Feds consider declaring new Alberta oil pipeline to be in 'national interest' this fall

OTTAWA — Alberta and the federal government are looking at a fall date for when Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet will designate a pipeline to the West Coast as being in the national interest, National Post has learned.

Building a new one-million barrel-a-day pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast is at the heart of a memorandum of understanding that Carney’s government is negotiating with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, with Ottawa also looking for the province to increase the rate of its industrial carbon tax.

Details of that agreement, including the plan for Alberta to progressively increase its industrial carbon tax to reach $130 per tonne by 2040, are expected to be announced this week, possibly on Friday.

Those increases are expected to begin in 2027, when Alberta’s current price of $95 per tonne rises to $100, then increasing by $3 per tonne after 2029 to reach $130 per tonne by 2040, nearly 15 years from now. Hammering out that timeline was one the main sticking points between Alberta and the federal government, which missed their April 1 deadline to finalize that agreement.

An Alberta government source, speaking on the condition of background, confirmed that an agreement is also in the works to see the province’s pipeline proposal receive a designation as being deemed in the national interest sometime this fall.

This week’s announcement is expected to feature key dates and timelines surrounding Alberta’s pipeline proposal.

Alberta could face a question on separating from Canada this fall, depending on the outcome of a petition drive that collected upwards of 300,000 signatures, efforts that are now undergoing separate investigations after a leak of the province’s electors list to separatist group, the Centurion Project.

Last year, Carney ushered in the Building Canada Act, a law which gives cabinet the power to designate a project as being in the national interest, which allows for approvals to be granted upfront, subject to conditions established by Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

The federal government has said that such a process would not change the need for proponents to fulfill their constitutional obligations to consult with Indigenous people.

Carney’s cabinet has so far not used its news powers for projects currently being reviewed by the Major Projects Office, a body established last fall to help streamline the regulatory process for proponents.

Smith’s United Conservative Party government plans to submit its proposal to that federal office to build a new oil pipeline to B.C.’s West Coast no later than the end of June, telling reporters last week in Ottawa that it was exploring five different routes and working with major oilsands companies as advisors.

The premier has said she wants to see a decision made by the fall.

Her United Conservative Party government has pledged spending some $14 million preparing the proposal and acting as the initial proponent, with the goal of seeing the private sector take over once necessary approvals to see a new pipeline built are secured.

B.C. Premier David Eby has panned the idea of putting a new pipeline through the province’s northwest coast, saying it lacks a private sector proponent. Coastal First Nations have also rejected the construction of a new pipeline though the region and say they oppose any plans to potentially lift an oil tanker moratorium, which Carney has agreed to consider under the deal with Alberta.

For her part, Smith has linked paving the way for Alberta to send its oil to Asian markets by way of the West Coast as crucial to addressing the longstanding frustrations she says many in her province harbour after a decade of facing certain environmental laws under former prime minister Justin Trudeau that she says stifled resource development.

National Post

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