Connect with us

Alberta

The Alberta Sovereignty “Within A United Canada” Act has been introduced

Published

3 minute read

Defending Albertans from Ottawa overreach

Alberta’s government has introduced proposed legislation to fight federal laws or policies that negatively affect Alberta’s interests.

If passed, the government will use the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act to stand up to federal government overreach and interference in areas of provincial jurisdiction, including in the areas of private property, natural resources, agriculture, firearms, regulation of the economy and delivery of heath, education and other social programs.

“Albertans are proud Canadians, and we love our nation dearly. The Canadian Constitution is clear that the federal and provincial governments are equals, each with our own areas of exclusive jurisdiction. The Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act will be used as a constitutional shield to protect Albertans from federal overreach that is costing Alberta’s economy billions of dollars each year in lost investment and is costing Alberta families untold jobs and opportunities.”

Danielle Smith, Premier

“Alberta’s government will use the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act to push back on federal legislation and policy that is unconstitutional or harmful to our province, our people and our economic prosperity. It is time to draw a line in the sand, as Albertans rightfully expect the federal government to respect the federal-provincial division of powers.”

Tyler Shandro, Minister of Justice

If passed, the act will give Alberta a legislative framework to formally defend its provincial jurisdiction while fully respecting Indigenous and treaty rights, Canada’s Constitution and the courts.

Importantly, the act will not compel any private citizen or business to violate federal law, nor does this legislation involve anything related to separation from Canada.

In addition, Premier Danielle Smith has tasked her ministers with preparing a number of special resolutions under this proposed act for the spring legislative session to push back on several federal laws and policies that seek to:

  • Regulate and control Alberta’s natural resources and economic development (i.e., Bill C-69).
  • Penalize the province’s energy and agricultural sectors, including implementation of mandatory fertilizer cuts and arbitrary emissions reductions that would devastate Alberta’s economy.
  • Control the delivery of health care, education and other social programs with strings-attached funding.
  • Confiscate legally owned firearms.
  • Interfere with the private property or charter rights of Albertans.
  • Violate other sovereign areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.

Additional information regarding the act is online at alberta.ca/StandUp, as well as in this question and answer document.

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

Follow Author

Alberta

Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

Published on

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’

Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.

Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.

That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.

“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.

Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.

In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.

According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.

The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.

For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.

“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.

“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”

As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.

“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.

Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.

“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.

“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

Continue Reading

Alberta

Alberta Next: Taxation

Published on

A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.

Continue Reading

Trending

X