NET ZERO

Both the NDP and UCP have lost the plot on energy

Do you remember when getting your monthly heat and electric bill didn’t feel like getting a kick in the teeth? Those were the good old days.

With runaway inflation driving up the cost of everything, and a provincial election set for this week, politicians are scrambling to shift blame.

While the NDP are blaming the greedy corporations, and the UCP are blaming Trudeau, neither is offering a real alternative. In fact, when you drill down into each party’s climate change plan, both are promising to make the rising cost of heat and electricity worse for every Alberta family for decades to come.

The latest campaign trail debate between the parties centres around when each would seek to force Alberta’s electric grid to Net Zero emissions. The NDP has set an arbitrary date of 2035 to align with Trudeau’s rhetoric. The UCP, meanwhile, has set the arbitrary date of 2050, to align with the Paris Accord’s rhetoric.

Virtually every industry expert agrees that the Trudeau/Notley plan is unworkable in the real world. Replacing the two-thirds of Alberta’s electricity that is currently produced from natural gas and coal in just over a decade is impossible. It takes much longer to design, approve, and build new generation of any type.

There is just one problem for the governing party – its plan is just as foolhardy.

According to the UCP, in order to meet its 2050 goal, electrical generators will have to spend $ 92.2 billion between 2021 and 2041. That’s an average of $4.6 billion per year. Whether those costs are hidden in the form of higher electricity rates, electricity delivery charges, or taxpayer-funded corporate welfare, I think we all know who will ultimately be stuck with the bill: You and your family. By comparison, the relatively tiny income tax cut proposed by the UCP comes nowhere close to covering these outrageous costs.

For the past four years, when it comes to fighting Trudeau and protecting Albertans from the insanity of global climate treaties, the UCP has been saying one thing and doing another.

When first formed in 2017, the UCP pledged to protect coal communities from the NDP’s accelerated coal phase-out. It did the opposite. In fact, the government recently bragged about hoping to end coal-fired generation in 2023, “seven years ahead of provincial and federal targets.”

While the UCP has been vocal about blaming Trudeau for higher energy costs, it has quietly aligned its policies with federal policies.

For example, both Trudeau and the UCP are currently aiming to force our economy to net zero emissions by 2050. Under the UCP’s Emissions Reduction and Energy Development Plan, released April 19th, the government plans to cut 75 to 80 percent of methane emissions from the conventional oil and gas sector by 2030, and will even explore lowering the hard emissions cap on Alberta’s oilsands.

While the UCP demonizes the federal carbon tax, it has directly linked its TIER industrial carbon tax to federal levels, increasing from $65 per tonne in 2023 to $170 per tonne in 2030.

Meanwhile, Alberta’s global competitors have no interest in playing this Net Zero 2050 game. China, the most populous country on the planet, has no national carbon tax. Neither does the United States. India, the most populous democracy in the world, has a $1 per tonne carbon tax and only a vague promise of Net Zero by 2070.

So, yes, the UCP is right to point out that the NDP’s Net Zero electric grid promise costs more than the UCP plan; at least $45 billion more, to be exact. But the fact is, both plans will make Alberta uncompetitive in the global economy, both plans will kill jobs, and both plans will leave Alberta families paying thousands more every year.

Instead of debating the best way to meet arbitrary objectives set by foreign interests, Albertans deserve leadership focused on helping our province reach its full potential.

Emissions reduction virtue signaling won’t keep the lights on. It won’t help heat our homes or feed our families.

We need a real alternative.