The Alberta government is poised to make an announcement about its plans for a new West Coast oil pipeline later this week.
Sam Blackett, press secretary to Premier Danielle Smith, says there will be a “major announcement” on Thursday to share new details about the province’s submission to the federal major projects office.
The major projects office was established a year ago to speed along infrastructure deemed in Canada’s national interest.
Alberta is acting as a proponent for a new pipeline that would carry up to one million barrels per day from the oilsands to a yet-to-be-determined West Coast port for tanker export to Asia.
Under a federal-provincial energy accord signed last year, Ottawa’s support for the pipeline is contingent upon the building of the massive Pathways carbon capture and storage project that would offset some of the emissions impact from increased oilsands production.
Dennis McConaghy, an author and retired pipeline executive, says the fate of the pipeline rests largely with the CEOs of the five biggest oilsands companies whose production would be needed to fill the new pipeline and who, as of now, are partners in the Pathways project.
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He says those companies would be hard-pressed to sign on as shippers on a new oilsands pipeline so long as they’re subject to higher climate costs in the form of the industrial carbon tax and requirement to spend tens of billions of dollars on Pathways.
“The private sector can finance this if it is confident that they will be allowed to go forward on these expansions with rational climate policy,” McConaghy said.
“Producers are not going to climb on without, I think at a minimum, a significant about-face by (Prime Minister) Mark Carney, which I don’t think will happen — at least not in the short run.”
The Alberta government is aiming for the pipeline to be designated a project of national interest by October and getting shovels in the ground as early as September 2027.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Carney is scheduled to make a rare Canada Day appearance in Alberta, just a day ahead of that expected announcement.
Speaking with reporters in Kuujjuaq, Que., on Tuesday, Carney said he will be in Alberta on the evening of July 1, and that he has been in close contact with Premier Danielle Smith.
The province has a July 1 deadline to make a proposal to the federal government’s new major projects office to fast-track approval of a new pipeline project.
“That’s tracking well, from their perspective,” Carney said, adding he is up to speed on the proposal but will wait until it is announced to comment further.
Carney said it will still take months for the federal government to decide whether to send Alberta’s submission to the new major projects office.
Many questions remain about the prospects for such a pipeline, since a route has yet to be identified and no private sector proponent has come forward.
Duane Bratt, a political-science professor at Calgary’s Mount Royal University, said that while it’s normal for a prime minister to travel west for the Calgary Stampede, visiting the province for Canada Day just months before the October referendum is about symbolism.
“This is going to be a very different Canada Day we’ve had in this province than ever before,” Bratt said.
“There’s been a surge in Canadian flag purchases and people waving Canadian flags. And what’s funny about that is, it wasn’t that long ago that people were waving the Canadian flag as opponents to the (federal) government as part of the Ottawa convoy, where some of the demonstrations stayed in place for months if not years.”
Carney has opposed the separation push and described the fall vote as a “real referendum” and a “dangerous bluff.” He has compared it to Brexit in the U.K., adding that “leave” campaigns make unrealistic promises and refuse to acknowledge the pitfalls of separation.
In a video message his office published on Tuesday, Carney also addressed some of the provinces’ long-standing grievances head-on and discussed why he departed from former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s climate agenda.
Carney said he remembers when he was a teenager living in Edmonton how Albertans felt hurt when the National Energy Program was introduced, as if their resources “weren’t our own.”
“More recently, we were made to feel like our energy contributions were running against the tides of history,” Carney said. “What should have brought us together began to divide us, contributing to a half-century of politics that have too often pulled us apart.”
Carney said Trudeau’s climate plan was “well-intentioned” but “not sustainable over the long term” — and admitted that emissions will go up as a result of policy decisions his government has made.
“It would have let down our partners who need new sources of energy, and do so right at the time when we need them to help us become more independent of the United States. And it would have been too divisive for our country,” Carney said.
“In the current environment, the old plan was an open opportunity for those people who wish to pull Canada apart, both at home and from abroad.”