Premier Danielle Smith does not usually give the impression of being fearful. She recently laid down the law to our federal government, saying that she and her province are willing to walk if her list of nine demands isn’t met. The Trans Mountain Pipeline that the Trudeau Liberals bought and completed at federal expense is not enough. Premier Smith demands that a new federal government build her more pipelines, no matter the cost. Even if in a couple of decades they are rusting monuments to the victory of the electric vehicle, Alberta’s UCP wants the pipelines anyway.
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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