Alberta deal will create 'necessary conditions' for potential pipeline to B.C., not a guarantee: Carney

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday his government’s forthcoming energy deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will create “necessary conditions” for a potential pipeline to British Columbia, but not provide an outright guarantee.

Carney, fresh off his trip to the United Arab Emirates and the G20 Leaders’ Summit in South Africa, is set to depart for Alberta to ink a new memorandum of understanding with Smith, defining the conditions of the two governments’ dealings on energy, expected to be formalized on Thursday.

Topping Smith’s list of demands from Carney is for his Liberal government to offer some kind of pathway to see a new bitumen pipeline built from Alberta to B.C.’s coast, a proposal that has been rejected by coastal First Nations as well as B.C. Premier David Eby.

Liberal MPs from B.C. have also lined up to say greenlighting any such project would require two key conditions to be met: Gaining acceptance from Eby’s NDP government, as well as impacted First Nations.

Standing in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Carney appeared to back those requirements, as expectations swirled around what kind of deal his government would be willing to ink with Smith’s United Conservative Party government.

“The memorandum of understanding that we’re negotiating with Alberta creates necessary conditions, but not sufficient conditions, because we believe in cooperative federalism,” Carney told the House of Commons on Tuesday.

“We believe the government of British Columbia has to agree. We believe that First Nations right holders in this country have to agree.”

Carney’s comment came in response to Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party has long blamed the Liberals under former prime minister Justin Trudeau for ushering in a suite of environmental policies that it, and other political and industry critics, say have hampered new pipeline development.

Poilievre, himself an Alberta MP, panned the upcoming deal with Alberta as a public relations stunt on Tuesday and pressed Carney to offer a firm commitment for a new pipeline to B.C.

However, at least two of his MPs, who spoke to reporters that afternoon, suggested a closer look would be needed at the Ottawa-Alberta deal first.

“Devil’s always in the details,” said Alberta MP David Bexte.

Saskatchewan MP Kevin Waugh said while Alberta is the focus of Ottawa’s negotiations, his oil-producing province would benefit greatly from a new pipeline.

“We want to be a part of this pipeline,” he said. “So, Thursday’s announcement will be interesting. Hope for the best.”

While Smith entered negotiations with Ottawa in hopes of securing more commitments for a new pipeline and a reprieve from a slew of Trudeau-era environmental policies, Carney went in looking for the premier to commit to strengthening its provincial industrial carbon pricing policy, which she froze earlier this year.

The upcoming agreement is expected to include some stronger commitments from Alberta around a willingness to strengthen its industrial carbon price, a policy Smith said earlier this fall she was open to changing, and one that Carney sees as key to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

Much of the language around the upcoming deal is expected to be conditional, laying out a roadmap for how Ottawa and Alberta would better collaborate on energy.

Other policies Ottawa has put on the table as part of its negotiations include regulations around methane, clean electricity and the proposed emissions cap on oil and gas, the last of which Carney opened the door to scrapping in the Nov. 4 budget, linking doing so to seeing strong methane regulations and an expansion of carbon capture and storage technologies.

When it comes to a possible lifting or carveout of the federal oil tanker ban off B.C’s northern coast, the Carney government could do so using the powers ushered in under the bill known by its legislative title of C-5, which gives cabinet the powers to sidestep existing environmental laws under a set of conditions to see infrastructure projects deemed as benefiting the “national interest” built.

National Post

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