Smith says Alberta will look to send more oil to U.S. if Carney fails to put pipeline on nation-building list

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says if Prime Minister Mark Carney fails to include her new pipeline pitch on his list of nation-building projects within the next seven weeks, she will have to intensify her efforts to build north to south.

“Everybody wants to be Team Canada and find new markets. But if it means, let’s all work together to get our products to market, but not Alberta’s, well, then that would be the pathway I’d have to pursue,” she told National Post in an interview Thursday.

Diversifying Canada’s market access and trading relationships has been a major focus of Carney’s first six months in office.

Political and business leaders have spent much of the past year calling for Canada to widen its customer base to wean itself off an over-dependence on the United States, in light of the ongoing trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Getting more major infrastructure and energy projects built has also been a key plank in Carney’s promise of bolstering Canada’s economy.

He has said the next list of nation-building projects his government will work to fast-track will be announced by Nov. 16.

Smith’s call for Carney to include Alberta’s new proposal to build an oil pipeline to British Columbia’s coastline on that list is not only a test for the Ottawa-Alberta relationship but also, according to the premier, a test of the prime minister’s commitment to that diversification.

“I’ve taken my colleagues seriously when they’ve said that they want new markets and they want to work together, and this is my demonstration that I believe them when they say that,” she says.

“If they’re not telling the truth, then I guess I’ll find out pretty soon, and then I’ll have to work on other options, which would include working with the companies in the United States and the U.S. administration to build more going to the south.”

As Canada’s biggest producer of crude oil, Alberta exports most of its oil to the U.S. However, Trump’s global trade war has resulted in more Canadian oil flowing to China through the TransMountain pipeline, which runs from Edmonton to Burnaby. B.C., after China sought to cut back on U.S. oil.

So far, Smith’s new pitch has been met with harsh words from B.C. Premier David Eby, who slammed her proposal as not being rooted in reality, saying it lacks both a private backer and private-sector money, and questioned what value there was for Carney’s government to give it any consideration.

In an interview on Thursday, B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix added that the province has many “shovel-ready projects,” backed by proponents Carney’s government could consider, unlike in Alberta’s case.

“Our message to the federal government is let’s deal with real projects, and not political projects.”

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe voiced support for Alberta’s proposal.

“Expanding energy export capacity from Western Canada benefits all producing jurisdictions by increasing the price we get for our oil. This means improved competitiveness, increased investment, higher revenues, and more jobs,” the premier said in a statement. 

Rather than wade into interprovincial debates, Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has accused Carney of being slow to act, turned up the pressure on Thursday.

“There’s one man who stands in the way of this pipeline getting built. It’s Mark Carney,” he said, speaking to reporters in Ottawa.

Smith has defended allocating $14 million of provincial taxpayer money to fund a technical working group, assisted by three major energy companies, as necessary given the failures of past pipeline projects, including Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway and Energy East from TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada Corporation.

Her government’s goal is for private proponents to eventually come forward, but Smith says first, Carney must scrap a suite of Trudeau-era laws that she and other critics have long argued block development.

In a recent statement, federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said Alberta was well within its right to submit a proposal for consideration, adding that any project being pitched “will be evaluated against the same rules for all proponents.”

Another issue brewing for Alberta is the B.C. premier’s staunch support of an oil tanker moratorium along its northern coast that the federal government passed back in 2019, which is among the Trudeau-era laws Smith has demanded Carney scrap.

Besides ecological concerns, Dix said the tanker ban has given the B.C. government the “social license” to develop liquified natural gas on the northern coast.

An alliance of coastal B.C. First Nations has called on the prime minister to maintain it, saying in a recent statement that their communities reject Smith’s proposal.

While Alberta’s premier has expressed an openness to seeing a carve-out created for a particular port for her specific proposal, such as in Prince Rupert, B.C., she says she would still prefer Carney’s government to do away with the law altogether.

“If that is a no, then it means no one’s really serious about finding new markets. It means no one’s really serious about acting like a country,” she said.

Another issue that Smith says she has raised with Carney would be how Albertans, feeling aggrieved towards Ottawa and looking to separate, may react to seeing a pipeline proposal rejected.

“That’s what I’ve told the prime minister. What would it signal to that group? I take that group seriously,” Smith said.

National Post, w ith files from Bloomberg

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 politics newsletter, First Reading, here.