Jonathan Wilkinson, federal energy and natural resources minister, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the Alberta government’s Scrap The Cap campaign.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Michael Higgins: The Scrap the Cap campaign is aimed squarely at policy coming from your government. What’s your response to the claims of the Smith government?
Jonathan Wilkinson: I think it’s a little bit over the top for a regulation that actually hasn’t even been released. I would say though, perhaps that is reflective of the fact that Premier Smith has a leadership review coming up and fighting with the federal government is always good politics.
It’s an emissions cap, it’s not a production cap. It’s not dissimilar to tools that have been used in other sectors to try to actually reduce emissions, and it’s important to reduce emissions. Climate change is real and emissions from the oil and gas sector are about 30 per cent of Canada’s emissions at the …