According to a study by The Guardian, the world’s top 100 oil and gas companies collected more than $30-million every hour in “unearned” profit during the first month of the Iran war, and stand to make “$230-billion by the end of the year if the price of oil continues to average $100.” That’s a pretty big “if”—but it does put an eye-watering number on the potential windfall for companies in 2026 compared to anticipated profits before the war started. And it’s why people began talking about a “windfall tax” on the companies.

“As the owners of the resource, Albertans should get the lion’s share of those profits,” wrote Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan in the first week of the war. “And the way to do that is to introduce a windfall profits tax on top of the royalties that oil companies pay in exchange for the right to exploit publicly owned assets.”

This wasn’t a sudden revelation but rather part of McGowan’s long-standing argument that Alberta must increase oil and gas royalty rates. And he’s not alone. A long list of prominent economists have been saying the same thing for years—and they doubled down as the Iran war dragged on into April. “Taxing windfall profits won’t worsen inflation; it will recapture unearned gains from corporations and resource owners and can be used to protect vulnerable populations,” declared a group of economists led by Nobel-prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz.

It all sounds straightforward. Indeed, about 25 countries had already introduced a windfall tax well before Donald Trump’s misadventure in Iran. And Alberta does have a sliding scale for oil sands royalty rates, where they increase relative to the price of oil. But this isn’t enough for critics such as McGowan.

Oil companies are suddenly awash in windfall profits—while we’re paying near-record prices for gas.

Oil companies are pushing back, arguing windfall taxes discourage investment. They quote University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe, who in 2022 said in an interview that “having a government just enact an ad hoc tax out of nowhere based on just whatever they think the rate should be—that’s problematic because it creates uncertainty.”

We also bump up against the “symmetry argument,” in which oil companies, facing a windfall tax from governments during boom times, could then demand some sort of “calamity compensation” from governments when oil prices collapse—as they did during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To save ourselves from jumping on the never-ending merry-go-round of arguments for and against a windfall profits tax, let’s just ask one short question: Would a windfall tax ever fly in Alberta The even shorter answer: No.

That’s not just because Alberta is governed by the fossil-fuel champion Danielle Smith. A windfall tax is part of a political suicide trifecta, along with raising royalty rates and introducing a provincial sales tax. The provincial NDP has also shied away from the trifecta. After campaigning in 2015 on implementing “competitive, realistic royalty rates as prices rise,” NDP leader Rachel Notley then performed a whiplash-inducing policy shift upon becoming premier. She went through the motions of a royalty review, then concluded the rates under previous Progressive Conservative governments were suddenly okay.

At the time, an irate McGowan complained that the NDP government was committing a “profound political mistake.” McGowan vowed to continue the battle for higher royalties, a fight that now extends to a windfall tax.

The public appetite for higher royalties comes and goes in direct relation to the world price of oil. When it’s over US$100 a barrel, Albertans practically march on the legislature, demanding a bigger share of energy revenues. When the price drops, so does the appetite. We felt the hunger pangs return last spring, watching our wallets drain as our tanks filled. In that context a tax on skyrocketing oil profits looked pretty good.

But even if there were a windfall profits tax, how would you, as an inflation-pummelled Albertan, benefit Alberta governments in the past have tended to spend windfall revenue to avoid making hard political decisions. The nadir of that unofficial policy came in 2006, with “Ralph Bucks.” Premier Klein, trying to boost his flagging popularity, gave a $400 “prosperity” cheque to pretty much everyone in the province. A lot of Albertans were happy. Like McGowan today, they saw it as a just counterbalance to high oil prices.

But there was no long-term plan, no saving for a rainy day; just a cheap political stunt. You could still argue a windfall tax is a good idea—but you can’t deny that Alberta has a poor track record of dealing with windfall revenues in the past.

Graham Thomson is an Edmonton-based political commentator who has covered Alberta politics since the early Don Getty era.

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Acquah, who bought a 2024 Tesla Model Y, shares a frustration many owners of electric vehicles (EVs) in Alberta feel: they live in one of only two provinces in the country—the other is Saskatchewan—in which you’re taxed for simply owning a zero-emissions vehicle.

It’s not so much the existence of the tax that annoys Acquah and other EV owners. Instead, they say it’s a symptom of a larger anti-electric-car attitude in Alberta’s UCP government, which is actively stifling local EV adoption. The effort is marked by heated rhetoric by conservatives who see the vehicles as part of a Liberal anti-oil conspiracy. Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, for example, once claimed an EV sales mandate would be akin to “banning the rural way of life.” Danielle Smith called federal EV adoption targets “environmental extremism.”

But if the UCP is hostile to EVs, they’re swimming against a global tide. One in four new cars sold around the world in 2025 were electric. Some 20 million EVs were sold globally that year. In China fully half of new cars are EVs. Alberta lags far behind not only that rate but even other Canadian provinces. BC has 195,000 registered EVs on the road, for example, nearly 10 times Alberta’s meagre total of 20,000.

EVs remain polarizing in Alberta, says Andrew Batiuk, president of the Electric Vehicle Association of Alberta (EVAA), where they pit environmentalists and tech fans against supporters of oil and gas who perceive a threat to the province’s economy. As the naysayers see it, the more EVs there are, the less fossil fuel that gets burned. And that’s a sore spot for Albertans who rely on oil and gas for their livelihoods. That’s partly why the province aggressively opposed the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard—the so-called EV sales mandate—that Justin Trudeau’s government introduced in December 2023 to reduce air pollution and fight climate change. Prime Minister Mark Carney has since cancelled the mandate.

Opponents aren’t wrong that the cars reduce the world’s demand for oil. It’s estimated that EVs already displace somewhere between 1.3 and 1.8 million barrels per day of oil consumption. That’s a fraction of the over 100 million barrels of oil currently being burned daily. Nonetheless, the trend has been noticed in the oil industry, which provides 144,000 jobs in Alberta. It also threatens a government that relies on that industry. Alberta is projecting $13.2-billion in non-renewable resource revenues in 2026/2027, 18 per cent of its total revenue.

All of this biases our government against EVs. Premier Smith has even gone so far as to aggressively promote the production of so-called blue hydrogen from natural gas for use in hydrogen-powered vehicles. Across the world, sales of these rivals to EVs are faltering. The cars are virtually absent from Alberta. The province’s only public hydrogen refuelling station, at Blackjacks Roadhouse in Nisku, which Smith’s government helped fund, closed down permanently in early 2025.

The economic impact of oil and gas gives the industry an outsized influence on provincial policy. Charges Daniel Breton, president of Electric Mobility Canada: “I see the premier of Alberta more or less as a puppet of the oil and gas industry, and her government as well.”

But for all of this hostility, EVs may yet prevail—even in Alberta.

Anti-EV campaigners often draw on outdated anecdotes and at times deliberate misinformation. One favourite claim is that EVs—with their multiple battery packs—are worse for the environment than gas-powered vehicles. Initially, an EV does indeed have a higher carbon footprint, Batiuk says. Making the batteries is energy intensive and requires rare-earth minerals. But the gap with gas-powered vehicles evens out within one to two years of ownership, depending on distance driven. After that, the carbon footprint of an EV becomes substantially smaller, especially since Alberta has converted its electricity generation from primarily coal-fired plants to natural gas, solar and wind.

The EVs-are-worse argument has been debunked by no less than the Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose website announces: “FACT: Electric vehicles typically have a smaller carbon footprint than gasoline cars, even when accounting for the electricity used for charging, plus they are far more efficient when it comes to energy use.”

Other biases are almost comical. Angie Dean, president of the Tesla Owners Club of Alberta, says someone once asked her if it was OK to wash her electric car.

Ironically, the people who make and sell EVs don’t always help. “Misinformation is a huge problem, even when it comes to car manufacturers,” says Electric Mobility’s Breton. He argues some manufacturers are “spreading crap” about EVs—even their own models—because they don’t particularly want to build the vehicles, or are frustrated by “unrealistic” government EV sales mandates. The “green halo” effect of having an EV in, say, Ford’s lineup might be good for the company’s marketing image. But EVs are costlier to make, and many, such as the F-150 Lightning, are sold at a loss. (Ford recently announced it is ending production of the truck.)

Anti-EV campaigners often draw on outdated anecdotes and deliberate misinformation.

Dealers sometimes discourage buyers from choosing EVs. Doug Green, dealer principal of High Country Chevrolet Buick GMC in High River, says he invested $250,000 in equipment upgrades at the dealership to service EVs at the urging of GM, but he has sold only three of the vehicles, at a net loss of $10,000. “I was so happy to be rid of those,” he says. He also paid $6,000 to ship three additional unsold EVs to dealers in Quebec. Green says one customer in town bought a Blazer EV, only to discover she’d have to shell out $3,000 to install curbside charging from her duplex, which doesn’t have a garage. “She was unprepared,” Green said. Meanwhile, he says, the only public EV-charging station in town was out of commission. Chargers have since been added at the Ford and Chrysler dealerships.

Angie Dean wasn’t surprised to hear of the GMC dealer’s attitude. “I’ve heard so many stories from people who have gone into car dealerships and been excited about an electric car and [are told], ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me show you this gas car here.’”

And then there’s the myth that EVs don’t work in cold weather. Green claims an electric SUV with a rated 500-km range is really only capable of travelling 300 km, because you shouldn’t fully charge the battery. And, he contends, it will suffer dramatic power losses in the cold. “If you drive in the wintertime, and you put winter tires on, then it’s going to go in half,” he says. “If it’s cold out, then it’s going to go in half again, and if there’s snow then it’s going to go in half again.”

Dean scoffs at Green’s doomerism. She said her Tesla Model Y might lose 40 per cent of its range when the temperature hits minus 40, but that’s “extremely uncommon.” In Calgary’s more typical winter temperatures, she says she sees an estimated 15–20 per cent loss of range. Yet some people just don’t believe her. She recalls an incident in February 2025 when she parked at a local Home Depot. “This guy walks up to me and says, ‘You know those things don’t work here in the winter.’ And I was, like, I’m right here! Do you think I just pushed the car here?”

Dean’s experience reflects research by Recurrent, a US-based organization that tracks EV performance. The study, conducted during the winter of 2025–26, analyzed data from more than 30,000 vehicles across 34 models from 13 automakers. Although performance varied by make, the study found that EVs maintain on average around 80 per cent of their rated range in freezing conditions.

Meanwhile an underreported fact is that gas-powered cars are likewise less efficient in colder weather. The EPA estimates that a drop in temperature from 24°C to 7°C can increase gas consumption by 12–28 per cent. And EVs actually start more reliably than gas cars do in the winter, because they aren’t affected by cold-sensitive oil and have no sparkplugs, which are especially susceptible to low temperatures.

Even when people appeal to facts to disparage EVs, their assertions are often only half true. The UCP government claims, for example, that electric vehicles do more damage to roads than gas-powered cars do, because they’re heavier. An EV does tend to weigh more than its internal combustion engine equivalent—perhaps 10–15 per cent more. But as Breton notes, EVs are lighter than the giant pickup trucks so common in Alberta, and the province isn’t levying a special tax on pickups. “Alberta and Saskatchewan are both taxing EVs under some dubious excuse,” Breton says. “It has a lot more to do with politics than facts.”

Horner, the Alberta finance minister, also justified the $200 tax when he introduced it in February 2025 as a way to offset revenue lost by drivers who don’t buy gasoline or diesel, which is taxed by the province. But Breton questions why the flat rate is disproportionately high. Albertans, on average, drive 15,200 km per year, consuming 1,216 litres of fuel in a typical mid-sized vehicle. Under the province’s current fuel tax of 13 cents per litre, that would translate into $158 in road taxes—21 per cent less than what EV owners must fork over. Says the EVAA’s Andrew Batiuk: “It seems punitive.”

In an emailed statement, Horner claims the tax is “fair” and states: “Alberta’s tax on electric vehicles is in line with what drivers of a typical internal combustion engine vehicle pay in fuel tax annually.” EV proponents find such stonewalling typical. Batiuk says his organization just can’t get the ear of government: “We don’t have much of a relationship with them.”

And if Alberta’s government were truly interested in a full accounting of the costs and benefits of EVs vs. traditional vehicles, it would consider other facts. Pollution from gas- and diesel-fuelled cars and trucks is killing people. A March 2022 federal report analyzed data from 2015 and found that 1,200 Canadians, including 82 Albertans, died prematurely that year from the effects of pollution from cars and trucks. Another 2.7 million people suffered from acute respiratory symptoms. Breton argues considerations such as marginally higher EV weight need to be weighed against the $9.5-billion annual health cost to Canadians from gas-powered vehicle pollution.

Horner’s statement dismissed pollution and health concerns. “Alberta has some of the cleanest air in Canada and the world, and that isn’t changing,” it read. “Our transportation emissions have declined 12 per cent since 2015 and will keep falling.”

But the main barrier to EV adoption in this province isn’t special punitive taxes, uninterested EV dealers or disinformation. Alberta drivers won’t fully embrace EVs until there are enough public chargers available across the province to ease so-called “range anxiety”—the fear that one’s car battery will deplete far from home. Similarly, the extent of the local charging network affects whether or not we will attract EV-driving tourists from places like BC, says Danielle Wiess, director of transportation initiatives at the Fernie-based Community Energy Association. “EV drivers go where they can charge.”

But the UCP government is offering no help to expand Alberta’s charging network. The province had 429 EV charging stations in December 2025. That’s just 6 per cent of the 7,000 chargers found in BC, which has 5.7 million residents versus Alberta’s five million.

In 2020 the Community Energy Association managed the Peaks to Prairies charging network, which connected communities from Canmore to Medicine Hat and south to the US border. Working with local municipalities, ATCO installed 20 direct-current fast-charging sites across southern Alberta. The $1.2-million contribution from the then-NDP government was the last time Alberta has funded any EV charging infrastructure, says Wiess.

Charging one’s EV at home also remains a vexing problem for Alberta’s renters and condo dwellers. Provincial building codes don’t require EV charging capacity to be added to new multi-unit residential buildings—condos and high-rise apartments. “We’re still building condos and apartments without charging infrastructure considered,” says the EVAA’s Batiuk. “At [a single-family] home, you can plug in an EV. But when you live in a condo or apartment, you don’t have the option to charge at home. Selling that person an EV is a more difficult task.”

The situation is even more challenging in rural areas that lack the fast EV chargers found in the Peaks to Prairies network. “If I have a boat to pull to a lake, and I pull it to Little Bow Provincial Park, there’s no chargers down there,” says Green, the GMC dealer.

Under a joint federal/municipal program, incentives cover up to nearly half the cost of installing chargers at businesses, condos, Indigenous communities, public facilities and not-for-profit organizations. But remote communities that install such infrastructure can encounter sticker shock just to keep their chargers operating. In December 2025 a City of Cold Lake committee reported that it would need to quadruple the rate the city offers at its city-owned EV charger. Wiess says Level 3 (also known as DC fast) chargers incur high demand costs if they’re used infrequently.

Alberta is also at odds with provinces that have created incentives to purchase EVs. BC offered rebates of $4,000 to buyers of electric vehicles but scrapped the program in May 2025 under budget pressure. Before the program ended, zero-emission vehicles accounted for almost one in four new vehicles sold in BC. In 2025 BC registered almost as many EVs in just its fourth quarter as Alberta’s overall number of EVs. (Alberta and Newfoundland are the only provinces that don’t provide Statistics Canada with data on new EV registrations. They only report total registered EVs.) Quebec, with a population of nine million, has even bigger incentives than BC did, and registered 82,700 EVs in 2025.

The feds announced in January they will allow 49,000 Chinese EVs into Canada. Previously tariffs made these prohibitive.

The ingrained resistance to EVs in Alberta manifests in some of the most unlikely places. Batiuk discovered that the owners of Ol’ MacDonald’s Resort and Campground, on Buffalo Lake about an hour northeast of Red Deer, imposed a $60/night EV surcharge in 2024. A notice on the resort’s website stated its “electricity etiquette” rule is “a small price to pay to ensure the fair and sustainable use of these shared resources.” (The Alberta Motor Association reports that the typical cost to charge an EV in Alberta ranges from free—at roughly half of Calgary’s public charging stations—to $15 at fast-charging sites such as those in the Peaks to Prairies network.)

Messages left at the resort for listed owner Jean MacDonald were not returned. “We [also] tried to talk to them,” says Batiuk, “and they weren’t interested in talking to us.”

But EV advocates such as Batiuk, Dean and Breton believe EVs will eventually prevail—including in Alberta. The federal government recently committed $1.5-billion to expand Canada’s public EV charging network, so essential to driving the vehicles any distance, especially rurally. Mark Carney’s government also announced in January 2026 that it will allow 49,000 Chinese EVs into the country at a nominal 6.1 per cent tariff rate. Previously a 100 per cent tariff had made the cost of these cars prohibitive. Even premier Smith had called for Carney to drop the tariff and let Chinese EVs in—if only because she hoped it would enable Albertans to sell more canola and pork in China.

Major Chinese manufacturers such as Chery and Geely are preparing to enter the Canadian market. BYD, which in 2025 surpassed Tesla to become the world’s largest EV maker, plans to open 20 dealerships in Canada, first in Toronto, then in Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.

Those Chinese EVs may comprise just a fraction of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada each year. But more significantly, federal EV incentives are being restored. Sales of EVs across Canada dropped by nearly one-third last year as provincial and federal incentives ended. In February of this year Carney introduced a new, $2.3-billion, five-year program that offers individuals or businesses up to $5,000 to purchase various types of EVs. At the time, the prime minister predicted EVs will reach 75 per cent market share in Canada by 2035 and 90 per cent by 2040.

By the time the federal incentives end in five years, Breton says, they may be unnecessary. This is a point on which EV advocate Breton and EV skeptic Green agree. “I’m not asking for special treatment,” says Breton. “Just don’t stand in the way of progress.” “I’m always interested in change,” says Green. “Just let the free market decide.”

Dean, a planner with the City of Calgary, says she sees beyond the personal benefits of driving an EV. She believes she’s helping future generations, and every effort counts. Someone once told her, “Your one electric car isn’t going to do anything,” she says. “And I replied, ‘But it’s what I can do. If I can do something, I’m going to do it.’ ”

Doug Firby has over four decades of experience in newspapers, including at the Calgary Herald. He’s now president of Troy Media.

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Wright is far from alone in feeling the impact of a high price of electricity. Over the past three years Albertans have suffered a wild ride. Just eight years ago the price reached an historic low of 2.88 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). Since then, the transient retail price of electricity—the price you pay if you don’t have a contract with an electricity retailer—has skyrocketed. By December 2022 it peaked at 12 times the 2017 rate: 37.46 cents/kWh.

No other province in Canada has seen such dizzying swings. And Albertans can pay high rates even when others don’t. Jim Wachowich, an Edmonton lawyer specializing in public utility regulation and a spokesman for the independent Consumers’ Coalition of Alberta (CCA), notes that while Alberta’s wholesale electricity price surged to 24.3 cents/kWh at its peak in late 2022, for example, its neighbour Saskatchewan’s sat at 12.2 cents. Other provinces were even lower.

A typical Alberta home consumes about 900 kWh of electricity each month. That means the average monthly cost of electricity in this province was as low as $29.92 in 2017 (all prices are before administration and delivery charges). It reached a high of $337.17 in late 2022.

This year the transient rate has averaged 12.01 cents/kWh. The provincial government calls this price the “Rate of Last Resort.” About one-quarter of Albertan power users pay this rate, because they don’t have (and often don’t qualify for) a contract with an electricity retailer. Contract prices have lately been 6–9 cents/kWh, depending on the retailer and length of term.

Alberta’s price turmoil has triggered a debate on the wisdom of the provincial government’s decision 24 years ago to invite private companies to compete in an unregulated market, the only one of its kind in Canada. Critics say the price shocks and supply insecurity that have occurred here since then prove deregulation and privatization were failures. Advocates of deregulation, however, say there’s no going back; that restoring a large public power-generating authority, like Alberta had in the past and like most other provinces continue to have, has too many downsides.

The price of electricity in Alberta has skyrocketed. No other province has seen such dizzying swings.

There’s no question Albertans have been paying more for power than people in other provinces. In a November 2024 study for the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), Edgardo Sepulveda, a telecommunications and electricity economist, calculated that since 2001 Albertans have paid about $24-billion more for their electricity than if they had paid the same prices as other Canadians.

We’ve also experienced critical supply gaps. The system has at times been dangerously unreliable. On two days in January 2024, the Alberta Emergency Management Agency issued an alert that our grid was at “high risk” of rotating power outages as a result of extreme cold, high demand and less access to power from other provinces. It urged consumers to immediately limit their electricity use to essential needs only. Supply also fell short. The privately owned H.R. Milner power plant near Grande Cache was producing around one-tenth to one-quarter of its 300-megawatt capacity, and Alberta experienced a near-total lack of wind and solar generation.

Such supply crises were apparently unforeseen when then-premier Ralph Klein set the stage for deregulation way back in 1996. His government created a competitive market for power generation, then fully deregulated pricing in 2001. Klein believed deregulation would attract more power-generating companies to the province. That, in turn, would increase competition, driving down prices for consumers and making Alberta more attractive to business.

“It was an ideological leap of faith,” Sepulveda tells me in an interview. “They (the Klein government) believed the state could do no good. And the grifters latched on to that.”

The grifters, he says, included Enron, the now bankrupt US-based utility that found a way to manipulate and profit from Alberta’s power purchase agreements, a mechanism that was put in place ostensibly to protect electricity consumers.

Klein’s government divided the electricity sector into four parts: generation, transmission, distribution and retail. Generation is now basically completely deregulated, transmission and distribution almost fully regulated and retail is a mix of the two. (That’s why today your utility bill reflects charges for each.) But the massive influx of investment promised by deregulation never came, leaving the market concentrated in the hands of a few large players. “They said there would be lower prices and increased reliability,” says Sepulveda. “That promise did not deliver.”

Deregulation has fallen short of its promise. Could reregulation get us out of this mess Sepulveda believes so, and he lays out a path in his AFL report.

His plan has two key components: reregulation of the market and a gradual increase in public ownership of generating capacity. A new public power company would compete on price and service with private generators. Reregulation could be done fairly quickly—in a year or two, in Sepulveda’s view, since the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC, a regulator overseen by but independent of the provincial government) already exists. But increasing the public share of power generation could take years if not decades. That’s because Sepulveda recommends buying power plants and “wires”—the distribution network—only when they come up for sale, not forcing private companies to sell assets to the province.

From time to time generating facilities do come up for sale. For example, Edmonton-based Epcor, Canada’s first public electrical utility when it was formed in 1902, spun off its generating arm, Capital Power, in 2009. It was bought by private investors. A public power utility could have bought it instead, had such an entity existed, Sepulveda says. The same is true for Heartland Generation Ltd., Alberta’s third-largest power-generating company. In December 2024 it was sold to TransAlta Corp., the province’s largest generator, which further reduced competition. The sale left just 9 per cent of Alberta’s generating capacity in public hands—Calgary-based Enmax serves about 700,000 customers, mostly in the province’s south.

A new Alberta power authority could also be the exclusive holder of new capacity, gradually growing its share of power generation over decades. This, says Sepulveda, is exactly what BC Hydro is doing.

Albertans have been paying more for our electricity—since 2001, about $24-billion more than other Canadians.

The price spiral is not entirely the Alberta government’s fault. One of the biggest hits came from Alberta’s phase-out of cheap coal generation, a change mandated in 2012 by the federal government of Stephen Harper. While phasing out coal was an important environmental move, most of the remaining power generators were vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of natural gas. In 2001 coal-fired generators had accounted for as much as 80 per cent of the electricity on the province’s grid, but the last coal-fired plant closed in June 2024. The conversion also cost the provincial government an estimated $2-billion, according to Nathan Neudorf, the UCP government’s affordability and utilities minister.

But natural gas price fluctuations became a handy excuse for private electricity generators to jack up power prices, Sepulveda charges. Although Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia also rely heavily on natural gas for power generation, rates there increased about 20 per cent. Alberta’s private operators, Sepulveda says, have never been made to explain why their price increases are so much higher than those other provinces’. “Commercial operators don’t have to make excuses,” he says.

And private-sector opportunism isn’t the only cause of soaring electricity prices. Government decisions on power generation have limited Alberta’s resistance to price spikes. With vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas, the province never took advantage of its hydroelectric power potential—a fuel-free source of electricity. Today just 3–5 per cent of Alberta’s electrical power is sourced from hydro, while 85 per cent of its power comes from fossil fuels. Almost all of the electricity generated in Manitoba, Quebec, BC and Newfoundland and Labrador, by comparison, comes from hydro. It’s an opportunity lost, because, according to a 2010 estimate prepared for the AUC, Alberta has an estimated 42,000 gigawatt-hours per year of developable hydroelectric energy potential, enough to power 5.8 million homes. But to develop those sites now would take decades, face regulatory challenges and environmental concerns, and cost billions.

The biggest impediment to price stability and reliability, however, is the way the province has taken away the incentive for private generators to build more capacity. When Alberta opened its doors to private electricity, it created an “energy market.” In simple terms, this means generators are paid only for the electricity they produce and sell into the market. They aren’t paid, Sepulveda points out, for having more capacity than is needed. This differs from many publicly owned generators in other provinces, which operate in a “capacity market.” There, publicly owned generators are given a fair rate of return not only for the power they produce but also for making sure a little extra capacity is on hand should a crisis—e.g., Alberta’s January 2024 cold snap—arise.

The risk with energy markets is obvious, says Sepulveda: “Companies aren’t paid to be reliable.” They aren’t incentivized to create surplus power. The market governs when private firms decide to build more capacity, leaving the risk of supply at times running dangerously low—and of prices shooting through the roof.

Private generators also engage in a practice called “economic withholding,” explains Nagwan Al-Guneid, the NDP opposition’s energy critic. Those companies hold back some of their supply, offering it at a higher price. She says government efforts to limit economic withholding, introduced in 2024, have been only partially successful.

Sepulveda’s ideas face plenty of skeptics who dismiss the notion that publicly owned and regulated electricity generation would make life more affordable.

“I think it would be a crazy idea,” says Nigel Bankes, professor emeritus of law at the University of Calgary, who has worked in electricity regulation. The generation of power, Bankes argues, “is not a natural monopoly.” In other words, the more producers competing with each other, the better.

With a public utility, he says, “you lose all the benefits of the market: there’s no innovation and competition. Over time they settle into a fixed way of doing business,” and that leads to a “fossilized” approach. Look at BC Hydro, Bankes says. “It took them forever to look at small hydro options. Why All they thought of was building big stuff. It took them forever to take wind seriously. Why Because it wasn’t in their wheelhouse. They didn’t do wind.”

Although Bankes acknowledges the wide-open generation market has faults, he says these can be resolved through better design. “You don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” he says. Price fluctuations aren’t even all bad, he argues, because high prices spur investment in new infrastructure. “You’re naturally going to see some of this spiking anyway,” he says. “Without the spikes, [companies] wouldn’t build.”

With dozens of companies in Alberta’s generation and distribution game, reregulation would be like trying to close the barn door after the livestock has already bolted, says CCA spokesman Wachowich. “OK, it’s possible. We can get those horses back in the barn. But isn’t it better to just optimize the existing system?”

Sepulveda says he’s disappointed the ideas in his report haven’t yet gained more traction. Even Al-Guneid admits she hasn’t read the report: “I scanned it awhile back. I don’t remember every detail.”

Was the province wise to invite private companies to compete in an unregulated market, the only one of its kind in Canada?

The skeptics claim Sepulveda’s recommendations overlook how much more complex the system has become. “You just can’t fathom the complexity of the system today,” Wachowich says. A lot has changed since deregulation, including higher costs driven by stricter safety regulations, input costs beyond government’s control, longer waits for essential equipment, and supply chain issues. “It’s not like the good old days,” he says. “You’d have to become an expert in all these costs.”

Affordability and utilities minister Neudorf wasn’t available for an interview, but he sent a statement saying Alberta’s open and competitive electricity market has attracted “roughly $40-billion in new power generation projects, including $6-billion currently in development, entirely through private investment—not taxpayer dollars.” He noted that Alberta “is the only province free from debt on power generation.” We consumers may be paying much higher power bills, in other words, but our government doesn’t need to finance the construction of new power plants.

Demand for more electricity in Alberta seems relentless. Society is moving toward what Wachowich calls “the electrification of everything.” The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO, a non-profit responsible for operating our grid and prohibited from owning any generation or transmission itself) estimates demand will grow by 1.2 per cent annually over the next 20 years as Alberta soars past five million people, industry grows, more people use air conditioning (thanks to a warming climate) and more electric vehicles hit the road.

The province also aims to attract $100-billion worth of artificial intelligence data centres over the next five years—facilities that gobble massive amounts of electricity.

Sepulveda says such demand growth will trigger more price increases—shocks that a publicly owned generator could help ease. He says deregulation’s expensive 24-year history proves his point. “This (study) was showing whether or not that promise of innovation, lower prices, better reliability was actually achieved in practice,” he says. “And the answer is no.”

Faith in the private sector runs deep in Alberta. “People will not be persuaded, regardless of the evidence that’s put in front of them… that this an inferior system by any metric,” Sepulveda says. As far as he’s concerned, “To this day, no one has refuted [my report].”

Sure, Alberta’s electricity prices have been volatile, says Blake Shaffer, associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary, where he conducts research on electricity markets. But the fixed rates of 6–9 cents/kWh currently available through the province’s retailers are “pretty reasonable.”

That’s only now, however, and only for a portion of Albertans. Many low-income Albertans can’t get a fixed-rate contract because they don’t have a good enough credit rating, Sepulveda says. And during those all-too-frequent times when all Albertans are paying too much for electricity, “marginalized residents are paying [even] higher prices.”

Al-Guneid says the government could help protect the most vulnerable consumers from price spikes by overcoming the credit-check barrier, perhaps by underwriting the risk of default.

Shaffer agrees with Bankes that periods of high prices have stimulated rapid growth in capacity, notably in renewables, where capacity has doubled in Alberta since deregulation. The province has since throttled that growth, however, through strict new limits on where wind and solar can be located. Conventional supply has also increased by 3,500 megawatts through Suncor’s cogeneration facility in Fort McMurray and Capital Power’s expansion of its Genesee generating station.

Shaffer favours staying with Alberta’s deregulated model, with adjustments to meet the rapidly evolving market landscape. To better assure supply, for example, he suggests signing long-term contracts with built-in supply obligations.

For her part, however, Wright, the retired homeowner, is just looking for a way to stay in her half-duplex. “I can manage it because I don’t have a mortgage to pay,” she says. “But [utility bills] keep going up.… I can remember when electricity was a provincial government entity. The people and the province should own it. We should build it and not give it away to private companies.”

Doug Firby was editorial pages editor at the Calgary Herald (2001–2008) and taught journalism at the post-secondary level.

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Aly Hyder Ali says YES

Program Manager, Oil and Gas, at Environmental Defence

Canada is running out of time to meet its climate goals, and the biggest obstacle standing in the way is unchecked pollution from the oil and gas industry. Despite being responsible for nearly a third of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), the oil and gas industry has made little effort to meaningfully reduce its carbon footprint. While other sectors have reduced theirs, oil and gas emissions have risen by roughly 80 per cent since 1990. The solution is clear: Canada needs a strong, enforceable emissions cap on the oil and gas industry—one that ensures real reductions, not more delay.

The global energy transition is accelerating. According to the International Energy Agency, demand for oil and gas will peak this decade, then decline. Other countries are ramping up investments in renewables, electric vehicles and clean technology. If Canada continues to lean on an emissions-intensive, high-cost, fossil-based economy, we’ll be left behind. An emissions cap would send a clear message that we’re serious about transitioning to a clean, future-ready economy. It would drive innovation, create opportunities in renewable energy and reduce the risk of stranded assets.

But this isn’t just about future markets; it’s about protecting Canadians right now. Pollution from fossil fuels is linked to thousands of deaths each year and contributes to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Communities near oil and gas facilities face higher risks of exposure to toxic pollutants. Wildfires, droughts and floods—driven by rising temperatures—have become a costly reality across Canada. Cutting oil and gas emissions is a direct investment in public health and safety.

Then there’s the climate responsibility. Canada can’t meet its GHG emissions reduction targets without addressing its largest source of pollution: the oil and gas industry. Voluntary measures from the sector have been largely non-existent. Companies have spent millions of dollars to talk a good game, but data tells us a different story. Investments in decarbonization remain a fraction of what’s needed, while capital spending continues to expand fossil fuel operations. Meanwhile, oil and gas companies in Canada are actively lobbying against climate regulations, all while recording massive profits.

A cap isn’t about punishing the oil and gas industry. It’s about fairness and responsibility and building the kind of nation we want to be. We need to invest in a healthier, sustainable future, not cling to outdated, polluting systems that benefit the few at the cost of the many. Every sector must do its part. Canadian households are already adapting to reduce their carbon footprint. It’s time Canada’s biggest polluters followed suit to help build a stronger, cleaner and more equitable country.

We can’t afford more delays. This is a pivotal moment for climate leadership and for real nation-building. For the health of our economy, our environment and future generations, it is time to make the emissions cap a reality.

heather exner-pirot says no

Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Director of Natural Resources, Energy and Environment

Greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change, and it’s in our self-interest to reduce them. By doing so we would also improve air and water quality. I’m for reducing emissions. But the question is whether Canada should cap oil and gas emissions. I say no, and the main reason is that oil and gas isn’t under Canada’s jurisdiction; it’s under Alberta’s.

Section 92A(1) of the Constitution Act affirms that provinces have the “exclusive” ability to make laws for the “development, conservation and management” of non-renewable natural resources. This was tested with the Supreme Court’s October 2023 ruling in Reference re: Impact Assessment Act. The majority identified that the federal government’s broad scope of “effects within federal jurisdiction” under the IAA would allow them to deny projects solely based on their GHG emissions. They determined that this eroded the balance inherent in the Canadian federal state and was unconstitutional.

Indeed, Alberta has already exercised its jurisdiction on this issue and does have a cap on its oil sands emissions. It passed legislation in 2017, under the Notley government, and limits total oil sands emissions to 100 megatonnes (MT) annually. Currently the oil sands emit about 80.1 MT, and there is no foreseeable future where they would exceed that cap. Emissions intensity—the amount of CO₂e per barrel produced—has declined in the oil sands for six straight years.

So, Canada has no jurisdiction to cap oil and gas emissions, and Alberta has already capped its oil sands emissions. This should be the end of the debate. It’s not, however, because the federal government has expressed its intention to impose an emissions cap on Canadian oil and gas and has proposed draft regulations to that effect. These would be a disaster on every front: economically, politically, legally and technically.

It would be hard to imagine a more expensive or divisive policy. The regulations are a relic of Trudeau-era ideology rejected in the 2025 election. They wouldn’t just cut emissions but would cut production too: of oil sands oil, conventional oil, natural gas and liquids such as propane. They would result in less investment, fewer jobs, a diminishment of royalties and corporate taxes, no new LNG terminals, no new pipelines, no Atlantic offshore development and no new export markets. Just the threat of them has already harmed the economy.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer determined that the cost of the emissions cap to Canada’s GDP would be $20.5-billion by 2032 and that the cap would cut 7.1 megatonnes of GHGs. That’s an implied carbon price of $2,887 per tonne. Prime minister Mark Carney “axed” the consumer carbon tax of $80 per tonne. If our goal is to cut emissions, it could be done more cheaply by means other than an oil and gas emissions cap.

Canadians want to build infrastructure, grow the economy and diversify trade. No policy threatens this more than the proposed emissions cap does. It needs to be quashed, for good.

Aly Hyder Ali responds to Heather Exner-Pirot

Heather Exner-Pirot argues that Canada should not cap oil and gas emissions, citing constitutional overreach, economic harm and lack of necessity. But closer scrutiny shows these claims don’t hold. The oil and gas sector is Canada’s largest source of climate pollution, its voluntary emissions reduction methods have failed, and a federal cap is both legally justified and economically necessary.

Exner-Pirot references provincial powers under Section 92A of the Constitution and the 2023 Impact Assessment case. But this misrepresents the scope of federal powers. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that the federal government has authority over matters of “national concern.” GHG emissions are transboundary pollutants, which means that what Alberta emits affects Quebec, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. The 2021 Supreme Court reference case on carbon pricing explicitly upheld Ottawa’s right to regulate GHG emissions, calling this a national concern. A federal cap on oil and gas emissions targets pollution, not resource extraction, making it constitutional.

Yes, the oil and gas industry has made some progress in reducing emissions intensity. But total oil and gas emissions continue to be Canada’s largest source of climate pollution. Since 2005 oil and gas emissions have increased significantly, even as other sectors have shrunk theirs.

Exner-Pirot also foresees job losses and GDP decline under an oil and gas emissions cap. But global markets are already shifting: the International Energy Agency projects global demand for fossil fuels will peak this decade. Supporting fossil fuel expansion is bad for the environment and economically irresponsible. Conversely, clean energy investments are surging worldwide.

She also highlights the cost per tonne of reductions but ignores the massive economic and health damages tied to climate inaction. Climate disasters are increasingly expensive: 2024 was the costliest year for severe-weather-related insurance losses in Canadian history, at over $8-billion. And this is only expected to get worse, as 2025 is already our second-worst wildfire season ever. Furthermore, the Canadian Climate Institute estimates that climate impacts will reduce Canada’s GDP by $25-billion starting this year. The damage will only spread if we ignore climate change.

Oil and gas is Canada’s largest source of climate pollution, and voluntary emissions reduction methods have failed.

The health costs too are staggering. Air pollution from fossil fuels causes an estimated 34,000 premature deaths annually in Canada, with direct economic and societal consequences. Additionally, a recent study published in the journal Science shows that air pollution from the Athabasca oil sands may be up to 6,300 per cent higher than industry-reported figures. This pollution would rival all other human-made sources in Canada combined, and it raises dire health concerns for nearby communities.

The harms of oil and gas emissions aren’t evenly distributed. Air pollution disproportionally affects communities—particularly Indigenous, racialized and low-income—that are closest to industrial sites or lack resources to protect themselves. Indigenous communities near the oil sands face higher rates of cancer and respiratory illnesses linked to industrial emissions.

A cap is not an extra burden. It’s risk mitigation and protection for public health and the economy.

Exner-Pirot says an oil and gas emissions cap would be divisive. But depending solely on households and small businesses to shoulder Canada’s emissions-mitigation burden while oil and gas companies continue to pump out vast amounts of pollution with no accountability is inequitable. Rather than divisive, an oil and gas emissions cap would share responsibility fairly. It would ensure that industry’s operations align with national and international climate goals. If industry were to support a cap, they would show they’re serious about reducing emissions. This would send clear signals to investors, workers and communities that a smooth, fair transition is possible—rather than a chaotic collapse.

Exner-Pirot calls a cap unconstitutional, economically damaging and unnecessary. But constitutionality is established by a Supreme Court ruling. An early transition is far more economically prudent than clinging to fossil-fuel dependence, as renewables offer stronger long-term returns and avoid risk of stranding assets. Emissions data contradict the promise of voluntary emissions reduction from the oil and gas industry. And the health and environmental costs of delay are crippling, with climate disasters and pollution already exacting a heavy toll.

Canada promised in 2021 to cap oil and gas emissions. Fulfilling that commitment is not about ideology but about survival. Implementing an enforceable federal cap is about safeguarding our climate, economy and communities. It is time to deliver on that promise.

Heather Exner-Pirot responds to Aly Hyder Ali

What’s the case for capping oil and gas emissions According to Aly Hyder Ali, it boils down to some tried and true environmentalist warnings: we can’t meet our Paris Agreement commitments without a cap; companies won’t reduce emissions without a cap; and we’ll be left behind in the energy transition if we don’t do it.

I’ll grant him that our efforts to meet the Paris goal are all but certain to fail. That doesn’t preoccupy me much. For those people who still prioritize that goal, however, I reiterate it could be achieved at less cost to the Canadian economy than through imposing an emissions cap.

Hyder Ali argues that “the oil and gas industry has made little effort to meaningfully reduce its carbon footprint” and that “emissions have risen by roughly 80 per cent since 1990.” The first point is demonstrably false, and the second is a red herring.

Emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector peaked in 2015, even though we’ve added over a million and a half barrels of production since then. How was this accomplished Through industry’s sincere efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, including through methane capture, electrification and efficiency measures.

Emissions intensity per barrel in Canada has decreased by over one-third since 2000. This kind of achievement takes significant human, physical and financial capital, and yet it is totally dismissed.

It’s unfair for Hyder Ali to point to 1990 as a benchmark year. Emissions rose sharply between then and the early 2010s because a couple hundred billion dollars of investment in the oil sands came to fruition and production grew dramatically. But ever since 2015—the year of the Paris Agreement—we have seen a decoupling between production growth and emissions. We know that the oil sands can meaningfully reduce GHGs.

Not only does the federal government not have the jurisdiction to enforce a cap, it doesn’t have the mandate.

The argument that Canada will be “left behind” unless we turn to greener alternatives is rarely substantiated. The main markets for our oil, led by the US, do not pay a premium for lower-carbon products. And our LNG is already some of the least GHG-intense in the world.

We can plainly see Europe’s economic trajectory as it has tried to decarbonize its energy and offshore its industrial activity. This isn’t a path to emulate. Today most of the world isn’t ramping up its energy transition but rather plateauing—or, in the case of the USA, retreating. Bans on offshore drilling and fracking in New Zealand and Mexico have been reversed. Canada would be an outlier if it didn’t recalibrate some of its own expensive climate measures.

At any rate, there’s no reason to believe that a supportive environment for oil and gas production detracts from investments in renewables, electric vehicles and clean tech. Quite the opposite: the revenues generated from a healthy oil and gas sector allow governments and corporations to invest in such technology. Starving the industry of capital and growth with a cap would inevitably result in it spending less on decarbonization, not more.

But my main criticism of Hyder Ali’s argument and those like it is they remain in the abstract, indifferent to the trade-offs involved. These are emotional and ideological appeals. They fail on the details. They’re impracticable. When the federal government proposed draft regulations and modelled the costs of an emissions cap, it was a hot mess. The assumptions made no sense, unintended consequences weren’t accounted for, the costing wasn’t logical and there were inherent contradictions.

How would a cap work with Alberta’s existing industrial carbon pricing and emissions trading system and comparable frameworks in BC, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland How can the energy sector meet ambitious targets without limiting production How can operators plan without knowing their exact compliance obligations We don’t know.

The proposed cap is emblematic of a policy approach that has put Canada’s unrealistic Paris commitment at the top of a hierarchy, with every other policy issue subordinate. This isn’t what Canadians want. We’re preoccupied with housing, the high cost of living, Trump’s threat to our economy. Prime minister Mark Carney ran on a promise to make Canada an energy superpower with the strongest economy in the G7. Paris and the 2030 commitment weren’t even mentioned in his platform. Nor was an emissions cap. Not only does his government not have the jurisdiction to enforce an emissions cap, it doesn’t have the mandate.

We all want a healthy environment alongside a strong economy. We all want world-class environmental, social and governance standards. But it’s manifestly not in our interest to regulate our oil and gas to the point where production is so uncompetitive that other jurisdictions, likely higher-emitting ones, take up our market share. That’s the choice: produce oil and gas in Canada or let someone else—likely not a democracy or an ally—produce it instead. Hyder Ali is arguing for the latter.

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I’d been told to arrive early, in case either side tried to pack the house. The day was skillet-hot and a considerable swath of western Canada was on fire. Nonetheless a long line of folks was already forming. News coverage put the crowd at 500, wearing “cowboy hats, belt buckles and jeans.” Pardon me, but that’s a Yellowstone fantasy. It wasn’t a rodeo. People came in assorted attire. I got a seat near the front. Soon it was standing room only. Someone said the fire code had been reached.

The speakers—a UCP “A-Team”—took the stage: premier Danielle Smith, Brian Jean, Rebecca Schulz, RJ Sigurdson and local MLA (and moderator) Chelsae Petrovic. During intros I became aware that, for perhaps the first time in my life, I was at a political event where “my side” was in the majority.

The speakers began their spiels on mining, particularly the disputed Grassy Mountain project. They gave their takes on the Oldman River: whether selenium from coal was a risk to fish and people. All swirled to the conclusion that mining was fine. They claimed to have looked at every aspect, to have read peer-reviewed this and peer-reviewed that. They admitted to a few challenges but were still pro-mining. Often mentioned were the terrible, onerous mega-lawsuits threatened by Aussie coal moguls, who’d received promises and wanted their investment back with interest, plus billions more for inconvenience. Gina Rinehart et al. should be allowed to continue to moil for Crowsnest coal, lest we be sued into oblivion.

Sitting there, I mused that the advent of democracy might have been like this: shouting, fists shaking, wild.

Then the booing, hissing and shouts began. In response to the most dubious statements, small signs shot up: “Lie.” Liar.” “Betrayal.” It got loud. At times very loud. Your humble correspondent confesses he didn’t attempt journalistic neutrality. I had my own signs. I did a bit of shouting.

At times it got thunderous—and what a good feeling for a person who has listened to long miles of speeches about the essential harmless goodness of Alberta’s extractive industries. Having grown up a few hundred metres downwind of an “experimental” sour gas plant—from which my family often ran for their lives—I was exhilarated to hear folks of all kinds criticizing the provincial government at volume.

The illustrious panel began exhibiting signs of ire and discomfort. They might never before have faced a room so largely in disagreement with them. The pro-coal part of the crowd wasn’t cowed. They’re Albertans too, staunch and tough. They clapped and cheered when they felt their side had scored. But Anti-Coal had the numbers.

Sitting there, I mused that the advent of democracy might have been like this. At school we were shown square-bearded Athenian men in white tunics walking calmly to this or that side of the room, voting with their feet. But maybe it wasn’t like that. Maybe it was like this: shouting, fists shaking, wild. In any case I felt democracy had finally come to my place, and I was there to see it. Your humble scribe.

At one point Jean jumped to his feet and leapt into the crowd, like a rockstar, to give a guy his business card. Jean was roaring like a bull. Basically, he was saying: I’m everything to everyone! I snowmobile. My relatives are First Nations! Don’t tell me I don’t know about the environment. I’m from the oil sands! (I’m still confused by that one. I’ve screwed up landscapes bigger than this…?)

A favourite point by the government speakers was that the selenium problem is over-amped. Not a problem, really. These assertions got the loudest boos. This is one subject I have researched thoroughly. A recent study of the coal dust blowing from a mine in BC into Alberta’s Crowsnest Lake (from which a branch of the Oldman descends) found selenium in excess of what’s safe for fish. Some of the netted fish had deformed spines and gills. The crowd, which can also read studies, would not sit there quietly and be told that selenium in lakes and rivers is safe. Nor could they be told science was on top of the problem.

Ultimately, it came down to premier Smith. She spoke last and answered many questions from the audience. I must admit she’s good at remaining dignified and cool. Her body language said: You won’t rout me!

Some in the crowd seemed disgusted at both sides. The rude audience offended their sense of decorum. I won’t apologize, but I understand their point. Southern Albertans believe in manners. In our defence, we’ve been ignored and legislated against and polluted and lied to. Whatever we registered on the Rudeness Scale was a result of being smirked at and imperiously brushed off—not just that night but for decades.

To quote Joe Flaherty and John Candy playing hillbillies on SCTV: “It blew up real good!”

Fred Stenson’s many books include the novels Who By Fire, The Trade, Lightning and The Great Karoo.

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Plastics are everywhere. Microplastics—tiny particles of plastic less than five millimetres long—have been found near the top of Mount Everest. A deep-sea submersible descended to the deepest point in the oceans, in the Mariana Trench, and found a plastic bag. Scientists found phthalates—chemicals used to increase the flexibility of some plastics—embedded in the skin of ants in remote parts of the Amazon rainforest. In Antarctica, an icy, unpopulated continent, 97 per cent of birds were found to have ingested microplastics—primarily common plastics such as polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene. Microplastics were similarly found in the blood of 77 per cent of people tested by scientists in the Netherlands. So, it would be no surprise to find such particles in the North Saskatchewan River.

But getting a clean sample wasn’t easy. To avoid polluting 1,500-litre samples of river water, the researchers designed and built a pump out of stainless steel, with no plastic at all. Then they worried about other things that contain and shed tiny bits of plastic, such as their clothes and lifejackets. “When we started sampling,” said Bryksa, “we would have to stand downriver [from the pump] because that lifejacket is contaminating the sample.” Studying plastic pollution would be easier, they joked, if their lifejackets were made of concrete.

Left: In August 1955 a LIFE magazine article ran with the then-celebratory but now vaguely sinister title “Throwaway Living.”
Right: Kwabena Akese, Accra, Ghana, 2020. In Canada only 9–12 per cent of plastics are recycled. Most of the rest goes to landfills.

Unless you were born before 1907, when the first synthetic plastic was invented, everyone alive today has been born and raised in the age of plastic. Forget the generational divides—Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha—we’re all part of the same era, an age marked by the increasing abundance of often useful and convenient plastic stuff and the growing amount of plastic waste found everywhere on earth.

The scale of plastic production today is mind-boggling. In 1950 all countries around the globe together produced 1.5 million tonnes of the stuff. In 2025, globally, over 500 million tonnes of new “virgin” plastics are now created every year. Much of it is disposable—50 per cent of virgin plastic is turned into single-use items meant to be thrown away—and little of it is recycled. In Canada, depending on who’s making the calculations, only 9 to 12 per cent of plastics are recycled. Of the rest, the vast majority of the over three million tonnes a year that’s tossed out goes to landfills. Some 4 per cent is burned in incinerators and 1 per cent of plastic in Canada is lost into the environment as litter.

Figuring out how to keep the good things about plastic while limiting the downsides is one of the great conundrums of our time. In Alberta a variety of organizations think they have a solution to that problem. These groups range from the government of Alberta to recycling and chemical industry associations to NAIT polytechnic—where the sampling for microplastics study is part of a 10-year, $10-million program called Plastics Research in Action (PRIA). The NAIT program—funded by energy company Inter Pipeline—began in 2020, according to informational material, “with a single focus: finding ways for society to reuse and recycle plastic waste as valuable commodities. In short, PRIA is on a mission to build a sustainable circular economy.” The Alberta government has a similar goal in its “Natural Gas Vision and Strategy,” released in 2020, promoting a “plastics circular economy,” which they define as “when the full value of a plastic product is used across multiple lifecycles, not just used once and then discarded.”

Alberta’s plan is to reduce plastic waste while growing the plastics industry. “The future is bright, and it is circular,” said Leduc-Beaumont MLA Brandon Lunty (UCP) at the start of the third annual Alberta Circular Plastics Day at NAIT in March 2025. It sounds laudable. But you might ask: to what extent is a plastics circular economy for real?

Undeniably plastic has benefits. “This looks promising,” wrote Leo Baekeland, with prophetic understatement in his laboratory notebook after inventing the first synthetic plastic in 1907. His product—Bakelite—could be heated and moulded into various shapes such as radios, telephones, toys and other mass-produced goods. Its inventor made a fortune. But Bakelite had flaws. Made from chemical compounds teased from wood alcohol and coal tar, it was brittle and couldn’t absorb bright colours. New varieties of plastics were soon invented, and today 99 per cent of plastics are derived from oil and gas, including hydrocarbons such as ethane and propane.

The plan for our “circular economy” is to reduce plastic waste while growing the plastics industry.

In simple terms, “plastic”—from the Greek plastikos, meaning mouldable—is a synthetic polymer. A polymer is a chain of molecules—hence the “poly” (“many”) in long tongue-tripping names such as polyethylene and polypropylene. Plastics can be hard or flexible, depending on chemical structure and additives. But in its various forms, plastic is lightweight, durable and insoluble. It’s also relatively cheap to make in large volumes.

That’s handy for all kinds of products. Bottles, bags and clingwrap, for instance, are made from polyethylene. So too is the most common type of polyester. Coffee pods, straws and microwavable dishes are made from polypropylene. Cutlery and take-out cup lids can be made of polystyrene. Most vinyl siding on houses is polyvinyl chloride. The list of products that contain plastic today is almost endless. Bike helmets. Cell phones. Seatbelts, airbags and dashboards in automobiles. Medical equipment is now mostly made of plastic, not least because it’s hypoallergenic and it’s easier—think syringes—to ensure the sterility of a single-use product in a hospital.

Proponents of plastic can be extravagant in their praise. “In many instances, plastics are the solution to the climate change problem,” said Bob Masterson, president and CEO of Chemistry Industry Association Canada, to a committee of MPs in 2019. “That includes lightweight, high-strength plastic composites in the automotive sector, improved insulation in the building sector, enormous quantities of plastic resins that are vital to the production of renewable energy from wind turbines and solar panels, as well as the very important role of plastic packaging in reducing food waste.” The shelf life of zucchini, the MPs were told—with a helpful info sheet from the Flexible Packaging Association—is extended from one day to five days when stored in plastic packaging. Ground beef is extended from three days to 20. Grapes allegedly remain edible for 70 days instead of seven.

Plastics also benefit the economy. In 2020 Alberta’s petrochemical sector was valued at $12-billion. That’s but a portion of the $35-billion the sector generates in Canada as a whole and a tiny sliver of the US$712-billion global plastics market. Alberta has vast supplies of oil and gas—including ethane and propane—and global demand for plastics is growing. According to the International Energy Agency, “petrochemicals are set to account for more than a third of the growth in world oil demand to 2030, and nearly half the growth to 2050.” Given this economic projection, the provincial government wants to produce more plastic in Alberta. Goal number one in the “Natural Gas Vision and Strategy,” for instance, is “for Alberta to become a global top 10 producer of petrochemicals” and “to grow this sector by more than $30-billion by 2030.”

Government subsidies, under both the NDP and the UCP, have boosted the sector toward that goal. In 2019 the federal Liberal government gave $49-million to Inter Pipeline to both “invest in efforts to reduce plastic waste” and to build a polypropylene plant—the first in Canada—just northeast of Edmonton. In 2021 the province, through the Alberta Petrochemical Incentive Program (APIP), granted $408-million to Inter Pipeline to help build the Heartland Petrochemical Complex. Completed in 2023, that $4.3-billion plant now turns Alberta propane into 525,000 tonnes of pea-sized plastic pellets a year—mostly for export to the US.

Similarly, the APIP is granting about $1.8-billion to Dow Chemical’s Path2Zero project near Fort Saskatchewan. Construction began in 2024 on the plant, which will turn ethane into plastic polyethylene pellets for export, primarily to Asia. It’s the first such facility to be considered “net zero,” in part because it will burn hydrogen and bury CO₂ nearby—reducing emissions lower than if it were built without those elements. The federal government is giving the “green plastic” project $400-million in investment tax credits. In late November 2023 premier Danielle Smith and then-federal finance minister Chrystia Freeland stood together in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland to announce that the $11.6-billion project had official approval to be built. “This project is the embodiment of the future of Canada,” said Freeland, “which is we have a growing economy, we have more great-paying jobs, and at the same time we’re reducing pollution.”

To date, the history of dealing with plastic waste has largely been a tale of failure. The latest flop was in December 2024 when about 175 UN countries held talks in South Korea to establish a legally binding global treaty to cut plastic pollution. It ended without an agreement.

It’s not as if the stakes were unknown. Plastic doesn’t dissolve. That’s great for storing water in bottles, for instance, but not ideal if you factor in that plastic bottles take somewhere between 400 and 1,000 years to fully break down. Some one million plastic bottles are bought every minute on earth. Add in other kinds of plastic, and it’s estimated that a truckload of insoluble plastic escapes into the environment every minute—much of it into the ocean, most famously in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” which includes 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic floating in an ocean area twice the size of Texas. But plastic also breaks down locally into minuscule pieces. “It is widely agreed upon that smaller particles can enter the bloodstream and organs more easily than bigger particles,” says a 2022 article in the Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters.

The potential health risks are reason for caution. “Plastics are made out of the combination of thousands of chemicals,” said Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, the lead author of a research article on plastic pollution released prior to the treaty talks in Korea. “Many of them, such as endocrine disruptors and forever chemicals, pose toxicity and harm to ecosystems and human health.” That alarm was echoed in an Environment and Climate Change Canada news release, also just before the talks: “The scale of this problem has reached a boiling point that requires urgent action,” said the feds, “with plastic pollution projected to grow by 2.5 times by 2040.”

In Canada the urgency around plastic waste had grown since January 1, 2018, when China stopped importing almost all used plastics for recycling. Previously Canada had exported most recyclable plastic—including what’s thrown in blue bins—to China and other Asian countries. The cost of dealing with all that waste hit fast. In 2019 the City of Calgary, for instance, spent $330,000 to store 2,000 tonnes of plastic clamshells, hoping to find a way to recycle them, then eventually dumped them—about 92 semi-trailer loads—into the landfill.

Alberta and the federal government soon fought over how to deal with plastic waste. Both sides, curiously, drew inspiration from the same document. That 2019 report by Deloitte, which the feds had commissioned, pointed out that in Canada we overwhelmingly produce, buy and use virgin plastics that are thrown away with little recycling. But plastic waste, said Deloitte, is “a lost opportunity.” If Canada recycled 90 per cent of plastics—moving from a “linear” to a “zero plastic waste” economy—the benefits could include thousands of new jobs and lower greenhouse gas emissions. It wouldn’t be easy—under the status quo only 25 per cent of discarded plastic is collected for recycling. Most plastic packaging, textiles, auto parts and electrical and electronic equipment end up as waste. But with better waste collection, bigger recycling plants, new incentives and innovation, the ambitious promise could be realized. Alberta and the feds agreed on the gist of all that. But on one point they sharply diverged.

In 2019 an all-party committee of MPs, convened after the Deloitte report, recommended “that the federal government commit to banning single-use plastic products—such as straws, bags, cutlery, cups, cigarette filters and polystyrene packaging.” The feds subsequently banned some of those single-use items such as plastic straws and plastic grocery bags. In response, a consortium of plastics companies, including Dow Chemical and Calgary’s Nova Chemicals, sued the feds. Alberta was an intervener in the case in support of the petrochemical companies. In 2023 the Federal Court of Canada ruled that the federal government’s labelling of some plastics as a “toxic substance” was jurisdictional overreach. The feds appealed, and the Single-Use Plastics Prohibition Regulations remain in force while the appeal is in court.

Constitutional matters aside, the fight comes down to one question: Should there be limits on plastic production The UCP government says no. A ban on plastics would be a “serious threat” to the petrochemical industry, said then-premier Jason Kenney in 2022. Environment minister Rebecca Schulz added to that dissent in April 2024. “The federal government would be better served by taking a page out of Alberta’s plan, which diverts plastics from landfills and turns used plastics into new products,” she said. “This is the promise of Alberta’s plan to create a plastics circular economy, a modern miracle in which, through chemistry, we can have all of life’s conveniences and necessities while protecting our environment and reducing plastic waste.”

The third annual Alberta Circular Plastics Day—organized by the Alberta Plastics Recycling Association (APRA)—was held in March 2025 in the sprawling and light-filled Productivity and Innovation Centre at NAIT. Among the attendees—described by Tammy Schwass, the executive director of APRA, as “about 200 people from across the plastics value chain in the province”—were representatives from Dow, Nova and Inter Pipeline, reps from recycling companies, reps from companies selling new products made with recycled plastic, instructors from NAIT, and groups such as the Recycling Council of Alberta, which in 2024 officially switched their mandate from “supporting the recycling value chain” to “advancing the circular economy.”

“Our government sees plastics as an opportunity, not a problem,” said MLA Brandon Lunty, at the start of the conference. “We see this as a waste management issue, not a plastics issue.” He admitted he was “a circular plastics newbie” and sent greetings from minister Schulz, who was not able to attend. The UCP government, he read from prepared notes, “is working with the recycling industry, plastics manufacturers and Albertans to eliminate the plastics we don’t need, innovate to ensure the plastics we do need are either reusable, recyclable or compostable, and circulate the plastic items we use to keep them in the economy and out of the environment.”

Notably, he touted Alberta’s new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, which came into force on November 30, 2022, and were “fully implemented” on April 1, 2025. These are intended to shift the “burden of collecting, sorting, processing and recycling waste” away from municipalities and onto the producers of plastic packaging. A central body, Alberta Recycling Management Authority, will oversee the system, similarly to new EPR systems in Ontario and Quebec. The idea is that companies which produce plastic pollution will pay for or find ways to reduce that pollution.

Polyvinyl chloride releases harmful chemicals when melted. Polystyrene turns into a “weird powdery mix.”

“We know this transformation to a circular economy will take time,” said Lunty. How much time is unclear. But challenges were on display at the conference—not least that some plastics are very hard to recycle. Take, for example, a potato chip bag. “That chip bag might have 12 layers of foil and different kinds of plastic in it,” said Mark Sabourin at an exhibition booth for EFS-plastics, a company opening a new recycling plant in Lethbridge in July 2025. Each kind of plastic in those layers has a different melt temperature. That means if you heat the bag at just one temperature, the layers glom together into a piece of junk. “Recycling has to be like for like,” said Sabourin. Plastic products are stamped with numbers 1–7. EFS will specialize in recycling numbers 1, 2 and 5—basically polyethylene and polypropylene—turning those kinds of used plastics back into pellets to ship to producers that want such recycled material.

Even “like for like” recycling isn’t straightforward, however. Recycled plastic is not the same as virgin plastic. At the Nova Chemicals booth, bright-white virgin polyethylene pellets were displayed beside darker-coloured recycled pellets. Each time a plastic is “warmed up again to melt into a pellet,” said Robert Clare, the Nova rep, “you get more degradation.” He showed clear plastic bags made of virgin polyethylene beside bags made with “30 per cent recycled” plastic. The bags with recycled plastic had visible speckles. “It’s still fit for purpose,” he said. “You can fill it with liquid or solids and it would be hermetically sealed.” But for commercial purposes it’s not up to snuff. A used plastic can be turned back into a pellet up to 10 times, he claims, but each time it’s made into a new product it must be blended with virgin plastic to “boost the performance,” and chemical additives are needed to mask imperfections.

Other plastics pose more difficult challenges. Polyvinyl chloride releases harmful chemicals when it’s melted down. Polystyrene, said Sabourin, “turns into this weird powdery mixture that floats everywhere.” Most recyclers don’t want it.

Those problems are among the reasons why most plastics end up in the landfill. Finding ways to keep plastics out of the dump has been a primary focus of research initiatives at NAIT, along with funding for pilot projects and start-up companies from both government and the private sector. Dow Chemical, for instance, paved a parking lot at the new Path2Zero project with asphalt that included some 2.2 million plastic bags worth of used polyethylene. NAIT and Heartland Polymers (Inter Pipeline) collaborated to turn plastic polypropylene waste into a wax that they mixed into asphalt used to pave roads at four test sites, including on the Alexander First Nation. Alberta Innovates—which funds research projects “aligned with Government of Alberta priorities”—gave out numerous grants, including $250,000 to both PolyCo (a start-up that also partnered with NAIT), which makes luxury floor tiles from recyclable polypropylene, and to Resolve Plastics Recycling, which turns mixed plastics into cinder blocks that can be used to build everything from garden sheds to roadway crash barriers. Merlin Plastics, the biggest Alberta-based recycling company, got $2-million from Emissions Reduction Alberta (which doles out money from the government’s TIER fund) to research a “commercially viable” method for recycling used food-grade clamshells back into new food-grade clamshells. “The circular economy is in its infancy in the province,” said Schwass, praising all that’s been accomplished so far. “It’s only been about five years since we started talking about it here.”

Jeremiah Bryksa looking for plastic in the North Saskatchewan River. He’d like to study microplastics in food packaging next.

By designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems,” says a quote from the UK-based Ellen MacArthur Foundation (which since 2010 has been acknowledged as the leading proponent of the circular economy concept), “we can reinvent everything.” It’s an ambitious idea. One that in Alberta still appears far off in the future.

Jennifer Koole, a conference attendee and the executive director of the Recycling Council of Alberta, told me in an interview that “there is a way to measure the circularity of an entity, whether that’s a country or a province. We haven’t measured it for Alberta,” she said, “but Canada’s circularity level is 6.1 per cent. That means a small percentage of materials [plastic or otherwise] are being recycled or recovered and there’s a lot of opportunity to do more.”

A few presenters who spoke at Alberta Circular Plastics Day—via Zoom—expressed hope that strict regulations could still be brought in to address plastic waste in the environment. Ryan Parmenter, from Environment and Climate Change Canada, told attendees that negotiators for a global treaty on plastic pollution will meet again in Switzerland in August 2025. This time, he said, “I think we’ll be able to move forward.” The stakes were highlighted by Roxana Sühring of Toronto Metropolitan University. “Plastics are complex chemical mixtures that are released into the environment throughout a product’s life cycle,” she said, explaining a study in which she traced microplastics back to their source products by analyzing chemical additives in various plastics. Microplastic regulation is needed, she said, but she wonders how it would be enforced.

Near the end of the day I talked with Jeremiah Bryksa. His microplastics sampling project was wrapping up in April 2025 and he was working on having the results of the study peer-reviewed and published in a journal. “We found plastics everywhere” in the North Saskatchewan River, he said. “They’re really low concentrations.” This surprised him. “I thought I would see way more plastic,” he said. “The river’s pretty clean.”

I asked how plastics are getting into our bodies, given that most people apparently have microplastics in their bloodstream. “The biggest exposure route is just through being indoors,” he said. “Most microplastics come from inhalation.”

At NAIT, he said, “our work is industry-driven, so I don’t get to choose what I work on.” But if he could choose, he said, “I would love to do more microplastic work. They come from plastic bottles. All food is packaged in plastic.” Studying microplastics in food packaging “would be a really interesting space to go to next.”

Tadzio Richards is a National Magazine Award winner and the associate editor at Alberta Views.

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Premier Smith also demands that there be no federal emissions cap. Alberta’s oil and gas industry must be allowed to emit freely. As for Planet Earth: “Burn, baby, burn!”

She hasn’t yet said if there will be an Alberta Oath of Allegiance in which citizens must deny the existence of global warming. But neither has she ruled it out.

The premier wants her own provincial pension plan and reckons that all of Canada should pay for it. When Alberta was booming and was the go-to place for Canadians wanting to make quick money, these “Albertans” overpaid into the federal pension system. Though a lot of those people are back in Newfoundland, Smith wants their pension payments to flow back into an Alberta Pension Plan. It should be mentioned that few pensionable Albertans want anything to do with Danielle’s Alberta Pension Plan.

Smith and her UCP cozy up to Trump despite the fact that our province could wind up being the next Puerto Rico.

But that’s beside my point. The point is that Smith and her UCP are, generally speaking, gung-ho and fearless. They cozy up to US president Donald Trump despite the fact that our province could wind up being the next Puerto Rico. As Monty Python said in a movie, they (that is, Trump and Co.) fart in Canada’s general direction.

So, fearless—except for one thing. Danielle Smith and her UCP are mortally afraid of being sued.

Back in 1976 Peter Lougheed’s government came up with a policy that slammed the door on future coal mining. When the UCP came into power in 2019, they felt much warmer toward coal. Across the border, on BC’s Elk River, a roaring coal operation was making good money for the BC government—and also making a lot of residual selenium that was killing fish in the rivers. That water shouldn’t be imbibed by humans lest, among other things, their hair falls out.

But none of this dissuaded the brave UCP government when the Australian coal companies came calling, wanting to start new operations along Alberta’s Eastern Slopes. The government founded a committee of investigation to look into new coal mines. Though the committee recommended against it, the UCP rescinded 1976’s Lougheed coal policy anyway. People living downstream from these possible new mines stood up and roared. It would take much more than a column to describe the many facets of that anti-coal resistance. But one example was Lethbridge city council voting nine to zero against coal development upstream of their water supply.

All Alberta’s government had to do at that stage was say no. But, very oddly, they did not. In fact, in all sorts of ways, they’ve said yes. This is where we get back to the subject of fear.

At the suggestion that the Alberta government might back out, Australian coal companies threatened lawsuits. A famous Aussie litigator was dispatched to Alberta. The Aussies also engaged a long-historied Alberta law firm to represent them. In these threatened lawsuits, some rather gaudy financial compensation numbers were floated.

The interesting thing here is that a lot of wise legal heads were saying, “Let the Aussies go ahead and sue.” The history of such suits is that there would indeed be compensation demanded and paid, but that it would be much smaller than the asked-for amounts.

But the UCP government, normally so brave, froze. Deer in the headlights, as we say. Another analogy might be that the government was like a loud braggart who, at the sight of a snake, curls on the ground and cries.

This contradiction sent me into research mode. My question was: is there such a thing as fear of lawsuits And by gosh, there is! Liticaphobia. There’s even a branch of psychiatry that deals with it. Psychotherapy. Hypnotherapy. Prescription drugs. I seriously think the premier and her affected cabinet ministers should seek help. Further into my research, I discovered that liticaphobia is not equally spread across the landscape. There are hotspots. The US as a whole is such a hotspot, globally speaking. And, within the US, the most affected region is the state of Florida.

This was my eureka! moment. Where has Alberta’s premier gone most often of late Florida!  My advice is obvious. Alberta’s politicians should cease going to Florida immediately. It is hoped that, if they follow my advice, they will soon be brave enough to face the Australian miners in court.

Fred Stenson’s many books include the novels Who By Fire, The Trade, Lightning and The Great Karoo.

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