Recent polling is offering up mixed results on Albertans’ support for national climate initiatives, with solid majorities supporting a national oil and gas emissions cap but backing their provincial government’s crusade against federal net-zero plans.
A pair of polls, conducted by different polling firms at the same time with the same questions, showed the majority of Albertans would support some kind of national cap on carbon emissions from the oil and gas sector, The Canadian Press reports. The numbers come after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith warned Ottawa last month not to test the “resolve” of Albertans to oppose such measures.
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But the Angus Reid Institute says nearly 60% support Smith’s mission to obstruct national net-zero policy, while strong pluralities in different parts of the province support Alberta’s seven-month moratorium on renewable energy development.
Elsewhere, a national poll shows nearly two-thirds of Canadians agreeing that the country must address the affordable housing crisis without compromising its climate targets.
The results of the two emissions cap polls “conflict with the narrative that our current [provincial] government is telling Albertans and Canadians that Albertans do not support this kind of action,” said Dr. Joe Vipond of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), which commissioned the polls.
“Our polling suggests that’s not correct.”
The federal government has promised to bring in a cap on oil and gas emissions this fall, CP writes. Smith has pledged to fight any such legislation, calling it an enforced production cap. Alberta has a 100-megatonne emissions cap on its books, although it’s never been implemented.
CAPE hired the polling firms Leger and Research Co. to conduct the online surveys of more than 800 Albertans between August 25 and 27.
The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population. A random sample of 1,000 respondents would have a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Neither pollster was aware of the other’s work. Both used the same questions, including, “Would you support or oppose setting a nation-wide emissions cap on oil and gas carbon pollution in Canada?”
Leger found 57% of respondents were at least somewhat in favour. Research Co.’s finding was 62% in favour.
That rough agreement adds confidence to the results, said Mario Canseco of Research Co.
“The numbers for each of the samples are pretty much bang on,” he said. “I feel good because everything is similar.”
The Leger poll, with a slightly larger sample size, was able to break out some demographic results. Urban areas supported a cap by 62% and suburban areas by 56%, with 46% of rural Albertans in support.
Results from the twin polls didn’t surprise University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley, who has been leading a long-term surveying project on Alberta called Common Ground. He said a decade’s worth of polling suggest Albertans are much more environmentally conscious than they’re given credit for—and than they give each other credit for.
“Most Albertans feel that way, but they don’t think the average Albertan feels that way,” Wesley told CP. “There’s a false sense of social reality.
“Until that changes, until people’s perceptions of public opinion catches up with public opinion, there’s not much incentive for politicians to change their rhetoric,” he added.
Albertans do show less support than Canadians in other provinces for environmental measures that would affect its oilpatch, CP says. A poll released Wednesday on attitudes toward climate change, conducted by Leger and commissioned by The Canadian Press, found a nearly 30-percentage-point difference between Alberta and Quebec in those concerned about the issue.
Still, a slim majority of 55% of Albertans expressed some level worry.
On August 30, Smith’s office released a statement in which she was quoted as saying: “Under no scenario will the government of Alberta permit the implementation of the proposed federal electricity regulations or contemplated oil and gas emissions cap. We would strongly suggest the federal government refrain from testing our government’s or Albertans’ resolve in this regard.”
Vipond said the polling suggests otherwise.
“When (politicians) make statements like, ‘Albertans do not support a just transition or an emissions cap,’ those statements are not based in truth. Albertans understand that we cannot go on doing what we’ve done.”
Angus Reid says 47% of Albertans—ranging from 43 and 45% in Edmonton and Calgary, to 55% in other parts of the province—believe the province’s renewable energy moratorium is a good idea. Nearly three in five support the province pushing back against federal net-zero plans.
But the support for the moratorium comes with plenty of concern about its impact.
After Smith announced the measure last month, Greengate Power CEO Dan Balaban said the province was “taking a jackhammer to a nail,” the Calgary-based Business Renewables Centre calculated the policy would cost Alberta C$4.7 billion in project development and 5,300 jobs, and at least one rural mayor said he’d been “ghosted” after he wrote to the premier to object to the decision.
Those concerns come through in the Angus Reid results, the pollster says in an email release.
“Approaching half of Albertans (47%) feel the moratorium on renewable energy development to be a good idea,” the release states. “However, there are many—two in five (40%)—who disagree.”
Concerns about the plan have to do with “the moratorium’s effect on what was a booming sector of the economy and the jobs it created, as well as rapidly rising power prices in the province,” Angus Reid writes. “Half (50%) of Albertans say the government is ‘hurting jobs and the economy’ with the green energy pause, while a similar number (46%) worry that it will only further increase electricity prices.”
At the national level, meanwhile, Abacus Data is picking up a major intersection between Canadians’ concerns about climate change and the affordable housing crisis. A national survey of 3,959 adults from August 29 to September 4 found 76% worried about climate change, while 53% reported a recent uptick in their concern about housing affordability—a shift that was particularly pronounced among younger respondents.
Some 78% of respondents “emphasize the importance of constructing housing in ways that minimize pollution contributing to climate change,” Abacus wrote. “These concerns are not going unnoticed,” the research agency added, ahead of a national Liberal Party caucus meeting last week where Chair and CEO David Coletto addressed participants.
The main body of this report was first published by The Canadian Press on September 14, 2023.
