Originally published in the Chronicle Herald on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025
Negotiations can be tricky.
At 17 months old, my son has figured out how to get what he wants. He’ll simply point to the desired object and emit a shriek so piercing and sustained that I worry the wine glasses in our cabinet might shatter.
It’s easiest just to give in, even if I understand that by doing so, I’m practically guaranteeing that he will employ the same tactic again.
The danger of capitulating in the face of a hardball negotiating style is certainly not lost on Steven Guilbeault. The former environment minister resigned from cabinet Nov. 27 over a recent federal-provincial memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with Alberta.
He too had negotiating difficulties. What do you do when one party wants something — to the exclusion of all else — and won’t budge? Seven years after the Government of Canada purchased the Transmountain pipeline, Alberta wants another pipeline built with federal support, and nothing else will do.
“For reasons that were essentially ideological, (Alberta Premier Danielle Smith) put in place a moratorium on renewable energy development in Alberta.” Guilbault told the hosts of Tout le Monde en Parle, a popular TV show in Quebec.
“That represented billions of dollars in investment. They lost 5,000 to 10,000 jobs overnight.”
“She will never be satisfied,” Guilbault said of Smith. “Give it two or three months and she’ll say ‘I want more.’ In my opinion, she is not a reliable partner in this negotiation.”
Reliability aside, her tactics are effective. The MOU, dubbed the Grand Bargain, would allow Alberta to sidestep Canada’s Clean Electric Regulations, intended to move electricity grids away from expensive fossil fuel generation, while exempting any future pipeline project from pesky environmental laws. In exchange, Alberta would do what is required of all other provinces according to the Supreme Court of Canada: implement federal rules for industrial carbon pricing.
Not a bad deal for Smith.
But wait, there’s more. The MOU also includes an acknowledgement by both parties of the benefits of constructing “large transmission interties with British Columbia and Saskatchewan to strengthen the ability of the western power markets to supply low-carbon power.”
Now, where have I heard that idea before? Ah, yes. It’s precisely the kind of federal support for grid infrastructure investment that Atlantic Canadians have been requesting for decades.
It’s hard not to feel like Atlantic Canada has been playing a sucker’s game when it comes to getting what we want from the federal government. While we were playing chess, the Government of Alberta flipped the table, shrieked as loud as possible and demanded a game of checkers.
Governments across Atlantic Canada have been asking nicely for support in harnessing the unprecedented economic opportunities our region has when it comes to renewable energy resources like offshore wind. Unlike Danielle Smith, our leaders want the benefits that come with a clean economy.
Nova Scotia’s proposed nation-building project, Wind West, is a good example. Not only could we create tens of thousands of jobs, but we could build a power grid that connects our entire region and provides us with cheap, reliable electricity. And if other provinces want to buy some, we could work out a deal.
None of this happens without power lines between provinces, and power lines won’t get built without financial support from the federal government.
The payoff is huge. New modeling commissioned from the Ecology Action Centre by Navius Research indicates that if we build just one of the three power lines proposed by the Government of Nova Scotia as part of the Wind West project, we could increase the GDP in Atlantic Canada by $8 billion and lower power rates by 14, 11 and nine per cent in P.E.I., Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, respectively.
Is all that enough to convince the feds to provide concrete financial support? I’m not sure. The fact that they recently put the Wind West project on a secondary list of nation-building projects feels more like an attempt to placate than a real commitment. We might get support for interprovincial tranmission lines in the upcoming Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit legislation. But then again, we might not.
And what will we do if we don’t get the support we need? Will we threaten to secede from Canada?
Not our style. But for every Liberal MP from Alberta, there are a dozen from Atlantic Canada. If they can’t work with the environmental caucus in Parliament to advance our economic priorities in renewable energy, we won’t forget it. And those politicians might need to change their negotiating tactics if Atlantic Canada ever hopes to strike our own grand bargain with the federal government.