OTTAWA — Steven Guilbeault may no longer be federal environment minister, but Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she still sees him as a threat to the province’s oil and gas industry.
Smith said on
this weekend that Guilbeault, now heritage minister, has an “overt motive” to establish new federally protected parks in the path of pipelines and other energy infrastructure.
She added that she wouldn’t consent to the creation of any new federal parks in Alberta.
“I do not want to see one additional acre of territory that’s within Alberta turned into a federal park … we certainly don’t need Steven Guilbeault telling us what is important to protect in Alberta,” said Smith.
“If there is critical habitat that Albertans want to protect … we’ll put in provincial parks.”
Guilbeault, a former Greenpeace activist, was shuffled out
in March by Prime Minister Mark Carney but kept his role as minister responsible for Parks Canada.
This puts him in charge of implementing
the Liberals’ campaign promise
to create at least 10 new national parks and protect
by 2030.
According to Parks Canada’s website, the
four proposed national parks and protected areas, including
on Hudson Bay, one possible destination
.
Guilbeault said in May that no new oil and gas pipeline projects should be initiated
until existing infrastructure is used
to capacity and speculated that both global and national demand for fossil fuels will peak in the next few years.
Neither Guilbeault’s office nor Parks Canada gave an immediate response to Smith’s comments about future federal parks blocking energy infrastructure.
This isn’t the first time that mistrust has flared between Smith’s United Conservative Party government and Parks Canada.
Greater Edmonton UCP MLA Brandon Lunty put forward
in late 2023 barring municipalities and Parks Canada from expanding urban parks without the province’s consent. The bill was signed into law in 2024.
Lunty told the National Post that he decided to champion the bill when he caught wind of bilateral discussions Edmonton’s city council was having with federal officials about an urban park in the capital region.
“It seemed like they were down the road a bit on those conversations and I kept coming back to the question of, well, what about the provincial perspective on this?” said Lunty.
He added that several residents came forward with their own concerns about a possible national urban park, culminating in a
citizen-led petition against the plan
.
Lunty said that he and several other UCP MLAs were concerned after learning that Guilbeault would keep his job as minister responsible for Parks Canada after the cabinet shuffle in March.
“Some of the initiatives we saw under minister Guilbeault in his previous files were, frankly, pretty harmful to Alberta’s energy sector and our economy, so (the re-appointment) was certainly something that was noted,” said Lunty.
Guilbeault was criticized by many, including
Alberta Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen
, for not doing more to clear out highly flammable dead trees from Alberta’s Jasper National Park prior to devastating summer 2024 wildfires.
Alberta Public Safety Minister and Deputy Premier Mike Ellis has also suggested that he and other provincial officials
during the recovery efforts in Jasper.
National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com
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