Premier Danielle Smith was almost jumping with glee and optimism Friday.
She has pulled off a deal that leads to a pipeline and will attract investors long soured on our overregulated energy industry.
The agreement isn’t about separatism, but these days you can hardly turn a corner without bumping into it.
The detailed deal with Prime Minister Mark Carney is exactly what Smith promised and hoped for — a deal to spike the separatist movement.
Smith credited Carney. She praised “co-operative federalism.” For one historic moment, her expansionist view of Alberta meshed perfectly with his dreams of pulling Canada out of the U.S. orbit.
So, we have an agreement to push a pipeline forward by summer. Construction could begin in 2027.
The industrial carbon price is severely eased in Alberta’s favour. That was essential to attract investment. All other provinces will get the benefit, Carney said.
Carbon pricing goals are suddenly vague. Now it’s about the carbon market, not mandated targets.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau had decreed an industrial price of $170 per tonne by 2030. That was designed to kill an industry. The new target is $140 by 2040.
This level, Smith and Carney agree, will grow production, help fill a pipeline and sequester carbon.
Carney insists that this is still about climate change — a program that will work over the decades, rather than wind down Canada’s most lucrative industry.
The hardline separatists will not be convinced. They’ll post at least 15 per cent of the provincial vote on any independence referendum, no matter what Ottawa offers.
Outsiders who sneer at their anger should consider the deadly-honest words of Clifford Sifton, Canada’s Liberal interior minister, spoken in 1904.
Clifford Sifton, who as Canada’s minister of the interior aggressively recruited immigrants to settle the West.
“What will Western Canada do for the Canadian organism?
“It will furnish a steady and remunerative business to the manufacturers of Eastern Canada, giving assured prosperity where uncertainty now exists.
“These are the things the West will do for the East.”
That was the official job — to enrich the East.
Sifton spoke a year before Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces.
A long time ago, you say. But Sifton accurately voiced Ottawa’s colonial view of the Prairies right at the creation.
It has been the Liberal policy handbook ever since, reaching an appalling apex in the Justin Trudeau years.
Trudeau’s Liberals envisaged a dominant EV industry in Ontario that would be sustained by forced purchases in the West. Shades of 1904.
What happened Friday was proof that federalism can work. Equally important, it was a sign that the prairie West, not just Alberta, has the power to push back hard and force results.
Smith comes in for intense criticism these days, mostly over her perceived coddling of separatism.
But she has won every single battle with Ottawa over the past year. One reason is the threat of separatism, which has finally broken through to seriously worry official Ottawa.
The separatist leaders believe they’re playing her, but in return, she uses them.
Separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre is seen during a rally in front of the Elections Alberta headquarters in Edmonton on May 4, 2026. He is also the UCP riding association president for the Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul riding.
In scope and importance, her victories against Ottawa outweigh former PC premier Peter Lougheed’s limited victory in the oil pricing crisis after 1980.
Ottawa has neutered the appalling greenwashing law, which would have jailed oil executives who dared to promote environmental gains unless they met some vague international standard.
Remember the oil and gas production cap, so beloved of ex-environment minister Steven Guilbeault, and so poisonous to any future for the industry?
The original MOU with Carney effectively killed it.
Then came the clean electricity regulations, which Smith claimed would destroy Alberta’s natural-gas fired supply.
She noted, correctly, that the rules were a huge benefit to provinces with hydro power — especially B.C., Ontario and Quebec.
The MOU also set those regulations aside. Friday’s pact finished the job.
No federal bill in decades has been as hated as Trudeau’s Impact Assessment Act, which virtually banned big projects by subjecting them to endless reviews.
Largely because of Alberta’s pressure, major projects will only face a single federal review, while Alberta alone will deal with provincial projects.
This is an astonishing string of wins. Smith may have set up this province for decades of economic gains.
Yes, the UCP fiddles with separatism.
They legislate their invasive way into public libraries.d
They violate union rights. They have not fixed health care.
But on the future of Alberta’s economy, Smith has won landmark victories.
Spare a day to give her that.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
X and Bluesky: @DonBraid