Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has launched a new campaign to counteract an incoming cap on emissions. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Canadian Press, CHAT News Staff

Alberta government launches $7M ad campaign against incoming federal emissions cap

Oct 15, 2024 | 2:47 PM

Alberta’s government has launched a national ad campaign targeting the federal government’s incoming emissions cap for the oil and gas sector.

Premier Danielle Smith says it’s a de facto production cap that would kill jobs and stifle the economy.

The province’s $7-million “Scrap the Cap” campaign also says the federal regulations expected later this year would make groceries, gas and all of life’s necessities even more expensive.

“Once again, Ottawa is attempting to set policies that are shortsighted and reckless,” said Smith, who also serves as MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat.

“We’re challenging proposed policy that would stifle our energy industry, kill jobs and ruin economies by launching a national campaign that tells Ottawa to ‘Scrap the Cap’,” she added.

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“We’re telling the federal government to forget this reckless and extreme idea and get behind Alberta’s leadership by investing in real solutions that cut emissions, not Canada’s prosperity.”

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said Smith was more focused on influencing an upcoming federal election than problem-solving for Albertans.

“The conservative government here in Alberta should have sat down with the federal government and explained to them that in Alberta we already have an emissions cap,” Nenshi said in a released statement.

“It was put in under Rachel Notley and the province kept it under Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith because it was good public policy. It encourages innovation and it helps the energy industry be better.”

Instead, Nenshi said, Smith spent money on advertising across Alberta and other provinces that forces the federal Liberal government into a “view that is bad for Alberta.”

“We’re now going to have an emissions cap that may well restrict our ability to increase production going forward,” he said.

“You don’t fix that by spending $7 million on advertising in other provinces. You fix it by going to the table. But once again, we have a government who would rather fight than win. An Alberta New Democrat government just wants to win for all Albertans.”

Smith’s campaign included a large ad in Medicine Hat’s local newspaper.

Medicine Hat NDP organizer Gwendoline Dirk called the advertising “shameful” in a post to social media.

University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe said he believes the emissions cap is bad policy, but the argument that it would drive up gas, and therefore grocery, prices is a weak one.

Tombe says gasoline prices would not go up as a result of the cap because they are largely determined by taxes, retail markups and margins, and global oil prices.

He says it also isn’t necessarily a production cap if the sector is able to achieve emission reductions, as some industry groups have promised.

Smith says her government plans to make Alberta carbon neutral by 2050, as opposed to Ottawa’s target of 2035.