There’s been talk of separatism in Alberta and Saskatchewan recently due to the outcome of the federal election, amongst other growing concerns.
The oil and gas industries are huge in these provinces—this causes concern surrounding the carbon tax. Therefore, there is growing resentment toward the federal government for not doing enough to protect the interests of the citizens of Alberta and Saskatchewan. A lot of people have lost their jobs due to the effects of the carbon tax, and even more are worried that they might be affected.
The Liberals’ track record with the carbon tax makes the two provinces skeptical of and even cynical toward Trudeau. Trudeau seems to recognize the severity of the problem, addressing it right away on the night of the election. However, this problem comes as no surprise, considering how poorly the Liberal party did in Alberta and Saskatchewan in this election: the Liberals did not win a single seat in either of the two provinces.
What Saskatchewan and Alberta want is, at least for their provinces, to abolish the carbon tax. In light of scientists’ grim predictions about us only having 12 years to reverse climate change, this proposition seems absurd. Nevertheless, people need to work and be given a living wage; the basic needs of the people must somehow be met while still maintaining our goals to combat climate change.
There are a plethora of reasons that we should all care about climate change, of course, not the least of which is that it will start to have an increasingly more profound effect on our lives as time goes on. This is why it is crucial that we reconcile issues like this with tangible, long-term solutions, and not by pointing blame at people who are having their livelihoods threatened. The federal government needs to strike a balance between the current needs of its people and the future environmental security of Canada.
Both Alberta and Saskatchewan have renewable-energy plans in place that are not garnering as much support as they should. They are already energy provinces, so if the provinces’ governments could offset the jobs lost in the fossil-fuel industry to renewable energy then they would be meeting the needs of the people while still working toward our long-term goal of combating climate change. For this to happen, though, the government would have to stop taking money from fossil-fuel lobbyists.