Alberta

On Friday morning in Calgary, Mark Carney and Danielle Smith shook hands, then signed and posed with official copies of an “implementation agreement for the Canada-Alberta memorandum of understanding,” an eight-page document bound up in profound questions of climate change, resource development, economic sovereignty and national unity.

“Today is a good day for Alberta,” the Alberta premier said. “And it’s a good day for Canada.”

“Today,” the prime minister said, was about “building trust in a Canada that works” — a country “rooted in co-operative federalism, where we build together, pragmatically and ambitiously, to achieve our shared ambitions.”

For decades, Alberta has learned one hard political lesson over and over again: Ottawa only “hears” Alberta when Alberta becomes impossible to ignore. Not when Alberta asks politely. Not when Alberta negotiates in good faith. Not when Alberta contributes tens of billions to Confederation. Only when Alberta becomes politically dangerous.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is avidly wooing the west — but will his own caucus trip him up? Last Friday, Carney met with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to reassure her that Ottawa’s got her back on a second bitumen pipeline from Alberta to Canada’s West Coast. After the tête-à-tête Smith said, “This morning I said ‘if’ a deal gets signed, and afterwards I said ‘when’ a deal gets signed,” describing it as “an indication of my improved level of confidence.”

OTTAWA – Standing in his office Friday morning, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canadians in her province, and industry stakeholders, are “getting a bit impatient” when it comes to plans to get major projects moving.

Speaking about the memorandum of understanding (MOU) – the energy co-operation pact outlining conditions for a new oil pipeline connecting Alberta to the Pacific Coast to proceed – Smith said the two parties have “had some really constructive conversations.”

But now, she has told Carney that “if we’re going to move forward with that MOU, I hope it happens in the next number of days.”

But there is hope allegedly …

Ottawa suggests letting cabinet green-light pipelines before technical assessments happen

The federal government is proposing reversing the order of pipeline approvals, allowing cabinet to green-light a new project prior to the completion of technical assessments and approvals.

The proposed changes come less than two months before Alberta is expected to submit a proposal for a new pipeline to the west coast.

The idea of switching the order of the approval process by giving it first to cabinet and then to the civil service for a technical review is included in a sweeping set of proposals released by Ottawa on Friday.