With Prime Minister Mark Carney poised to sign a “grand bargain” with Alberta later this week, some B.C. Liberal MPs are raising concerns about Ottawa possibly giving the green light to a new oil pipeline to the Pacific, sources say.
Liberal MPs told CBC News that they have not been fully briefed on the forthcoming memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — which is due to be signed Thursday in Calgary — and there is some anxiety within caucus that Carney could back a pipeline to northwest B.C. even though that province’s premier and some Indigenous communities are strenuously opposed.
One MP said some Liberals are “seething” and “angry” while another said Carney will be facing a restless caucus soon if he cuts a deal with Smith that includes a pipeline with few strings attached.
Some MPs feel they risk letting down their climate-minded, pipeline-skeptic constituents if something like this goes ahead, one said.
The MPs spoke to CBC News on the condition that they not be named.
Ottawa to support pipeline in new energy deal with Alberta
It’s in this context that Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson will brief B.C. Liberal MPs Wednesday morning about what’s to come and try to assuage some concerns, a government source said.
Facing questions from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about whether the government will ever really get a new pipeline built, Carney said in question period the deal with Alberta isn’t the final word.
“We believe in co-operative federalism. We believe the government of B.C. has to agree, we believe that First Nations rights holders have to agree and support — all stakeholders have to agree,” Carney said.
Nova Scotia Liberal MP Darren Fisher told reporters on Tuesday he’s “never been a huge pipeline guy.” Another Liberal, B.C. MP Gurbux Saini, said the pipeline must have affected Indigenous peoples and B.C. Premier David Eby’s “consent” before any shovels hit the ground.
He said Eby, who has not been at the table for these bilateral MOU talks with Alberta, “should be at all of these discussions.”
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, a longtime pipeline foe, said the Liberals could face some electoral consequences if a new oil pipeline gets built.
“The Liberal backbenchers should be really worried. They’ll lose their seats,” she said, although some polls suggest a majority of British Columbians actually support building a pipeline like this.
B.C. Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson, a former environment minister, said his anxious colleagues need to “take a bit of a step back” and “take a breath” before jumping to any negative conclusions about an MOU that hasn’t been made public.
“Let’s see what the MOU says when it actually comes out,” Wilkinson said in an interview with CBC’s Power & Politics, adding he is “confident” Carney will abide by his commitment that any major project like this needs “significant” buy-in from Indigenous communities and the affected provinces before anything goes ahead.
“There are concerns and they are legitimate concerns, and they need to be addressed and it will take some time,” Wilkinson said.
He said it’s “healthy” to have a conversation about a potential development like this.
Wilkinson, who helped craft the government’s emissions-reduction plan, said the climate agenda would have to be reworked if another major pipeline is built. He said there may be ways to mitigate the resulting emissions increases.
Smith, meanwhile, has urged Carney to unleash Alberta’s natural resources sector — to potentially add tens of billions of dollars into a tariff-hit economy and diversify Canada’s trading relationships by sending more oil to Asian markets.
As reported by CBC News last week, this Canada-Alberta agreement is likely to include some language about a path forward for the northwest B.C. oil pipeline.
Carney is open to considering such a pipeline project if Alberta, as the proponent, conducts the necessary Indigenous consultation and negotiates with the B.C. government, among other conditions, according to a senior government official.
The federal government is considering granting limited exemptions to the existing B.C. oil tanker ban, and there’s a possibility it could use its power under C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, to allow tankers associated with this proposed pipeline to bypass that moratorium.
Part of this proposed deal is a commitment to reduce the Alberta oil sector’s emissions.
Carney is intent on getting the Pathways Plus project built, and has already tasked the Major Projects Office with seeing it through. It’s an Alberta-based carbon capture, utilization and storage project, which could reduce the emissions intensity of exports from the province’s oilsands.
Carney is also committed to the industrial carbon tax, which, after the consumer levy was scrapped, has emerged as the centrepiece of the Liberal government’s climate action plan. The most recent federal budget calls for that tax to be “strengthened.”
