The Smith government's latest proves the anti-constitutionality - and pointlessness - of the Alberta Sovereignty Act

The Globe and Mail reports that “Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is mulling seizing ownership of information oil and gas companies collect about greenhouse gases in her province and banning the release of such intelligence without her government’s approval, as she escalates her fight with Ottawa over its proposed emissions cap.”

According to the report, a motion under the Sovereignty Act - a piece of dubious legislation I’ve written about here - will “instruct the province to consider passing legislation and amending regulations in a way that would give Alberta significant control over energy facilities, related infrastructure, and data.” The province “is considering declaring ‘all information that is directly or indirectly related to greenhouse gas, collected at’ oil and gas production facilities and related infrastructure in the province, ‘as proprietary information exclusively owned by the Government of Alberta, and mandate that all emissions data be reported and disclosed at the province’s discretion,’ the government said in a draft press release provided to media ahead of the announcement Tuesday afternoon.”

The idea demonstrates a provincial government that simply doesn’t understand how federalism or the constitution work. If there is a valid federal law, any reporting requirements can’t be blocked by, or subject to the approval of, the province. A province cannot interfere in the exercise of valid federal authority, even if it perceives an ‘intrusion’ by the incidental effects of such law.

However clever the plans to ‘hide’ information or subject them to provincial legislation, if the federal government imposes such requirements in the valid exercise of its authority, the federal law wins out in any conflict between a federal law and a provincial one.

On the other hand, if the federal emissions cap proves unconstitutional, that can only come from a judicial determination - something Alberta has already promised to pursue.

In other words, either way, the ‘use’ of the Alberta Sovereignty Act, via a motion, is irrelevant. It is in one sense little more than political sabre rattling. Yet to the extent that when it is employed it is in the context of proposing blatantly unconstitutional action by the province, it is best viewed as anti-constitutional: the Sovereignty Act by itself does not narrowly infringe a specific provision of the division of powers so much as stand as a symbolic attack on the division of powers as a whole. Pointless and anti-constitutional at the same time.