Alberta wants to use critical infrastructure defence law to block emissions data from Ottawa

The Alberta government says it will propose amendments to the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act that it says would act as a repellent against "unconstitutional federal overreach," but it remains unclear how enforcement of those measures would play out in practice. 

Alberta's Critical Infrastructure Defence Act was first introduced in 2020 as a response to rail blockade protesters, aiming to protect essential "infrastructure," such as pipelines, highways and railways, making it illegal to block, damage or interfere with those sites. 

The law has long been controversial amongst civil rights advocates and legal experts. The Alberta Union of Public Employees launched a constitutional challenge of the bill, though the Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed the claim in December 2021. 

Now, the Alberta government wants to clarify the act to:

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Premier Danielle Smith said the amendments were tied to an Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act motion, passed in December 2024. 

It's the latest in a long line of dust-ups and lawsuits between Alberta and Ottawa that some in the oilpatch have said is causing uncertainty in the oil and gas sector.

"Alberta will continue in its pursuit of doubling our oil and gas production to meet the growing global demand for energy, and we will not let Ottawa stand in our way," Smith said, framing it as a broader resistance against the federal government's environmental regulations and a warning against Prime Minister Mark Carney adopting past policies. 

"We will not tolerate the continuous, unconstitutional overreaches made by the federal Liberal government."

The intent of the Alberta Sovereignty Act is to allow the province to declare federal laws unconstitutional or harmful, while issuing orders to provincial entities to not comply with federal rules.

One of the most contentious fights between Alberta and Ottawa has been over the proposed federal emissions cap. In November, federal draft regulations that would require oil and gas producers in Canada to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 35 per cent below 2019 levels led Smith to signal her government's intent to table the Sovereignty Act motion.

According to the province, the amendments proposed today are intended to assist with the implementation of the Sovereignty Act motion to address the federal government's proposed regulations.

The motion included an assertion of Alberta's jurisdiction over the "exploration, development, conservation, management and production" of non-renewable natural resources in Alberta. It also designated emissions data as proprietary information owned exclusively by the Alberta government. 

It also prohibits site visits by federal employees or contractors without provincial authorization, though provincial officials were vague on Wednesday about how or whether that would be enforced.

"We would just really hope that people in the federal government abide by … in respect to property owners and property rights," Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis said.