From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy 

By Marco Navarro-Genie

It’s about politics and provinces are right to refuse to play along

Federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s leaked admission that Ottawa’s firearms buyback is unenforceable was no slip. It exposed the way federal power is deployed for partisan gain while provinces are left to pay the bill.

The leak matters because it exposes a pattern, not an exception. Ottawa drafts policies to suit its politics and expects provinces to carry the weight. Police budgets, university research chairs, hospital systems and housing markets are treated as levers to be pulled from Ottawa. The effects are felt locally, but the decisions are made elsewhere.

Consider the pattern. The Online Harms Act, rejected more than once, is introduced yet again, as if repetition can substitute for consent. Health care dollars are tied to federal strings that reorder provincial systems with no regard for local capacity. Immigration quotas climb at a pace provinces cannot house or school. Environmental rules descend without negotiation, upending years of co-operative planning. Each measure arrives as an edict. Consultation is reduced to announcement.

Resistance has already begun. Saskatchewan moved early, adopting legislation that makes any federal confiscation program subject to provincial authority, including RCMP operations. In Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith has gone further, declaring flatly: “We will not allow police in Alberta to confiscate previously legal firearms. I have directed two of my ministers to relentlessly defend Albertans’ right to lawful and safe possession of firearms and the right to self-defence.”

Even before the introduction of the Sovereignty Act, Tyler Shandro, then Alberta’s justice minister, announced that the province would not use its police or prosecutors to carry out confiscations. Although former premier Jason Kenney opposed a Sovereignty Act, his government likewise refused to act as Ottawa’s enforcer.

Alberta and Saskatchewan have since given themselves legislative tools, Sovereignty Acts, which assert the right of provinces to decline enforcement of federal laws they judge unconstitutional. These statutes formalize existing constitutional powers. Provinces without Sovereignty Acts have also drawn lines. Ontario has signalled its refusal to help enforce Ottawa’s firearms program.

These positions are lawful, rooted in the Constitution’s division of powers, which assigns the administration of justice and policing to the provinces.

This clarity ought to attract others. Manitoba, with one of the highest proportions of licensed hunters in the country, has strong reason to resist Ottawa’s targeting of lawful gun owners. Communities are not made safer by seizing deer rifles from responsible hunters, nor are public services improved by diverting scarce provincial resources into a program that federal ministers concede will not work. Manitoba would do well to follow Alberta and Saskatchewan in defending its jurisdiction, whether through a Sovereignty Act or by refusing to play Ottawa’s game.

The point is practical. Prairie provinces cannot spare rural detachments to seize hunters’ rifles because the Liberal caucus fears losing seats in Montreal. They cannot put their power grids at risk to meet Ottawa’s timelines while households absorb higher bills. Universities cannot be turned into federal policy pilot projects. Provinces exist to govern their own communities, not to absorb the fallout of federal experiments.

The genius of federalism lies in the division of authority, which encourages compromise and minimizes tyrannical imposition. Ottawa governs in its sphere, provinces in theirs. Where the two overlap, cooperation must be negotiated, not imposed. Sovereignty Acts sharpen that principle. They remind Ottawa that partnership is earned, not dictated.

What Anandasangaree’s admission exposed was not only the cynicism of one firearms program. It revealed a method of governing: federal power deployed for partisan gain, with provinces reduced to instruments. That cannot endure. Canada was never meant to be a chain of command. It was built as a contract—one that requires respect for provincial authority.

Provinces that refuse to carry out Ottawa’s politically motivated projects are not weakening Canada; they are enforcing its terms.

Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and co-author, with Barry Cooper, of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023). 

In northeast B.C., about 75 kilometres from Fort St. John, Halfway River First Nation sits in the heart of the Montney, one of North America’s largest natural gas plays. Photo courtesy Halfway River First Nation

From the Canadian Energy Centre 

By Will Gibson

Greg Kist has seen plenty of change during more than three decades working in the energy industry. But the former executive with Petronas and Progress Energy has rarely experienced a history-making moment.

That happened in July 2024, when the B.C. government awarded the Halfway River First Nation what’s known as oil and gas tenure in the heart of the Montney play.

It’s an agreement that grants the Nation decision-making authority over the exploration and development of petroleum and natural gas resources on more than 34,000 hectares of Crown land in its traditional territory, located approximately 1,000 kilometres northeast of downtown Vancouver.

That agreement is now moving further into action with a deal between Halfway River-owned Tsaa Dunne Za Energy (TDZE) and ARC Resources.

Members of the Halfway River First Nation participate in a field tour with the BC Energy Regulator in June 2025. Photo courtesy BCER

The agreement, signed earlier this year, will see TDZE work with Calgary-based ARC to develop about 25 per cent of the tenured land.

The region is adjacent to ARC’s existing Attachie natural gas operations, which are rich in high-value natural gas liquids.

The company describes Attachie as one of its most profitable assets, which can be expanded thanks to the TDZE agreement.

“This land was deferred from development for more than two decades while sitting in the premier natural gas play in North America,” says Kist, one of TDZE’s managing executives.

“Unlocking it will generate all kinds of economic activity and royalties for the B.C. government that help pay for schools and health care. But it will also generate the same benefits for the Halfway River First Nation.”

ARC plans to integrate the new areas using existing roads, pipelines and other infrastructure from Attachie.

Developing the land will still require consultation with the Halfway River First Nation.

Drilling in the Montney play straddles the border between northeast B.C. and northwest Alberta. Photo courtesy ARC Resources

“This is very much about Tsaa Dunne Za Energy delivering the best return on this particular asset for its shareholders, which are the members of the Halfway River First Nation,” Kist says.

In addition to granting tenure to develop oil and gas on the land, the B.C. government and Halfway River have implemented a landscape planning pilot to mitigate the impacts of development on the Nation’s Treaty 8 rights and manage potential cumulative effects of new development.

“The tenure award and landscape planning pilot will help to ensure that oil and gas development in these areas is sustainable and managed in accordance with the values of the Halfway River First Nation,” Chief Darlene Hunter said in a statement.

Kist sees the agreement as a template for other governments, energy companies and First Nations to follow.

“This has the potential to be the model for cooperative development so that we can develop resources in the right way that benefits governments, First Nations and industry. I’m proud to be a part of this because everybody involved wins from this.”