Alberta premier calls Ottawa’s greenhouse gas targets ‘nuts’; pledges to fight them

EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is calling Ottawa’s federal emissions plan that was tabled in the House of Commons last week “nuts,” and is pledging to fight it “with everything we’ve got.”

The federal government says the country’s oilpatch is capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent below 2019 levels by 2030.

Kenney told his weekly phone-in radio show on Saturday that the plan would require a production cut, which he says would only shift energy production from Canada to places such as “Putin’s Russia and the OPEC dictatorships.”

Calling federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault a “former Greenpeace radical,” he also characterized the plan as “a full-frontal attack on the 800,000 people who work in the energy sector.”