Clean Electricity Bully: Alberta Fakes a Crisis to Pick a Fight with Ottawa

All of us remember the schoolyard bully from grade school. Too many of us still carry the scars, mental and physical, years and decades later.

Now, if you’re working on the energy transition, emission reductions, and climate justice in Canada, you’re up against a schoolyard bully every day.

Back then, even if we were never in that bully’s direct line of sight, we knew their deal. They were only happy when they were fighting. They wouldn’t take yes for an answer because the fight, not the resolution, was their goal and their purpose. So if anyone came up with an answer to their ridiculous demands, they would just tilt the rules and keep on fighting.

The only thing that made them happier was when they could recruit some other kid in the yard to do their dirty work. Or do their homework for them.

That’s the dangerous game Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is playing with the electricity grid her province depends on, and the federal Clean Electricity Regulations we’re all counting on to help slash Canada’s climate pollution. I have no idea how Smith treated people when she was in school. But if she was a good kid then, she’s making up for it now.

And if this bully doesn’t get her way, she won’t stop at taking down the Alberta grid. At least at the level of political optics, she’s threatening to take down the whole country.

Get the rest of this opinion piece here.