Quebec, Alberta talk Energy Partnership

Canadian energy strategy links provinces on markets, infrastructure, and environmental standards, as premiers press Ottawa over equitable, per-capita health-care transfers at the Council of the Federation and affirm provincial jurisdiction in energy development.

Premier Jean Charest says Canada doesn’t need the federal government to make a national energy strategy happen.

And he said dissatisfaction with Ottawa’s recent handling of health-care transfer payments will be on the agenda at the Council of the Federation meeting.

The one-two punch at the federal government was delivered at a news conference following a meeting with Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who had recently called for an economic meeting with counterparts, at the provincial legislature on Wednesday.

Both Charest and Redford said they don’t agree with the way the federal government has handled the health-care transfers and both insisted they must be equitable for all provinces.

Charest said after the meeting that provinces are already co-operating with each other on energy amid a national electrical grid debate across the country.

“We don’t need the federal government to make that happen,” Charest said. “We have demonstrated in our acts, not just our words. We have demonstrated that we are well able to do that.

“The basic condition for that to happen and to be successful is that the provinces be able to decide in their areas of jurisdiction and that’s where the starting point is. If there’s going to be a federal role it should be on our invitation, not them intervening.”

Redford has promoted an energy strategy with provinces working together to develop resources and bring them to new markets, including in forums where governors and premiers talk energy together.

Redford’s plan, which she refers to as a Canadian energy strategy, would include collaboration on environmental standards and new infrastructure.

“I think we’re at a point where . . . what I’m asking provinces to do is to decide if we would like to take this further and if so what that looks like,” she said.

Charest pointed out that when Quebec brought in its new energy strategy in 2006, two main priorities were developing capacity and tapping new markets.

Those markets included the rest of Canada and the U.S. Since then, he said, Quebec has concluded an Ontario-Quebec power agreement and built a 1,200-megawatt interconnection line into that province.

Redford explained her energy plan, speaking mainly in French during a question-and-answer session with Quebec City parliamentary reporters.

On health care, the Alberta premier said her province had been quite vocal on the issue in the past few years. The province has argued it has been short-changed and wants a better deal with the federal government.

“We believe it is important for all Canadians to be treated equally per capita,” she said. “We don’t believe that, in order to achieve that, any particular province needs to lose out.”

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