Braid: Guilbeault committed a crime, yet slams others for lawbreaking

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A politician who accuses others of law-breaking had better have a clean rap sheet himself.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault does not.

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And yet, he accuses Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe of “immoral” law-breaking for refusing to remit carbon tax on natural gas heating to Ottawa.

“If Premier Scott Moe decides that he wants to start breaking laws and not respecting federal laws, then measures will have to be taken,” Guilbeault said.

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“We can’t let that happen. What if somebody tomorrow decides that they don’t want to respect other federal laws, criminal laws?

“What would happen then if a prime minister, a premier of a province, would want to do that?”

What would happen, we might ask in return, if a convicted Greenpeace stuntman became Canada’s environment minister?

Policy chaos, that’s what, with an added dose of flaming hypocrisy.

Guilbeault was convicted of mischief in 2001 for climbing the CN Tower in Toronto and unfurling a banner.

He was sentenced to a year’s probation, 100 hours of community service in Montreal, and ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution. The stunt cost the tower operators $50,000.

Mischief might sound like a trivial thing, but it’s a criminal offence that can come with jail time.

(It’s likely that Guilbeault’s conviction has been expunged. History, however, has not.)

Undeterred, only months later Guilbeault led a Greenpeace team that swarmed the Calgary home of then Alberta premier Ralph Klein and his wife, Colleen.

They put up a banner, propped ladders against the house and climbed onto the roof to install a solar panel.

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They terrified Colleen Klein, who was alone and thought she faced a home invasion. She grabbed a broom for defence.

This was trespass at least, and probably vandalism, but the Kleins didn’t press charges that would have brought Guilbeault more publicity. They did get a restraining order.

None of this is new. I warned about Guilbeault when he became environment and climate change minister in 2021.

Jason Kenney, then Alberta premier, nailed what would happen with Guilbeault in a serious job.

“His own personal background and track record on these issues suggests someone who is more an absolutist than a pragmatist when it comes to finding solutions,” Kenney said.

Many people applauded Guilbeault’s earlier offences. It was all part of legitimate activism, they thought.

But having done those things, Guilbeault has no moral authority to scold anyone about law-breaking.

This doesn’t seem to register. He’s the ultimate moralizing preacher when his own law is threatened.

Saskatchewan is defying federal legislation, obviously. But there is an argument that the Liberals broke it themselves by exempting home heating oil from carbon tax for purely political reasons.

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Last fall, a group of Atlantic Liberal ministers and MLAs met Prime Minister Justin Trudeau personally, demanding a “carve-out” for tax on home heating oil.

This was granted. And then, Newfoundland and Labrador minister Gudie Hutchings crowed that if westerners want the same break for natural gas heating, they should elect Liberals.

Thus began the collapse of political support for the carbon tax.

Even provincial New Democratic parties in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba demand tax relief for natural gas heating.

The federal NDP backed a Conservative motion demanding the exemption. It was defeated only because the Liberals had support from the masterfully hypocritical Bloc Quebecois.

There is no carbon tax in Quebec. The province has a cap-and-trade scheme, or scam, which results in a lower real price on carbon. The Bloc was just doing the usual, sticking hot pins into Canadian divisions.

The Liberals in general need to be very careful about accusing others of law-breaking. They’re quite good at it themselves.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Liberals violated the Constitution with parts of their furiously opposed Impact Assessment Act.

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Their response was, ho hum, we’ll amend it — and then wait for another challenge.

This kind of thing has been going on for decades. In 1980, the Liberals tried to slap an export tax on natural gas as part of the National Energy Program.

The Alberta government formed a public company that drilled three natural gas wells and sold the gas in Montana.

Then Alberta brought a legal challenge. Both the Alberta Appeal Court and the Supreme Court said the tax was illegal.

As for Guilbeault, Premier Danielle Smith asked the crucial question recently on Postmedia’s Full Comment podcast.

“At what point does the prime minister step in and say that this minister of environment has gone completely off the rails?”

She might have added that he’s gone off the roads, too. Guilbeault said no new ones should be built in this second-largest country on Earth.

That forced Trudeau to contradict his minister. But the PM doesn’t fire him no matter how loopy he gets.

It’s a mystery.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

X: @DonBraid

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