NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. – The bosses of 38 Canadian oil and gas corporations signed a letter of congratulations to Prime Minister Mark Carney after his April 28 election victory and pitched their favourite policy options to him, we were informed yesterday by The Canadian Press.
Those policies, no one will be shocked to hear, would if adopted in full or substantial part amount to a surrender of the Government of Canada to the dictates of the fossil fuel industry, rather like present and past governments of Alberta.
On the oil bosses’ wish-list: Gutting the Impact Assessment Act, and sinking the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, neither of which would be particularly popular in some parts of Canada but which oil execs see a chance to have pushed through Parliament if they can persuade MPs to act expeditiously. Donald Trump, ya know!
The big worry for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, naturally, is that Mr. Carney might just do what she demands. After all, our still new and now properly elected Liberal prime minister, is for all intents and purposes a Progressive Conservative, just like Rachel Notley was, and therefore almost as willing to bend a knee to the petroleum industry as Ms. Smith, if not quite as likely to be so self-righteous about it.
Then what will Premier Smith complain about? It’s possible there might soon be nothing left to demand!
Don’t you worry, Dear Readers, Ms. Smith and her fellow United Conservative Party Alberta separatists will think of something and set to whining about it. A few modest environmental restrictions? Or how about the inevitable opposition to that pipeline to Prince Rupert in, you know … Prince Rupert?
Still, to paraphrase the Duke of Wellington, I don’t know what kind of effect this will have on the UCP, but, by God, it ought to frighten Pierre Poilievre!
After all, nonsense about how “easterners” (including British Columbians) hate Alberta and the fossil fuel industry and do nothing but take money, money, money away from us Albertans may sell in Wild Rose Country. But it isn’t going to have much impact in those parts of Canada where the Conservatives, if they ever hope to form a national government, have to prove they have a meaningful industrial policy difference with Mr. Carney’s Liberals and are more than just MAGA blowhards with cozy ties to Prairie separatists and 51st staters.
Anyway, as Alberta-born economist Jim Stanford pointed out a few days ago, the Alberta oil industry has never done better – largely thanks to Ottawa, not in spite of it. It’s true that Albertans aren’t getting their fair share of that wealth, he explained. “It wasn’t Ottawa that laid them off, cut their pay, froze the minimum wage, drove up electricity and insurance costs, and put their health care at risk. It was the enemy within. Alberta’s oligarchs aren’t speaking for the province, they are speaking for themselves.”
The seatless Mr. Poilievre’s choice of ridings in the heart of rural southern Alberta for his eventual re-entry into Parliament, not to mention his ability to hang onto the housekeys for Stornoway despite failing to meet the only qualification for residence, isn’t going to help his ambition in the rest of Canada. Neither is his apparent inability to step off the MAGA train, even for a minute.
As for Mr. Carney, he certainly sounds convincing when he says he’s serious about taking up Stephen Harper’s failed crusade to make Canada an “energy superpower” – although, probably, one with a few more insignificant environmental safeguards that the former Conservative PM would have countenanced.
Likewise, since he is not a MAGA ideologue like Ms. Smith, Mr. Carney will probably have room for a few windmills and solar arrays in his version of the energy superpower scheme.
“It’s a critical time for our country,” he told some of his new admirers in the Alberta oilpatch on Sunday when he sat down with industry bigshots in Calgary to talk turkey. “The world’s certainly more divided and dangerous and the imperative of making Canada an energy superpower in all respects has never been greater.”
That’s a bit of a non sequitur, actually, since there’s nothing about Canada being an energy superpower that would make the world less divided or dangerous, as I’m sure everybody in the room understood. Still, I’m equally sure they all reckoned it might sell to the rubes, especially the ones on social media, so what the hell!
This could create an opportunity for the NDP to restore its fortunes – one that, given its recent history, Parliament’s erstwhile “party of conscience” is unlikely to recognize, let alone to act on. To wit: It could act like the only party in Parliament with any regard for the environment, or the fate of the planet.
Alas for the NDP, Avi Lewis – no spring chicken any more as he nears 60 – is still not a member of the party’s Parliamentary Caucus, so there’s not likely to be much call for the party to do anything but continue to defend its now defunct confidence and supply deal, which contributed as much as any factor to its loss of party status in April’s federal election.
This will be considered good news at least for the Alberta branch of the party, which entertains separatist ambitions of its own, if only from the federal NDP.
If nothing else can come from this, maybe the the petro-bosses could tell Ms. Smith to take it easy on her separatist schtick. It’s bad for business, dontcha know?
In the tv interview she named six oil companies.
Yes, her true masters.
Danielle Smith will never be silent with Mark Carney and the Liberals. Not as long as the UCP’s $614 (or likely more) MH Care (Corrupt Care) scandal will be tormenting her. She is still concerned about it, and her Postmedia columnists mouthpieces are still attacking Mark Carney and the Liberals.
Smith would have attacked Carney and the Liberal Party, no matter what was happening in Oilberduh. Picking stupid fights is Smith’s superpower.
Trying to distract from the CorruptCare Scandal is a welcome but unexpected fringe benefit of the “Poor Little Alberta” tactics of the UCP.
PM Carnage meets with the ARSONISTS, then praises the FIREFIGHTERS!
“Carney discusses ‘partnerships’ with oil and gas executives in Calgary” (CP, Jun 01, 2025)
“Prime Minister Mark Carney sat down with oil and gas executives in Calgary Sunday to discuss partnerships and to get their input for his plans to make Canada an energy superpower.
“… Carney also took a moment on Sunday to thank the Department of National Defence, the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and volunteers involved in fighting extensive wildfires and co-ordinating large-scale evacuations.
“‘The good news is those are proceeding well at this stage but of course it’s not over until it’s over and we’re at the start of the forest fire season across the country,’ he said. ‘So we’ll stay committed to doing everything that we can with partners.'”
“The seatless Mr. Poilievre..? He does have a seat, up in the visitor’s gallery of the House of Commons where he and Mr. Scheer along with fellow CPCs can sharpen their lip reading skills as Pierre relays his orders to the caucus below.
PM Carnage: “Canada has a tremendous opportunity to be the world’s leading energy superpower, in both clean and conventional energy.”
Someday Canada will take serious action on climate change.
But not under Mark Carney.
No hint of an energy transition in the Liberals’ rhetoric. No shift away from fossil fuels towards renewables. No displacing one with the other. The Liberals’ climate menu is still “both … and”. And you can bet that fossil fuels will receive the lion’s share of government support and subsidies.
No energy transition is possible if fossil fuel production and consumption are expanding at the same time. Rising GHG emissions doom Canada’s climate targets.
But that’s exactly what Carney & Hodgson & Poilievre & Smith & Eby & Suncor & CNRL & Cenovus & CAPP & the Big Banks & The Business Council of Canada & The Canadian Federation of Independent Business have in mind.
Canada’s O&G industry seeks to eliminate federal climate policy altogether.
Carney won’t go that far. But make no mistake. The Liberals’ energy agenda is a plan to fail on climate.
Max Fawcett rightly called Carney’s predecessor “the best prime minister their industry has seen in decades.”
Climate activists may find themselves longing for the good ol’ days of pipeline-buying Justin Trudeau.
P.S. No matter how many billions of public dollars Carney funnels to the O&G industry, fossil-fuel boosters will give him no credit.
Carney could build a billion pipelines, and the O&G crowd would still revile the Liberals as Enemy #1.
This is a bad day for Skippy.
He has had to run to Alberta, his tail between his legs, because he couldn’t figure out how to be reelected in his riding of twenty years. How about by not being such a bad and lazy MP?
Worse, his challenge to Big Daddy Carney to “steal my ideas” actually happened. Carney has the ears of the premiers who would normally cheer for Pollivere. What’s he to do now?
There’s no question that the CPC is rudderless, leaderless, and brainless. They are trying to do something they’ve never done before: keep themselves from stabbing their leader in the back and kicking him to the curb. When their natural instinct is to kill off their leaders ASAP, actually following through with a plan to assure the survival of one is not in their DNA.
So, with Carney gets something that Canadians haven’t had in a long time: a conservative leader with a national vision. Sounds one of those olde skool PCs (Red Tories) Usually, CONs are a bunch of provincial idiots, who can’t see passed their own petty and bizarre grievances. The world really has changed for them … and come crashing down on their heads.
What made Queen Danielle seemingly calm down is anyone’s guess. Maybe an adult explained the facts of life to her, finally?
The Queen may be calm because she lifted $200.00 from the most needy but she is still crazy.
“What made Queen Danielle seemingly calm down….” A nasty part of me is tempted to say “Prozac,” but that’s just being mean.
“He has had to run to Alberta, his tail between his legs, because he couldn’t figure out how to be reelected in his riding of twenty years. How about by not being such a bad and lazy MP?”
Maybe his constituents still remember him taking coffee and Timbits to the convey protestors. I can only hope that was the reason.
Expat: I’m certain that was a significant factor in what happened. I doubt the divide between rural and urban ridings is as deep in that part of Ontario as in Alberta. Even if it once was, news reports have indicated large numbers of people with federal civil service jobs who would naturally view Mr. Poilievre as a threat to their job security based on what he had to say had moved there over the past 20 years. And, as you say, people geographically close to Ottawa, many with relatives living there, had a more accurate perception of what was really happening in Ottawa during the Occupation than did TBA supporters in rural Alberta. In addition, by all accounts Mr. Poilievre (like many party leaders) neglected his riding, and Mr. Fanjoy (his Liberal rival), worked hard on the stump. The result added up to a disaster for Mr. Poilievre. Who knows what the long ballot crowd were trying to prove? In the event, their efforts, which some Conservatives have tried to spin into a conspiracy, seem to have made little difference in voter behaviour. Nevertheless, their contribution was quite harmful and undermines faith in democracy, which is already under assault. DJC
Apparently, P.M. Carney wants to speak directly to the oil company CEOs. Is he doing this because:
1. He wants to eliminate Smith from the discussions going forward because he can’t stand her.
2. He knows no matter what he does, Smith will never be satisfied and he will be able to negotiate with the oil execs.
3. He wants to drive a wedge between Smith and the oil companies. Divide and conquer.
4. All of the above.
38 Corporate Welfare recipients show Canadians how its done……..If 2024’s O&G Tax Payer subsidies at $29 Billion were high…..you ain’t seen nothing yet…….The license to pollute is about to get a lot cheaper……Dare I say buck the environment…
Yes, Smith will probably continue to fight against the Federal Liberals, but if they do prove to be more friendly to the energy industry, fewer people will take her seriously.
The risk for the CPC is even greater if the Liberals become more centrist. The last time they were so centrist, they won four terms and might have got more if not for their brutal internal leadership battle.
This may also provide some breathing room for the Federal NDP to recover on the left, but given the result it may take a while for them to recover. It took the PC’s over a decade to recover from their election wipe out in the early 1990s which was only a bit worse than the NDP in terms of seats and not as bad in terms of percent of the vote.
Poilievre will also not be able to pretend to be an Ontario MP anymore. For years he was really a westerner transplanted into an Ottawa riding, but now he has to run as an actual western MP. So whether he likes it or not he will be more closely associated with the more extreme views of western Federal and Provincial conservative colleagues.
I heard the premiers of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia talk about wind, solar, nuclear and grid interconnection last night. They showed no enthusiasm for pipelines to the Maritimes. Maybe we’ll be a superpower with energy of the future, not energy of the past.
Even the oil and pipeline companies had (note past tense!) given up on building more pipelines. Then Trump screwed up everything. Now, of course, the oil executives see a chance to enrich themselves even more at public expense.
Carbon capture? Sure! The Liberal government will pay.
Pipelines? Sure! The Liberal government will pay.
LNG? Sure! The Liberal government will pay.
And if only one actually happens, well, win some, dump some. As long as the Liberal government pays, the CEOs still win!
So, no. My weary cynicism prevents me from believing renewable energy will get top priority. I’d love to be wrong, if only to see Danielle Smith get shut out, but I’m not gonna hold my breath.
If one looks at the hydrocarbons used in the Saint John refinery, there is some received from the states that originated in Alberta and quite a bit more (of a very different kind and end use) from South America.
Would shipping Alberta product direct to Irving increase Alberta’s profits, or would it take decades to pay off the build costs of new pipelines?
Finally, does Alberta have product that could replace South American stocks?
Lefty: A very good question. Here is a link to a story I wrote in 2019 about this issue: https://albertapolitics.ca/2019/02/has-anyone-thought-about-the-impact-regime-change-in-venezuela-will-have-on-albertas-oilpatch-it-wont-be-pretty/
In addition, I wrote a couple of followup stories based on events, last year:
https://albertapolitics.ca/2024/03/trump-to-world-i-call-it-tar-its-not-oil-its-terrible-so-wheres-the-energy-war-room-when-you-need-it/
https://albertapolitics.ca/2024/03/tar-oil-venezuela-trump-and-trudeau-something-else-for-alberta-conservatives-to-complain-about/
No one will even build a pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick unless it’s the federal government because the economics of the scheme don’t make sense.
Likewise, no one should imagine that doing so would get Alberta separatists to simmer down.
DJC
All this talk about speeding up project approvals is premised one fundamental principle: that for any fossil fuel infrastructure project proposal, there is only one right answer, and that answer must always be ‘Yes’, and the idea is to get to ‘Yes’ faster.
But there are some projects for which the right answer might be ‘No’, and this kind of approach doesn’t seem to leave much room for a ‘No’, or even a ‘not right now’ or a ‘maybe not’ or a ‘not there’. And, in fact, ‘No’ doesn’t ever seem to be an enduring answer.
Take, for example, a project proposal for northern Alberta that doesn’t seem to get much attention. It’s not about fossil fuels: it’s about nuclear power.
Over a decade ago (2009-2011) there was a proposal to build a nuclear power plant by Lac Cardinal, not far from the Town of Peace River. The public wasn’t impressed and the proposal was eventually abandoned.
But now there is a new proposal before the federal Impact Assessment Agency to build two CANDU reactors along the banks of the Peace River, just a few kilometres north of the town of the same name. What will be the answer this time? Will it be another ‘No’? Or will it be a ‘Yes’ this time?
https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Whitemud-the-site-for-Bruce
https://albertawilderness.ca/issues/wildlands/energy/nuclear-power/
https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/89430
The answer is: any nuclear power plant needs to be federally administered (like, NOT by a for-profit, Big Bitumen company) and should be located in the NWT where the feds don’t have to fiddle about with provincial governments. One of the biggest uranium mines in the world is in northern Saskatchewan, not far from Ft Smith, NWT. It’s also not so very far to the Bitumen Mines of Albetar —and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to sting high-voltage wires across the muskeg than pipelines. (And if Alberta ever separates, Canada will need to build a detour highway right through this vitally important region.)
Now, the benefits with regard cooking bitumen out of its sandy matrix using nuclear-generated electrical heat are potentially huge (currently using fossil fuels to do this doubles the GHG footprint), but there are other beneficial policy objectives too, roughly encapsulated as “Northern Development” but including a number of developments that are owed First Nations in the remote middle belt that runs from Prince Rupert to Hudson Bay, James Bay, and the North Atlantic Ocean—right across the continent. And it fits with the recent motivation to beef up Canada’s Arctic presence. Go North, young man!
Let us not obsess about “First Ministers’” meetings. At least half of the middle continent, from west to east, is in federal Territories where Reconciliation between indigenous and Canadian governments is much easier to achieve because provincial sovereignties cannot interfere. Furthermore, the Ft Smith region, located on the edge of the Canadian Shield (of granite), not only provides uranium fuel but also opportunities for safe underground disposal of nuclear waste (which is a potentially lucrative business in itself). Strategically there are places in any country that are more remote than in the Canadian Territories—that is, safely remote.
First step: Canada needs to re-create something like Atomic Energy Canada (which Harper sold to SNC Lavalin on his privatization drive). It was wrong for Harper to sell AECL but it’s not unsolvable. Nuclear energy production and research is dangerous enough, and strategically and technologically important enough to require government ownership and operation from cradle to grave. The only thing that comes out of it is clean electricity.
Carney did something smart, I hope.
He pulled together all the provincial leaders and said, “Show me the proposals. I wanna see the numbers. Prove your case for profitability.” Cuz that’s how bankers think if they’re considering your loan.
Welp, as anybody who follows the spew coming out of Alberta’s O&G knows–oil prices are tumbling and will tumble further. Meanwhile, other energy forms are moving up in profitability and public benefit.
This is a Come-To-Jeezus moment for Smith. Because if she and her oligarch bosses can’t provide a viable financial case where *Canada* benefits from their efforts then Carney will kibosh their plans. Right now they’re costing us more than they’re making us. Albertans are poor *because* O&G along with the Provincial government are ripping them off including gutting their benefits and wages– because those greedweasles don’t have their best interest at heart.
I hope they have detox plans included in those propositions. Because a lot of Canadians resent being taxed to clean up the endless messes when oligarchs cut costs to increase their profits.
There’s never enough money to satiate oligarchical greed and Smith’s relentless ambitions so don’t expect any firecracker fanfare in Alberta even if Smith manages to make a deal or three with Carney.
For profit and glory hoarders–there’s never enough.
Smith claims there is no proponent for a pipeline because of the regulations she wants to get rid of. Maybe she’s tried and they keep giving her those excuses, but maybe they just don’t want the risk of investing in a new pipeline.
Yesterday Charles Adler and Ryan Reynolds were repeating the usual BS about the regulations blocking the industry, but that has been debunked by various people – Leach, Fawcett, etc.
But I think Smith is still tied to Poilievre and maybe she cannot stop demanding an end to the regulations unless he does.
Oh yeah, “greedweasles” is good.
So the environment would be the new NDP hill to die on? I think it’s only Chelsae Petrovic who’s scared of the reds- I mean the eco-terrorists- coming to get her. Well, if Poilievre isn’t worried about the tick infestation and the smoke in his new riding, he’s a braver man than I thought. Oh, right, he doesn’t actually need to come back, been there, done that, sold the t-shirt.(https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/skin-crawling-surprise-alberta-woman-says-camping-trip-was-ruined-by-dozens-of-ticks-1.7547593)
Also, so not nation-building, Indigenous infrastructure. I mean, who cares, really? Not big daddy, and certainly not the Cherokee princess. The NDP? https://www.sasktoday.ca/national-business/first-nations-infrastructure-critical-but-not-nation-building-minister-10749657
Marlaina only knows how to whine about how hard done by Alberta is (while fossil fuel companies have enjoyed years of record profits). She has nothing to offer except the same old tired complaints we’ve been forced to listen to for years. At this point the incessant whining is only about deflecting attention away from the blatant corruption infecting her party. Hopefully the RCMP doesn’t take 7 years to fumble the investigation surrounding fishy healthcare procurement like they did with Kennochio and his campaign cheating.
What is it with these con party leaders? From Stockwell Day to Danielle Smith to now Parachute Pete, they can’t get elected into office with dropping them into a riding filled with bigots. It’s a practice worse than gerrymandering.
Cons gotta con…….
Clearly the super bankers are terrified of anthropogenic climate change. Sounds like the ticket for the NDP to do something about the globalization of poverty and its effects in Alberta. Can’t wait!
Years ago there was a programme on BBC and CBC called “Connections”. The host would go through the history of a particular ‘modern’ product to show that the advent of such modernity was actually very old. Consider the small music box of long ago – what genius it was to come up with a little metal drum with projections coming out of it that struck a noted attachment inside the box to create a musical melody. Then fast forward to computer punch cards, and now ‘coding’; but it all stems from the same conceptual bases that is generations long.
Consider the forest fires across B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and even Nova Scotia. The increase in CO2 from burning fossil fuels contributes to increased heating of the atmosphere, in turn causing increased moisture in the atmosphere that can now hold more humidity due to increased heat. That increased moisture in the atmosphere is itself a very strong component to increasing atmospheric heating, thus increased cloud formation, increased thunderstorms, and more lightening that ignites more forest fires. “And the beat goes on”!
These are straight forward connections known to many [except the federal Conservatives who voted against any climate change policies at the federal convention, and the UCP convention people who declared that increased CO2 is good for plant growth despite what research has shown to be the opposite!].
As you so adroitly point out, the new federal Progressive Conservative [officially labelled Liberal] and the current Alberta NDP of the same ilk, have not been able to make the connections due in big part to the denialists of CAPP and the “big like” of these governments for all that money. Money needed more and more to pay for all the people and equipment to fight forest fires and house and feed all the evacuees! Around and around we go! Getting to where?
Bruce, one problem is language.
“Climate crisis” and “global warming” sound too…impersonal. Like humans might or might not, be part of the problem. It’s an escape route for those whose lives are mandated by putting-food-on-the-table struggles, not global scientific-sounding interests.
We need state the obvious if we want to get people on board with changing the conversation to see improving the world as something *people* and *industries* have control, over.
The word is “pollution”. Remember when cities had “pollution indexes” that told the public every day if the air quality was up or down? That’s personal. That’s bringing it home. Whenever people in their family or community are suffering asthma attacks or increased heaving for air or hospital visits for COPD symptons–*that* is close to home.
We need those pollution indexes, back. All the future predictors are meaningless to most people. After all, according to Al Gore’s predictions–we should all be dead already. To regular people that smells too much like religious fanaticism and not enough like practical reality.
Pollution can be improved with concrete strategies. Asking people to choose between paying the rent or saving the planet? They’re going to choose the immediate concern.
P.P. is DOA. He is the stuff of morticians. Smith is so desperate she is stealing $200.00 from the poor on AISH -probably the vilest move of any politician in Canada. Smith should return to flipping burgers.
Damien Kurek can not resign as MP until June 15 I think, so maybe PP could change his mind and run in a different riding in a different province. He would look ridiculous, but he already does anyway.
Val– according to federal law Damien Kurec must sit as an MP for 30 days before resigning his seat and triggering a by-election.
Once the seat is vacated, the government has between 11-180 days to call a by-election, making the earliest PP could be elected the beginning of August.
And according to “sources” from Conservative strategists, they wish he would stop his sniveling @parliament and be quiet until ( we hope if) that happens.
He does not look ridiculous, he looks like a full blown idiot
Pollievre would be good as a candidate for the Republican Party.
Or is there a separatist party?
The Republican Party of Alberta. DJC
One thing I noticed in the scrum after the meeting is Carney and Smith talked about non carbon oil production which I take to mean carbon capture needs to ramp up significantly. Because there is nothing but a vacuum between dingy Smith’s ears, I could see the hamster going 100 mph on the wheel in her head, getting to either sell us on investing our CPP into an Alberta Pension Plan or just doing without a referendum, essentially just stealing it from Albertans for sake of investing it in carbon capture.
For those of us who voted Liberal to avoid the MAGA plague we are now finding out what we maybe getting. Obviously drill baby drill and no veto on major projects from First Nations.
I disagree we got Rachel Notley 2.0, we got Danielle Smith 3.0
Forget climate agreements
‘More than 400 homes and buildings destroyed, 9,000 people evacuated so far’
in SASK alone.
What will be Mr. Carney’s reactions? BUY MORE WATER BOMB PLANES – right?
I am starting to understand why Justin Trudeau never really made a great effort to get Carney in his government. LOL
I get a little sick of all the talk of being an energy superpower when that’s what we would have been had these Reformers not destroyed the oil royalties and corporate tax structures that Lougheed put in place like Alaska and Norway did.