Article content continued

Jason Nixon is Alberta’s environment minister. Nixon is the kind of guy who doesn’t take it well when the likes of Trudeau are issuing the marching orders. He is also the kind of guy who just can’t suck up to the prime minister.

He’s asked why Alberta doesn’t just give in, drop the court battle against Ottawa, slap on a provincial carbon tax and make Trudeau happy.

“We’re not going to be held hostage by the federal government,” says Nixon.

“We will continue to fight tooth and nail against Justin Trudeau’s job-killing carbon tax. The federal Liberals under Justin Trudeau continue to want to manage and order and boss around the province of Alberta and we won’t accept it.”

“I don’t know how to make that any more clear. This is not the federal government’s business. Our province has the right to run our resources. That’s a fact and we’re going to continue to make sure we can.”

Nixon is on a roll where too many Alberta politicians are like dead batteries on a cold day and no jumper cables seem to put a spark into them.

“As long as they continue to stomp on Alberta’s rights, we will fight them every way we can,” says Nixon of the feds, adding “Albertans didn’t ask Justin Trudeau to come in here and go out of his way to attack our province.”

That’s good talk. Now what’s the walk? In politics, a lot of tigers turn out to be paper ones.

“We’ll see how this plays out. We’re not going to show all of our cards in the middle of a poker game.”

Hope he’s holding at least a straight flush.