The smoke from next door

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/06/2023 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hey there next-door neighbour, it’s Saskatchewan. Sorry about all the smoke. If you wondered where it was coming from, we’re the source. Up until recent rain, Saskatchewan had 23 raging forest fires in the north. Our climate inaction has drifted east.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who is perennially tone deaf to matters of climate change, chose the smokiest day in May to inform his constituents that he won’t meet the 2030 federal ban on coal-fired electricity generation. Moe says he needs until 2050 to reach the zero-emissions target.

Moe’s justification? Too costly! How can he grow the economy and balance his budget and invest in green technology at the same time? He complains that his beleaguered government doesn’t have enough time to transition from coal and natural gas to carbon-neutral electricity by the federal-mandated 2035.

Yet in 2019, Moe’s government found time to cancel the solar power net metering system where SaskPower, a provincial Crown corporation, purchased surplus energy from solar-powered homes and businesses.

Our recent Victoria Day long weekend, a Canadian camping tradition, coincided with a fire ban. Campers still gathered without roasting weenies and Smores over a blazing fire.

Instead of swift action on climate, Moe’s SaskParty policies include booze and bongs at campsites within provincial parks. If only we’d had a visionary premier like Scott Moe in the 1970s when sneaky campers like me were reduced to smuggling beer into Whiteshell Provincial Park. We concealed our illicit cans of Molson Canadian in wrap-around foamies — or we risked a hefty fine and campground suspension.

If you want to legally light up a doobie on a camp site, Manitobans, come on over. Moe may be onto something with his anti-Temperance policy making. It may prove therapeutic to remain drunk and high to cope with the stress of government inaction on the more important file: Mother Earth.

Climate change inaction is no surprise to this rural resident. Every day, I observe massive pickup trucks with “F*CK TRUDEAU” emblazoned on their back windows rumble by my house.

The locals in my region will not be investing in an electric truck. And if they did, by some miracle, Moe now charges a surtax on all electric conveyances. While I ride my bike to the post office, my neighbours all drive. Saskatchewan is an entitled truck culture fuelled by heritage carbon emissions.

On a recent weekend, I pulled up to the Co-op grocery store in my salvaged CCM Breeze and caught a mouthful of exhaust. A young farmer was casually idling his 1980s Ford F-150. When I asked why his motor was still running, he explained it was his first outing of the year with this truck and he wasn’t sure it would start again.

It’s like the whole province is idling in front of the grocery store while our forests burn.

The SaskParty’s new tactic declares energy policy a provincial matter — not a federal matter — an idea perhaps picked up from “Sovereignty” Smith’s UCP next door in Alberta. In the recently passed Saskatchewan First Act, the Moe government in Regina pronounced that they’re in charge, not Ottawa. This legislative grandstanding comes before the fed’s official energy policy has even been shared.

Is this new bill payback for the Moe government’s failed Supreme Court challenge over emissions? He’s got a grudge to settle.

It’s like Moe is mired in a bell jar. Does Moe not register the raging forest fires? Does he not care that the smoke drifts east and degrades Manitobans’ air quality, too? Did the good news of Volkswagen’s huge green investment in Ontario, along with federal support, not reach the insular provincial capital that rhymes with fun?

Given co-ordinated policy initiatives, and swift action, there’s a green future for Canadian leaders who choose to cooperate and participate. But not in my province, where a protracted tantrum from Premier Man Baby is the best we can do. When the feds pushed back on Moe’s ridiculous 2050 deadline, Moe said: “Come get me.”

Why would a provincial premier pick a fight with Ottawa when his province has 23 active forest fires and drought conditions? Because the refusal to accept the federal government’s control over emissions policy plays well with Moe’s intransigent base. It’s a winning formula: ramp up the coal-fired rhetoric and blame Justin Trudeau.

Moe’s 1980s-style mission, to focus obsessively on economic growth and a balanced budget, seems quaint when the real carbon tax is poor air quality as we continue to underwrite the coal industry. And our poor policy-making has drifted over to Manitoba — like an inconsiderate oaf burning green fire wood in his backyard.

Scott Moe’s magical legislation declares that Saskatchewan is first. Yet when it comes to our outdated energy policies, we are dead last.

It’s a dubious distinction that has lasting impact on everyone in our region. You can choose your friends but you can’t pick your neighbours.

Patricia Dawn Robertson lives in Wakaw, Sask. where she badgers truck idlers and retrograde politicians. Her gen-X memoir, Media Brat, releases in fall 2023.