Alberta Premier Danielle Smith must have experienced a strong feeling of déjà vu Thursday as she announced her grand pipeline bargain with Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney – after all, she’s switched teams and crossed the floor before.
Unlike the last time, in December 2014, Thursday’s announcement wasn’t technically a parliamentary floor crossing, but as they say, “it was close enough for government work.”
As Winston S. Churchill, that notorious double floor crosser supposedly observed: “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.”
No one can deny that Premier Smith has demonstrated a certain amount of ingenuity. Expect an early election call shortly, before Smith’s less devoted voters realize that the pipeline tout le monde political Alberta was celebrating yesterday is unlikely ever to be built.
The jury remains out on whether the same thing can be said of Carney. He is already experiencing some of the backlash predicted yesterday in this space. Former federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault’s swift resignation from the federal cabinet may have been greeted with cheers and laughter in the Alberta Legislature, and possibly the PMO as well, but there is likely more to come.
Keep an eye on what happens in the Liberals’ West Coast Caucus, heavily concentrated in green-tinged areas of Vancouver. The question is not going to be whether the government will eventually lose seats in Vancouver, but how many?
Be that as it may, after two years of nurturing and encouraging Alberta’s separatists to put pressure on the former Trudeau government, Premier Smith has obviously realized they are becoming a liability and she doesn’t need them anymore. They will presumably get short shrift.
Likewise, she clearly understood that she’d never get as good a deal from Pierre Poilievre as she just did from the prime minister, so the Honourable Member for Battle River-Crowfoot will have to go over the side as well.
As for Smith and Carney, they were all smiles yesterday, just like Smith and Progressive Conservative Premier Jim Prentice were 11 years ago. Carney even dropped by to meet the curated audience and pose for pictures before Smith’s news conference.
“Prime Minister Mark Carney and I may not always agree on everything,” the premier enthused. “But we do share a few key beliefs. … And I am pleased to say that this prime minister has made it clear to me that he is willing to work with me and Alberta’s government to accomplish that shared goal. And that, my friends, is something that we have not seen from a Canadian prime minister in over a decade.”
Well, why wouldn’t she be happy? The memorandum of understanding they signed guts the Trudeau era environmental restrictions so hated by Alberta’s oil patch, at least as far as this province is concerned.
“I had a pretty happy caucus when we talked about it yesterday,” Smith crowed at the news conference. “One of the things I wanted was no export taxes or restrictions on Alberta oil and gas. Well, we got that. A complete re-do of C-69? Well, not only are we going to get that through the Major Projects Office, but we’re going to have an agreement that intra-provincial agreements are going to be approved by us, and there’s going to be a rewrite of that bill. Emissions cap? Gone. Carbon pricing stays provincial. We’ve got that. The clean electricity regulation scrapped. We got that. Tanker ban carve out? We got that. The censorship of energy. We got that. That’s seven out of nine. That’s not so bad!”
Smith also scoffed at the possibility of objections to the putative pipeline to Prince Rupert from British Columbia.
“British Columbia tried to use every tool in their toolbox, I guess that was the term that they used before, and failed,” she said. “It was clearly affirmed by the courts that this is not British Columbia’s decision to make.”
As for North Coast First Nations, she seems to feel they can be talked down or bought off.
It’s hard to imagine that hearing this will please even British Columbians who support the idea of a pipeline from Alberta to the sea. Perhaps someone there will suggest a solution might be passing something like the B.C. Sovereignty (Within a United Canada) Act. I mean, why not?
Meanwhile, you’ll never hear this said by anyone associated with the United Conservative Party (UCP) – certainly not at the party AGM that opens tomorrow – but it doesn’t really matter to Smith if the accelerating electrification of Asia led by China means there will be no Far Eastern market for diluted bitumen by the time the pipeline is supposed to start operating in 2040.
What matters to the premier and her strategic team is that a political party mired in scandal and incompetence, bedevilled by a burgeoning recall campaign, finally has an issue it can campaign on and win. Don’t expect them not to use it, and quickly.
But not before they vote to repeal the Recall Act, once the epitome of democracy according to the UCP and now a dangerous nuisance to it, sometime next week.
As also predicted here yesterday, the Opposition NDP’s response was not fit for purpose.
“This MOU is good for Alberta,” chirped NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi in a 200-word news release. “We need more pipeline capacity, energy exports, and the oil and gas jobs that come with it. … Alberta’s New Democrats have had success building pipelines with TMX – we know what it takes. It’s time for everyone to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work to get it done.”
Lame.
It was interesting how, during the news conference, representatives of insignificant far-right publications were given the opportunity to bloviate at length while The Globe and Mail was relegated to tail-end Charlie when the clock had almost run out and rudely told to hurry it up.
One also wonders what role if any Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean had to play in all this. Premier Smith mentioned in passing that he was at the newser, but passed over him when it was time to thank “our negotiating team.” The only photo of him on the government’s Flickr site showed only his back side, not his newly clean shaven face.
As for the rumour the PM was about to give Guilbeault an ambassadorship somewhere safely far away, I suppose that’s off now that the former environment minister has decided to remain in Parliament, perhaps as a thorn in Carney’s side. Well, maybe the ambassadorship can go to some other no-longer-wanted former federal environment minister, say, Jonathan Wilkinson, MP for North Vancouver-Capilano.
Today’s announcement, it should be noted, also conveniently distracted from some not-so-good second-quarter Alberta fiscal news, with the provincial deficit still estimated at about $6.4 billion. Non-renewable resource revenue is forecast to be $15.4 billion in 2025-26, down 39 per cent from a peak of $25.2 billion in 2022-23. Oil prices are expected to stay low, the news release admitted.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
