Totally Tubular
Why does Justin Trudeau hate hollow cylinders, and how can the Sovereignty Act help?
Pipelines. Long guns. Plastic straws.
All are essential to Alberta’s prosperity or identity or … something. And Justin Trudeau is taking them away from us.
On her weekly radio show last Saturday, Premier Smith was asked to give an example of how the Sovereignty Act could be used, and this was her reply (transcript courtesy of Courtney Theriault’s twitter feed):
The text of her response seems to take the province to task for failing to introduce its own legislation around single-use plastics, suggesting that the federal government wouldn’t have acted if the province had already stepped in. This is a bit puzzling, since Alberta is by no means the only laggard on this front.
The general hilarity on Twitter about “grasping at straws” got me to wondering how, exactly, the Sovereignty Act might help the unfortunate Alberta children struggling to sip their sodas.
First, the provincial legislature would need to “offer an opinion” that the federal plastics ban is unconstitutional. While it would be entertaining to see them claim it as an infringement of Albertans’ Charter rights, alas, the claim would be infringement on provincial jurisdiction. After all, the province has already intervened in two cases taking on the federal regulations. Basically, the federal government had to declare single use plastics a “toxic substance” in order to use the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The province is joining the plastics manufacturers in arguing that (a) plastic isn’t toxic, and so (b) it doesn’t fall under the federal act.
With the Sovereignty Act invoked, what next? The regulation that bans plastic straws prohibits both the sale of plastic straws and their “manufacture or import.” I think it’s safe to assume that federal environmental protection inspectors aren’t walking the aisles of dollar stores to see if illicit straws are being sold. More likely, they’re focused on cutting off the supply.
I think it’s safe to assume that the Sovereignty Act couldn’t be used to get around the ban on the import of straws. If they’re crossing a border, then federal border inspectors can seize them and hold them in federal facilities. Presumably the provincial government wouldn’t dispatch the provincial Sheriff service to liberate the straws from the feds.
What about the manufacturing? It appears that the federal government has its own inspectors, so not enforcing the ban doesn’t seem to be an option. What then?
The Sovereignty Act says that a “provincial entity” must comply with a directive from the government under the Act. Most of the provincial entities (school boards, municipalities, post-secondaries) aren’t going to be particularly helpful if you want to set up a steady supply of plastic straws.
But digging a little deeper, we see that the definition of “provincial entity” includes “an entity that receives a grant or other public funds from the Government that are contingent on the provision of a public service.” Now, the provincial government does offer grants to companies in the petrochemical sector, though I’m not sure they would count as being contingent on provision of a public service. And ordering a company to violate federal law isn’t going to create that ‘stable business environment’ folks keep talking about.
All that’s left then is to create a provincial crown corporation to produce plastic straws. Freedom Plastics: a wholly owned Alberta crown corporation!
So, tl;dr: short of creating a crown corporation, I really don’t see how the Sovereignty Act saves us from the scourge of paper straws. Perhaps Premier Smith’s answer was as hollow as the cylinders that Trudeau hates so much.
Hmmm, so Danielle's in a panic over plastic straws.... what's her option for paper straws? She'll just have to.... drumrolls... suck it up!
Sorry, couldn't resist.. Imagine Smith's focussed on straws when we have a crisis of sick kids.
I remember when PM Harper outlawed the incandescent light bulb using federal authority. We didn’t hear a peep from provincial conservatives or then radio jockey, Danielle Smith.