Will Alberta becomes irrelevant as the rest of the world moves on without us??

I think it's important to differentiate between disagreeing with a policy vs. disagreeing with a person. But when disagreeable policies keep pointing to a single person, it's hard to maintain that distinction. I also hate being political all the time recently, and would be perfectly content to stay quiet on most issues. But lately, it seems every couple of days there is something the government announces that hits my trigger buttons of things I am actually passionate about defending.

Why is Danielle Smith so hostile towards ideas that bring us forward as a society? In Alberta, we have the unique experience of being fortunate to have a great deal of natural resources that have made us a wealthy province (through no effort of our own I must say, just the luck of the roll of the dice). Why wouldn't we embrace the notion of trying to remain a relevant player in the national and world markets as progress moves on?

She had initiated a moratorium on renewable energy development last year, to study the potential environmental impacts of such development. That moratorium has just officially ended, and they now want to implement guidelines preventing renewable energy projects within a 35 km buffer zone around protected areas and "pristine viewscapes". By "pristine viewscapes", they mean "unobstructed, natural landscapes", which includes an awful lot of the Alberta landscape.

And what does this mean in the end? Perhaps the map I'm including below will show you. Virtually most of Alberta would be off-limits to renewable energy projects.

Note that these restrictions would only apply to renewable energy projects. Oil and Gas exploration could continue unimpeded. And look at the map to see where oil and gas wells are throughout Alberta (there are more than 600,000, and the number is growing).

To add insult to injury, they are also wanting to implement a rule whereby renewable energy would have to pay transmission costs for electricity generated. Transmission costs are normally paid by the consumer of electricity, never the producers. And fossil fuel electricity generation wouldn't have to pay for transmission costs; just renewable energy producers. For renewable energy, transmission would be "double billed" - paid for by both the consumers and producers.

I support the oil and gas industry in Alberta; it's much of what makes our economy strong here. I don't believe oil and gas extraction should be halted or anything like that. By why is she so incredibly hostile to renewable energy? We are uniquely positioned to make a good profit from both; until the moratorium, billions of dollars a year had been invested into our province by renewable energy companies. That revenue source will be pretty much dried up now. It makes no sense to me whatsoever, and the only thing she is accomplishing is ensuring that Alberta becomes irrelevant as the rest of the world moves on without us.

If you support this policy of the UCP, I genuinely would like to hear from you so I can learn any kind of justification for it. I'm open minded, and try to see things from other viewpoints, but I can't possibly fathom a positive side to this, and would very much like to learn what it might be.

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