Hon. Paula Simons: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-50, An Act respecting accountability, transparency and engagement to support the creation of sustainable jobs for workers and economic growth in a net-zero economy. And I speak to you tonight as an Albertan. Alberta is home to 97% of all of Canada’s oil stores. Over 20% of our province’s gross domestic product is tied to our oil and gas industry, and our energy sector employs more than 150,000 workers.

It will not be easy, and it will not be painless to transition away from that economic base. But most Albertans know and understand that such a transition will be necessary nonetheless — for environmental, economic and social reasons. And younger Albertans, in particular, know that the energy industry that employed their parents and grandparents is going to look very different by 2050.

Albertans have already made hard and courageous choices to reshape our energy economy, which employs so many and pays them so well. Let me point to the bold, brave and difficult way Alberta has transitioned from coal electricity generation to a cleaner, greener grid.

At the start of this century, a full 80% of electricity in Alberta was produced by burning coal. Alberta coal was cheap and plentiful and had a reputation for being cleaner than other coal, less acidic and less damaging to the environment.

But in 2015, when Rachel Notley became premier, she made a visionary — some said quixotic — choice to accelerate Alberta’s shift to alternate electricity generation. It was not easy. Many people who worked in the coal industry lost their jobs. And, one might argue, the policy was in no small way responsible for Rachel Notley losing her job as premier, too.

No one should minimize the sacrifice made by Alberta working families, nor the political cost to the one-term NDP government. But just look at the results: When 2024 began, just 6% of Alberta’s electricity came from burning coal — down from 80% in 2001. And I am pleased and proud to say that last night, Sunday, at 10:57 Mountain Daylight Time, Alberta’s last coal-generating plant — Genesee 2 — came offline. As of today, there is no electricity generated by coal in Alberta.

Let me put the focus on those last two coal plants, Genesee 1 and 2, in perspective. They are run by Capital Power, and the shift from coal to natural gas will deliver more than 1,350 megawatts of reliable baseload electricity, while at the same time reducing CO₂ emissions by 3.4 million tonnes relative to 2019. That represents a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and, at the same time, a 40% increase in installed capacity. As an added bonus, according to Capital Power, the high efficiency of the new units will mean an extra 1 million tonnes of emission reductions. And all that has happened six and a half years ahead of schedule.

So let no one doubt that Alberta and Albertans can make these transitions when we try. We know we have more work to do, especially in renewable power, which now makes up 30% of Alberta’s electrical grid.

According to the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, in 2022, Western Canada accounted for 98% of Canada’s total growth in wind and solar power, with Alberta adding almost 1,400 megawatts of installed capacity in one year. Last year alone, Alberta’s renewable energy sector accounted for more than 92% of Canada’s overall growth in renewable energy and storage capacity. According to the Pembina Institute, that included 118 renewable projects in Alberta, representing $33 billion in investment. That meant there were green energy projects representing, according to the Pembina, 24,000 job-years at some stage of development.

Now, I’ll admit the absurdly draconian restrictions that Danielle Smith’s government has recently imposed on wind and solar investments in Alberta are a problem, but notwithstanding, the capital market is telling us that wind and solar have a huge role to play in Alberta’s and Canada’s energy future, and that means not just sustainable power but sustainable jobs.

But the big new power play in Alberta — I don’t mean the Oilers, although their power play is very good — is hydrogen. And it isn’t a fantasy. There are already projects in Alberta in development to transition diesel buses and trains and heavy equipment to hydrogen, to convert natural gas power plants to hydrogen, to heat new subdivisions with hydrogen, to use hydrogen in all sorts of industrial processes. There is huge economic and employment potential in a serious shift to green and blue hydrogen — and huge environmental gains to be made as well.

Nor are sustainable energy jobs the only kinds of sustainable employment that Alberta has. Alberta and Saskatchewan are perfectly positioned to become powerhouses in agri-food production so that we’re not just exporting our mustard, lentils and durum wheat, but turning them into value-added products; so that we’re creating new domestic and international processed food markets for crops as diverse as haskap berries or lupins.

Then there’s the exciting prospect of repurposing Alberta’s oil sands. Instead of burning that bitumen for fuel, suppose we used it to create strong and lightweight carbon fibre and to use that carbon fibre to build everything from airplanes to auto parts to sports gear to protective clothing. With the right mix of public and private investment, we could be able to turn our bitumen reserves into a manufacturing sector, an entirely new kind of sustainable economic engine.

There are sustainable jobs to be found too in the transportation transition. Alberta is actively exploring plans to create a rail system that links Calgary to Banff and an even more ambitious plan for high-speed rail linking Edmonton to Calgary.

These have been pipe dream projects for years, but as our population grows — and as the social and market pressure to move away from carbon-intensive transportation increases — it may finally be time to start taking steps to make those dreams reality, creating rail construction jobs on a scale we haven’t seen since the Last Spike and creating infrastructure for low-carbon transportation that could radically reduce the number of cars on Alberta highways and the number of planes flying between Edmonton and Calgary.

So a transition to a less carbon-intensive economy with well-paid sustainable jobs for all kinds of workers is far from impossible. It’s certainly no more impossible than an 8-1 victory over the Florida Panthers.

This is the future that Alberta and Canada need to embrace, and I believe Albertans have the courage and drive to make that transition, but it is hard for me to see how Bill C-50 helps.

Bill C-50 doesn’t invest more money in research and development. It doesn’t set aside a penny for job retraining or for post-secondary education. It doesn’t invest in clean tech, agri-food or transportation infrastructure. It doesn’t do anything to encourage investment nor offer capital markets any tangible assurance that we are really serious this time, at long last, about meeting our climate change goals. And it doesn’t do anything to pull Canadians together with common purpose to fight for our future.

Instead, it establishes a framework to strike a council to have a social dialogue to enable a secretariat to create an action plan, all subject to a 10-year review. Will Bill C-50 create jobs? Well, it will certainly create jobs for the 15 members of the Sustainable Jobs Partnership Council, and who knows how many more jobs for the members of the Sustainable Jobs Secretariat.

I fear that this is an example of the most cynicism-inducing kind of government legislation. At a time when we desperately need to fight greenhouse gases, Bill C-50 is little more than hot air. As we might say in Alberta, “Where’s the beef?”

This legislation won’t do anything to reassure Western Canadians who are legitimately worried about their economic future. It won’t do anything to make them feel included, to make them feel that their voices and concerns are being heard or that their hopes and dreams are being supported. Instead, I greatly fear it will be seen as a provocation if not an insult. It will be a gift to those reactionary, soft-separatist voices in my province who are all too pleased to rage farm by turning Albertans against their fellow Canadians.

My friends, it is long past time for frameworks, councils, action plans and 10-year status reports. It is time to be up and doing. If we want an economic transition that doesn’t leave workers behind, we need to invest in R&D now, not a decade from now. Now.

If we want an economic transition that doesn’t leave workers behind, we need to tell capital markets that we are serious, that investing in Canada and Alberta is safe and smart, that we’re not going to pull the rug out from under them by suddenly changing policy and leaving them stranded. We need to invest in our colleges, technical institutes and universities so workers are ready for the jobs of the future. We need to invest in green infrastructure, from hydrogen plants to passenger rail lines. We need tax incentives and tax policies that reward innovation and green entrepreneurship. Most of all, we need federal and provincial governments to work together and not at cross-purposes for the good of all Canadians.

Thank you. Hiy hiy.