Alberta in court to argue Ottawa's Bill C-69 is unconstitutional
Alberta’s government is in court once again to fight Ottawa over laws that it believes are an unconstitutional infringements on the province’s ability to manage its natural resources.
The provincial government’s lawyers made their case at the Alberta Court of Appeal in Edmonton on Tuesday that Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act, which overhauled the National Energy Board and replaced it with the Canada Energy Regulator, overreaches into provincial jurisdiction over natural resource development. ...
“Bill C-69 seeks clearly to violate section 92-1A of the constitution because it gives the federal government power to step in and regulate right over top of us with respect to resource production,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Tuesday. He noted the provincial governments of Saskatchewan and Ontario have sided with Alberta in this legal fight. ...
Canada’s largest oil-producing province is currently locked in three separate legal fights with Ottawa over what it considers unconstitutional federal intrusion into the province’s oversight of the development of its natural resources. ...
In addition to its constitutional challenge of Bill C-69, Kenney’s government has argued Ottawa’s ban on oil tankers carrying bitumen in the waters off the coast of northern British Columbia is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is also set to release a decision by the middle of March on whether Ottawa has the ability to impose carbon taxes on Alberta. ...
“The high-level question is what are the limits on federal jurisdiction between this broad space of shared jurisdiction over the environment,” Wright said, noting that natural resource development is generally provincial territory but both levels of government are responsible for environmental oversight.
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