{"id":114929,"date":"2026-07-03T16:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/114929\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T16:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:00:12","slug":"inside-carneys-pipeline-deal-with-alberta-and-bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/114929\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Carney\u2019s Pipeline Deal with Alberta and BC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared Thursday night to have threaded the needle between Alberta and British Columbia, joining Premier Danielle Smith in Calgary to announce the Alberta government is OK with a southern pipeline route.<\/p>\n

Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners<\/p>\n

At Knowledge Network, Indigenous Brilliance Shines On<\/a>
\n\"At<\/a><\/p>\n

The BC-based public broadcaster delivers 12 powerful films and original series to mark Indigenous History Month.<\/p>\n

That avoids some of the big fights with First Nations and environmentalists that would have been inevitable if Smith\u2019s favoured route to Prince Rupert had been followed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve agreed that the best route for a new pipeline is one that already exists,\u201d Carney said, although there was most certainly some painful arm twisting before that agreement was reached. <\/p>\n

Earlier in the day Carney had a press conference<\/a> with Premier David Eby to announce that British Columbia wouldn\u2019t fight the heavy crude pipeline along the existing Trans Mountain pipeline route and the tanker ban off the province\u2019s North Coast would remain in place. Plus, Carney announced a multibillion-dollar Canada-B.C. \u201cco-operative prosperity agreement<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

Eby conceded he doesn\u2019t have the constitutional ability to fight the pipeline, but said the B.C. deal \u201censures that the northern tanker ban stays in place, and it ensures that if a pipeline goes ahead, that British Columbians are fairly compensated for the environmental risks we would take on any new pipeline project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to the Carney government, compensation for B.C. is a change from past pipeline battles during premiers Alison Redford\u2019s and Rachel Notley\u2019s governments in Alberta. <\/p>\n

So nobody\u2019s really happy, but everybody in power is happy enough with Carney\u2019s joint messages of not necessarily a pipeline but a pipeline if necessary and ditto about a North Coast tanker ban. Nobody knows how this will actually pan out, of course, but it\u2019s good enough for the moment for the parties with their hands on the levers of power. <\/p>\n

As for Alberta separatists and West Coast environmentalists, they will be furious and praying to their different gods for the plan to fail. <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, this is rather like the way prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King dodged the conscription bullet<\/a> in 1942 when it threatened to split the country. If Carney is channeling Billy King at this fraught moment of Canadian history, well, he could probably do worse. <\/p>\n

There is also plenty of bad news, of course, though not necessarily the same bad news depending on your perspective. <\/p>\n

Alberta separatists and their many foreign-funded bots were in a frenzy Thursday attacking all parties, but especially Smith, for doing a deal with the PM that they insisted would never come to fruition. <\/p>\n

On the other side of the ledger, the realization is yet to set in with the public that 90 per cent of the cost of this multibillion-dollar project \u2014 we don\u2019t know how many multiples of billions yet \u2014 is going to be paid by Alberta and Canadian taxpayers, just as we were promised would never happen. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that Alberta \u2014 you and me and everyone else \u2014 will have to pay up if the southern route is to be financed,\u201d said recently retired Mount Royal University political science professor Keith Brownsey. \u201cThere goes my pension!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is now clear: there is no business case for a new West Coast pipeline in Canada,\u201d said Pembina Institute executive director Chris Severson-Baker in a news release<\/a> Thursday. \u201cIf this was a smart economic venture; if there was any kind of reasonable return on investment to be made, a private company or companies would have put up the cash.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"image<\/p>\n

Feds Announce Pipeline Steps, BC Advances Protected Areas<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tread more <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Obviously, the Alberta government can\u2019t pretend Trans Mountain Corp., a federal Crown corporation, or the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission are private entities. And as for Pembina Pipeline Corp., described by Ottawa<\/a> as a
\n\u201cstrategic investor,\u201d we can be confident that behind the scenes it\u2019s been protected from any risk as a result of its role as a fig leaf in this political Kabuki theatre. <\/p>\n

The Globe and Mail reported<\/a> that Pembina Pipeline said its involvement was as a signatory to a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the federal and provincial governments and their two Crown entities.<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s proposal will now be referred to the federal government\u2019s Major Projects Office for a decision on whether it will be named a project of national interest by Oct. 1. But, c\u2019mon, Carney wouldn\u2019t have flown all the way to Vancouver and Calgary to make announcements if this were not a done deal, or the next thing to it.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"image<\/p>\n

Meet the Chief Standing in the Way of Smith\u2019s Pipeline Dreams<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tread more <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

The deal supposedly also still hinges on the willingness of major oilsands companies to build the Pathways carbon capture project, which will require the input of even more public cash. Discussions will continue on that front, the politicians say. But, again, after many promises have been broken, what\u2019s one more? <\/p>\n

Brownsey assessed the political fallout as being to Eby\u2019s benefit. \u201cI think David Eby is the winner in all this. He will collect revenues from increased LNG, the North Coast tanker moratorium stays in place and if the southern route is built, B.C. will collect some sort of toll.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obviously, the significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions from increased production in the oilsands and liquified natural gas pumped from B.C. is going to have an impact on a rapidly heating world. <\/p>\n

But clearly the prime minister concluded that if the two most urgent tasks at this moment in history are saving the country and saving the planet, his priority must be saving the country. <\/p>\n

Someone else will have to save the planet, and if that turns out to be China, it does not bode well for the future of a pipeline full of diluted bitumen from Alberta. \"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared Thursday night to have threaded the needle between Alberta and British Columbia, joining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[39502,39504,23146,39503,27255,39505,39506,4136,111,39507,445,39508,22617],"class_list":["post-114929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-alberta-petroleum-marketing-commission","tag-alberta-premier-alison-redford","tag-alberta-premier-danielle-smith","tag-alberta-premier-rachel-notley","tag-bc-premier-david-eby","tag-chris-severson-baker-pembina-institute","tag-keith-brownsey-mount-royal-university","tag-major-projects-office","tag-mark-carney","tag-pembina-pipeline-corp","tag-prime-minister-mark-carney","tag-prime-minister-william-lyon-mackenzie-king","tag-trans-mountain-pipeline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}