldn’t fight the Feds”
While there were plenty of folks in urban Stonebridge who told me at the doors that the SaskParty’s strong position against the federal government was the major reason why they supported us—and, if anything, that we should fight back harder—there were some who took a different view.
“Justin Trudeau may be the worst prime minister ever,” one voter said, “but you guys have to get along better with the feds.”
This obliging, ‘be nice’ mantra has always frustrated me—and I would politely say so. For one thing, we have tried to get along.
I had cordial relations with several federal ministers, particularly Seamus O’Regan and David Lametti. But what can one do when the feds repeatedly impose harmful, top-down, unconstitutional policies without warning, consultation, fairly-shared data, or basic costing? How does standing up for our economy make us the ones being uncooperative?
And why, I would ask, should only Quebec have the ability to defend itself against encroachment/stealth on everything from federal caribou regulations to care home policy? Whether that province agrees ideologically with a federal policy or not, its default position is to fight for provincial rights every time.
Finally, the great irony re the environment is that Saskatchewan has substantially lowered emissions already. Since 2019, the provincial energy sector has reduced GHGs from venting and flaring at oil facilities by 64 per cent below 2015 levels. This includes a 70 per cent reduction in methane emissions, as part of a provincial methane reduction plan, which was approved by the feds. In fact, on this achievement, we were Twitter-congratulated by Steven Guilbault himself.
Every single, sometimes-protracted conversation on federal-provincial relations issue was, and remains, worth it.
Because clearly, the fight to protect our economy should be everyone’s fight.
Bronwyn Eyre is the former Saskatchewan Minister of Justice and Attorney General and of Energy and Resources.
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