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Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith at his office in Ottawa on Friday.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Premier Danielle Smith said Friday she and Prime Minister Mark Carney have made “significant progress” toward an agreement on a West Coast pipeline and carbon pricing.
Ms. Smith said she headed into a morning meeting with Mr. Carney not feeling confident the deal could get done, but that changed.
“I’m feeling much more confident that we’re going to be able to finally land the MOU and to do so before we submit our proposal to the major projects office for a new pipeline to the west coast of B.C.,” she said from the stage of a conservative conference in Ottawa on Friday afternoon.
“A lot more confident.”
She did not provide specifics.
But Ms. Smith and Mr. Carney had met earlier in Ottawa on Friday as pressure mounts for the two sides to finalize negotiations on outstanding elements of the landmark memorandum of understanding Ottawa and Alberta signed last year.
The global energy crisis caused by the war in Iran launched a major reset of energy markets as countries losing access to oil and gas are looking for alternate suppliers.
Meanwhile, the leaders of Alberta’s separatist movement said Monday they had gathered enough signatures to force a vote on whether the province should split with Canada in a referendum scheduled for Oct. 19.
The campaign could still be derailed by a legal challenge and an RCMP and Elections Alberta investigation, but its leaders insist it has the credibility to move ahead to a general vote.
Mr. Carney has made a promise to speed up natural resources development in Alberta a central plank of his argument against separation. The separatist movement often cites previous Liberal government policies on oil and gas development as deliberate efforts to handcuff provincial growth and autonomy.
“We’re working to make Canada work better for Albertans and for all Canadians‚” the Prime Minister said in his own remarks at the start of his meeting with Ms. Smith.
Negotiations that could pave the way for a new oil pipeline stem from a November memorandum of understanding struck between the two governments.
Alberta and Ottawa have already reached agreement on two of four provisions in the MOU that were to be finalized by April 1: streamlining environmental impact assessments and the province cutting methane emissions by 75 per cent from 2014 levels by 2035.
But two other objectives in the MOU, involving the thorny issues of carbon pricing and a CO2-capture project in the oil sands, remain unresolved.
The Globe and Mail reported this week that the negotiations are being stymied over disagreement about the speed at which the province must increase its carbon price to $130 a tonne.
Ms. Smith made reference to the tensions over carbon pricing on Friday, noting that the previous Trudeau government was looking for $170 a tonne by 2030 – and having that off the table in favour of $130 “at some point” is meaningful.
“The Supreme Court has given the federal government the ability to set a floor price on carbon, and so we have to accept the reality of the framework that we’re operating and still fight against it, still make sure that our companies are able to afford it, still make sure that our rate payers are able to afford it, but that that’s just one of the realities we face,” Ms. Smith said during a conversation on the stage of the Canada Strong and Free Network conference in Ottawa.
