Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips says the policy would hamper the province's attempts to create jobs.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Alberta's Environment Minister attacked a proposed NDP policy road map known as the "Leap Manifesto" on Friday, calling the sweeping climate-change plan a betrayal of Albertans who voted for Rachel Notley's New Democrats.
Speaking a few city blocks away from where 1,500 NDP delegates were gathered for the federal party's convention, Shannon Phillips said the proposed plan was unworkable in the short term and didn't recognize Alberta's climate efforts.
"A lot of people can say a lot of things and talk a lot of things from their downtown Toronto perch, but in Alberta our focus is on ensuring that we've got good-paying jobs," Ms. Phillips said. "That is not talking, that's doing."
Party members will vote Sunday on a resolution that would adopt the Leap Manifesto as a reference point to shape the NDP's policy discussions over the next two years. The document is at the centre of the struggle for the federal party's leadership. It calls for a speedy transition away from fossil fuels, the rejection of new pipelines and a ban on trade deals.
The plan is deeply at odds with steps taken by Alberta's NDP government. On Thursday, Ms. Notley aired a televised address in which she appealed to the federal government to help Alberta build new pipelines to Canada's coasts.
Ms. Phillips, the architect of a new carbon tax and emissions limit on Alberta's oil sands, said the Notley government would reject any document that seeks to keep Alberta's oil and gas in the ground. Speaking as an elected New Democrat in Alberta and one of Ms. Notley's main lieutenants, she brought her concerns to the federal party's caucus on Friday afternoon.
"At a time when Albertans are most vulnerable, the last thing that the rest of Canada needs to be doing is making veiled threats about this idea, that'll never come to pass, about keeping Alberta's resources stranded," she said.
"It is ungenerous, short-sighted and it is fundamentally, as New Democrats, a betrayal of the people who voted NDP in this province last year."
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair told The Canadian Press on Friday that he thought it was dangerous to suggest that the plan would shut down Alberta's oil sands.
"We've got to stop fooling ourselves in Canada. It is not true that we are doing our share on climate change. We've never reduced our greenhouse gas emissions. That's why the Leap document is so important," he said.
Justin Giovannetti