If Alberta's carbon tax were applied to Santa Claus, there would be no Christmas, says Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt.

The member for Strathmore-Brooks used the final question period of the fall sitting Tuesday to give an economic impact analysis of government policies on Jolly Old Saint Nick.

There was the effect of a $15 minimum wage on "young elves entering the labour market," the accelerated phase-out of coal (Santa has used the resource responsibly for 2,000 years, Fildebrandt argued, what will the naughty children get now?) and solar panels being ineffective in the North Pole winter.

Does the Grinch (the NDP, in his scenario) understand the impact oilsands emissions caps would have on Santa's toy making, Fildebrandt asked.

Government House Leader Brian Mason said if Alberta doesn't curtail the use of coal and CO2 emissions, the North Pole will melt.

"What will happen to toy production then?" Mason asked.

Tuesday's exchange also featured a quick game of "question period Jeopardy" led by Wildrose MLA Nathan Cooper, which resulted in Finance Minister Joe Ceci imploring the official Opposition "to stop being nattering nabobs of negativism." That was essentially the same quote from former U.S. vice-president Spiro Agnew, who first used it in 1970 to describe the news media.

The jovial atmosphere that closed the session's final question period was in marked contrast to the previous six weeks.

The first half of the fall session was all about electricity and the provincial government's massive changes to the province's power system.

It included settlements between power companies and government to avoid the huge power purchase arrangement (PPA) lawsuit, a rate-cap for consumers and commitment to renewable energy.

The largest change, though, was the government's overhaul of the electricity grid from an energy-only market to a capacity system. It also passed legislation to allow the government to lend money to Alberta's Balancing Pool, which is absorbing losses thanks to power companies handing back their PPAs.

Then the federal government announced its approval of two pipelines, for which the NDP happily took credit on multiple occasions in the house, and the government overhauled election financing rules, including lower donation limits.

The biggest session issue, though, was four-year-old Serenity, the little girl who died while in government kinship care.

Day after day, the opposition parties buffeted the government with questions about what it's doing to fix the broken child welfare system, even as police prodded Human Service for information in their investigation.

It all came to a head last week with demands for the resignation of Human Services Minister Irfan Sabir.

Instead, the government announced an all-party panel to review the child welfare system. Opposition parties banded together Tuesday to propose new rules for the panel before they will participate.

More than a dozen bills passed this session, including the Modernized Municipal Government Act, oilsands emission limits, a Ukrainian-Canadian Heritage Day, the Renewable Electricity Act, the Vital Statistics and Life Events Modernization Act which will make Alberta the first jurisdiction to allow a third sex marker on official documents, and helmet laws for ATVs.

egraney@postmedia.com

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