'Fire... meet gas': Alberta Premier Danielle Smith dismayed at Carney cabinet picks

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith didn’t hide her dismay at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s choice of Toronto-area MP Julie Dabrusin as his new environment minister on Tuesday. “I am very concerned the prime minister has appointed what appears to be yet another anti-oil and gas environment minister,” said Smith in a statement on Carney’s cabinet picks. “Not only is (Dabrusin) a self-proclaimed architect of the designation of plastics as toxic, but she is a staunch advocate against oil sands expansion (and) proponent of phasing out oil and gas(.)” Smith also said she was put off by Dabrusin’s close ties to longtime thorn in her side Steven Guilbeault, to whom Dabrusin served as a parliamentary secretary for four years. The premier’s chief of staff, Rob Anderson, was even more blunt in his reaction to Dabrusin’s appointment. “Fire… meet gas,” wrote Anderson on social media . Carney’s promotion of Dabrusin to Guilbeault’s old job keeps Ottawa and Alberta on a collision course over Liberal net-zero climate policies. Smith has warned Carney repeatedly that he’ll need to scrap several of these policies — including the federal cap on oil and gas emissions and federal clean electricity regulations — if he wants to avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis. On Monday, Smith announced that she was indefinitely freezing Alberta’s industrial carbon price at $95 per tonne, setting up a clash with the Carney Liberals over their escalating federal carbon price. Just one Alberta MP, Edmontonian Eleanor Olszewski, was named to Carney’s 28-member cabinet. Rookie Calgary Liberal MP Corey Hogan was snubbed of either a cabinet or secretarial post. The reaction to Carney’s new cabinet in Alberta wasn’t all negative, as some in the province’s business community said they were encouraged by the appointment of ex-banker Tim Hodgson as energy minister. “Tim (Hodgson) has real life experience with Alberta’s energy sector… he’s seen firsthand the challenging policy environment that the federal government has put in place for the past ten years,” said Business Council of Alberta President Adam Legge. Hodgson was previously an executive with Calgary-based oil sands producer MEG Energy. Calgary-based energy analyst Heather Exner-Pirot agrees that Hodgson’s appointment is good news for Alberta’s energy sector. “I don’t think there’s anyone else in the entire Liberal caucus who could’ve given as much cause for optimism as Hodgson,” said Exner-Pirot. National Post rmohamed@postmedia.com

• Newfoundland echoes Danielle Smith's call to fix equalization
• Doug Ford says Carney should extend an olive branch to the West. Liberal strategists agree

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.