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rfmcdonaldCBC's Paul Haavardsrud and Kyle Bakx report on the state of affairs in NDP-ruled Alberta.
The dance between Canada's energy industry and Alberta's new NDP government is finding a new rhythm during Stampede week in Calgary.
A day after Alberta Premier Rachel Notley wooed a non-partisan crowd of energy folks and international investors with a speech that seemed straight from the Tory playbook, a pair of top energy executives took the stage across town to deliver their own message to a collection of new NDP cabinet ministers.
Top of mind on this day? Environmental policy.
"When we think of policy issues, one role the government does have is setting long-term objectives and I think sometimes where they miss the bar is when they say 'how,'" said Encana chief executive Doug Suttles at a lunch event put on by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. "As governments set these targets, I think they need to let people go out and find the most effective way ... picking winners is difficult, very difficult."
The wants of industry, of course, are ever the same. When it comes to issues such as environmental policy, they'd like governments to lay down a broad agenda and then let market forces decide the particulars.
Whether a hands off ethos — long a given during much of the PC party's 44 years atop Alberta politics — will continue to hold sway under the new NDP government is now an unfamiliar question mark for Canada's oilpatch. Political stereotypes would suggest an NDP government will be more inclined to tell the industry exactly how it needs to go about meeting environmental targets. The prospects of the policymakers taking such a prescriptive approach is something that keeps energy executives up at night.
