What's really behind Alberta's 'scrap the cap' ads?

Alberta’s $7-million ad campaign, railing against a proposed federal industrial emissions cap, comes just weeks before a leadership review for Premier Danielle Smith whose party members are hungry for conflict with Ottawa.

Alberta’s $7-million ad campaign, railing against a proposed federal industrial emissions cap, comes just weeks before a leadership review for Premier Danielle Smith whose party members are hungry for conflict with Ottawa.

The cap, which will rein in rising oil and gas sector emissions, is one of the federal Liberals’ key climate policies to lower Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions which cause global heating. Political analysts say they were not surprised by the timing of Alberta’s latest salvo.

“Everything that's happening coming out of the Smith government right now is focused on the upcoming leadership review,” Lisa Young, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, told Canada’s National Observer in a phone interview on Oct. 17.

“One of the things that's very important to parts of the UCP (United Conservative Party) base is that the Alberta government is standing up to Ottawa,” Young said. “The range of opinions within the party goes from wanting to have a highly conflictual relationship with the federal government to outright separatism.”

A handful of policy resolutions up for debate at the UCP’s annual general meeting on Nov. 1 and 2, illustrate this anti-federal sentiment.

One states that the province should “continue to distance itself from the federal government in as many facets as possible,” and another proposes to model a new federal agreement on the Quebec-Canada Accord to give Alberta more control over immigration.

Another calls for “continued vigorous opposition to the federal carbon tax while supporting our federal Conservative Party efforts to ‘Axe the Tax’.”