RED DEER, Alberta – Their anger may be genuine, but it seems likely Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and British Columbia Premier David Eby are both relieved and even delighted to have the excuse to yell at each other about the Alberta Government’s half-baked plan for a bitumen pipeline from the Athabasca tarpatch to the Pacific Coast.
After all, the premiers of Canada’s westernmost provinces each have sound political reasons to want to distract voters from the difficulties they are experiencing in their own bailiwicks and to engage instead in an opportunity to drive a wedge between their principal rivals and voters who might be tempted to abandon their respective parties.
Ms. Smith needs to divert attention from the provincewide teachers’ strike in Alberta, the fraught state of the province’s public health care system, and miscellaneous corruption scandals. At the same time, she’s presented the federal Liberals with a list of demands that they couldn’t deliver by her deadline even if they want to, and they may, to advance her separatist agenda. She’s also trying to tie Opposition Naheed Nenshi’s New Democratic Party to the party with the same name in B.C. that she’s now added to her long list of Enemies of Alberta.
This is classic Alberta politics, with a MAGA-era spin.
As for Mr. Eby, his party has a one-seat majority in the B.C. Legislature and newly reconstituted Conservative Party of B.C., which bears a startling resemblance to Ms. Smith’s Trump-inspired United Conservative Party, breathing down his neck.
What better target in such circumstances than Ms. Smith’s undercooked pre-plan for a study of a plan for a proposal to get a private company to build a pipeline that no corporation will touch with a bargepole and few coastal British Columbians, including many who might be tempted to vote for the B.C. Conservatives, are likely to want in their front yard.
Ms. Smith calls Mr. Eby’s position un-Canadian. Mr. Eby says Ms. Smith’s pipeline scheme “fails on every count” and is “an entirely political creation in the lead-up to their election for wedge politics at the expense of British Columbia and Canada’s economy.”
This in turn seems to be giving the conservative commentariat the vapours. Don Braid of The Calgary Herald accused Mr. Eby of being vicious, partisan and unhinged. “What election? No Alberta vote is scheduled until the fall of 2027,” he grumped. “Eby could scent a chance to expand his teeny majority with a snap election,” he also wrote.
Once described as the dean of Alberta political commentators, one would have thought Mr. Braid would be aware of the constant buzz in these parts about Ms. Smith calling an early election next spring. Why else would she delay that judge’s report she commissioned on the still-roiling scandal about sketchy health care contracts?
Meanwhile, over at The Globe and Mail, in a column just as incensed as Mr. Braid’s, Andrew Coyne was accusing Ms. Smith of sending a pipeline ransom note to Prime Minister Mark Carney while holding Canada for ransom.
“As blackmail notes go, this is right up there,” Mr. Coyne said of Premier Smith’s pipeline strategy.
C’mon, boys! Aren’t you supposed to be on the same team? Keep this up and you’ll ruin one of my favourite conspiracy theories!
On balance, I’d say it’s harder to argue with most of Mr. Eby’s assessment of Ms. Smith’s proposal – which is so serious her government has budgeted a piddling $14 million to its preparation – than Ms. Smith’s attack on Mr. Eby’s motives or her claims about the viability of her North Coast pipe dream.
The Alberta announcement generated lots of social media posts and press releases, but, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, California, “there’s no there there.”
For what should be obvious reasons, neither premier strikes me as unhinged. This is rational, calculated behaviour on both their parts.
Be that as it may, it’s worth repeating that if a pipeline to Prince Rupert or Kitimat is ever built, it will be paid for by taxpayers, and probably by Alberta taxpayers.
Smith’s attempt to build a pipeline on the cheap will likely get the commensurate results. Also I don’t think Carney is feeling as generous as Trudeau. So at some point everyone, or almost everyone, will get tired of talking about nothing.
No doubt Smith will try to come up with some desperate tricks to keep it in the news and her tricks are good. However, Coyne’s comments about blackmailing the rest of Canada are important to note. There is really not the patience or interest to continue this sham outside of Alberta.
Interestingly the PM has just dangled the revival of Keystone infront of Trump, like a shiny object to distract and bargain with. So perhaps Smith will hop off the bash BC bandwagon and jump on a new one that might actually be more productive.
Of course that may not do much to boost her waning popularity, so maybe she will just stick with her impossible dream.
Seems Don Braid didn’t bother to read the Alberta Next webpage, which stated that Albertans would get to vote in 2026. I did. Does that make me a pundit?
In my opinion, it is very crystal clear now the reason Dingy Smith is pushing so hard to get people to buy into the Alberta Pension Plan and not listening to anyone is because all the money will be invested in a pipeline to the B.C. coast.
Perhaps more people should be calling out Smith on the the things she should be doing, like undoing the health care mess, supporting public schooling, supporting seniors and those on AISH and so on instead of pandering to profitable corporations and oil and gas companies.
Old Albertan with common sense……I like it…..
I suppose if one were devious enough, the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund might look like a juicy plum, ripe for the picking. A supervillain could threaten striking teachers to accept the government’s contract terms and return to work, or else their retirement funds will be plundered. Then the supervillain could plunder the retirement fund anyways, forcing teachers to work until they’re well beyond retirement age, in order to maintain the supply of teachers. Evil! It’s a good thing we have a fair, sensible and calm government in Alberta, which does not in any way resemble the Tropico video game.
In the latest twist, PM Carney is now pushing Keystone XL with Trump:
“Carney raised Keystone XL pipeline revival in meeting with Trump” (CBC, Oct 08, 2025)
If Carney can’t deliver on Northern Gateway 2.0, maybe he can placate separatist Albertans with a new pipe to the U.S.
Which increases rather than decreases our exposure to our volatile U.S. neighbour.
Maybe that’s been the play all along.
No one is talking about an Energy East 2.0 pipeline to Ontario or New Brunswick, anymore.
Of the three proposals, Keystone XL faces the least resistance.
@Geoffrey,
Yeah I found that almost funny, to be sure.
Because it wasn’t Canada who put the kibosh on the Keystone in the first place. It was the US government. And the amount of states they have to cross to do it? Expect some fiery American protesting over that, to boot.
Dunno why we’d wanna placate this Mafia MAGat clown show on either side of the border at this point but I ain’t runnin the joint.
My take has always been that Canada shouldn’t have paid for the first pipeline and we demmed sure shouldn’t pay for any more of them just to appease Alberta. It’s time for Alberta to intall some adults in the room who can see a future that doesn’t depend on wrecking the planet any more than we have to, to survive.
I do agree with you. “Canada shouldn’t have paid for the first pipeline and we dammed sure shouldn’t pay for any more of them just to appease Alberta.”
What do we get out of these pipelines? We get more out of ensuring seniors are adequately provided for and children receive a decent education. An educated population will make a success of their country.
Alberta has enough orphan wells with oil companies not showing any interest in cleaning them up. I’d suggest we can talk about pipelines about the same time the oil companies clean up their orphan wells.
As to Americans who want our oil, they can rotate. They haven’t done anything for Canada. Their President insults our country with his 51st state b.s. Like he needs to get a grip. Who would want to join a country which is headed on its was to fascism, has a president who has their Canadians have no interest in the U.S.A. which managed to elected a 6 time bankrupt business person, had to pay an author millions of dollars for sexually assaulting her, has no respect for their constitution and pardoned a bunch of lunatics who beat up people, wanted to kill the V.P. and seems to be really loosing his marbles. At times he barely seems coherent.
Canada is in much better shape than the U.S.A. It’s one of the best places to live in the world. We have health care, education, functioning police forces and courts.
Oil is a fungible commodity. So, why should eastern Canada pay the excess transportation costs of oil from energy east when they can get the same oil from just across the line in Pennsylvania? And let’s not forget than Saudi crude via mega tanker is even cheaper landed in Halifax. Transportation economics have always been terrible for prairie commodities.
Is there really sufficient world demand for Alberta’s heavy sour crude to justify another pipeline to the west coast especially when it is competing with Saudi and Iranian heavy crude both of which effectively have no overland transportation costs compared to Alberta?
Don Braid the dean of Alberta pundits? Only in his dreams. Pretty sure if any one can claim that moniker, it’s Graeme Thomson.
As for the health care report, methinks Smith has many chronological reasons for delay – the first being her AGM. I am presuming she has read it, and it’s bad for her, even with her rigging the terms from the get go.
Gerald: About that dean thing. As always there’s a backstory. Before I wrote this story back in 2015, I had been told to get lost by the leadership of the Broadbent Institute using those very words. The piece at the link was my way of blowing the whistle on what the Broadbent crowd were up to to the labour movement, which to a significant degree was bankrolling them. I don’t know exactly how it worked, but it got the results I was looking for. DJC
You are correct in seeing Smith’s latest pipeline mirage as a mutually beneficial distraction for both her and Eby. For the latter, it provides a sideshow to let him display a teensy green figleaf while he shovels public cash into more massive LNG carbon bombs.
In my opinion, while it is true that LNG is still a fossil fuel, a natural gas pipeline is inherently less risky for the environment than an oil pipeline, because (1) natural gas, which consists mostly of methane, is lighter than air, and doesn’t create the kind of sticky, toxic, animal- and plant-killing spills that a leaky or ruptured crude oil dilbit pipeline would, and (2) liquefied natural gas, at or below -162°C, transported via tanker, is not able to create the same kind of oceanic oil spill risk inherent to crude oil. A LNG tanker might blow up — bad for the crew and for anyone nearby — but it wouldn’t leave behind an Exxon Valdez-scale mess to clean up. And real-world safety data shows that LNG tankers have a very healthy safety record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas
So, it is not at all inconsistent to be OK with LNG tankers off BC’s north coast, while still being opposed to oil tankers in those same waters. The safety issues are not at all comparable.
““As blackmail notes go, this is right up there,” Mr. Coyne said of Premier Smith’s pipeline strategy. ”
So it is . . .
The UCP shakedown strategy has been observed and studied and then adoringly copied and applied from the UCP much beloved role model state, the one where, “An intertwining of the legitimate and the corrupt, of machine and Mob, lies at the foundations of modern American politics and government.” and where “Illicit power required high arts of concealment.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/how-donald-trumps-governing-style-mimics-the-mob
Understanding that extortion (blackmail) involves the use of ” “threats, accusations, menaces, or violence” to coerce or attempt to coerce the victim to do anything or cause anything to be done.” And further noting that, “Neither extortion nor blackmail requires a threat of a criminal act, such as violence, merely a threat used to elicit actions, money, or property from the object of the extortion.”
This is fine as far as it goes, but i think it’s important to remember Quebec’s historic and ongoing role in very similar political tactics.
Mr Coyne is one of those increasingly rare birds: a conservative who is still able to be reasonable and rational. I don’t often agree with him, but I rarely feel the need to accuse him of being an idiot. His arguments are well-presented and most of the time he does look at all sides of an issue.
i agree that if another bitumen pipeline is built to the west coast, the nation’s taxpayer’s will end up with the bill. if people were torque d with the huge cost of the trans mountain line, wait till they see the probable cost of new line; it’s probable that a cost north of $45 b would be incurred.
put that together with other capital projects the potentate has offered; high-speed rail services throughout the province, new highway link for ft.mac, provincial police force, school construction and resourcing, to name a few.
this from a regime that claims to be allergic to deficit financing.
“Braid: Big talk, bold promises from candidates who won’t tackle the real problem — city hall itself
Calgary needs a mayor who will end the rule of city hall bureaucrats and run the city with social compassion but fierce focus on real problems”. Nothing like a little friendly fascism. Perhaps Elon Musk can get this sorted out before he finds the mysitical lost amulet of space travel and heads off to Mars.
Judging by the spewing of the mental cases that tend to sing the hosannas for Queen Danielle and the UCP, they are calling for the overthrow of Eby’s government, their public execution, and the immediate annexation of B.C. because it was promised to Alberta 3,000 years ago. Make no mistake about, the lunatics have taken over the asylum mindset is spreading. At some point, Carney will have to put away his nice guy approach and break out the brass knuckles. I’m sure during his more than a decade sojourn in Europe’s capitals, Carney has come into contact with more than a few characters who are more than willing to do the rough stuff that only the French are capable of.
Carney’s recognized as a no nonsense sort of person, and it’s high time to smash the nonsense.
Just: Not just the French, methinks. But that’s a conversation we can have another time. Mr. Carney may perceive this Alberta clown show as less of a threat than we do here, and he may turn out to be right about that. We’ll see, I guess. DJC
Always grateful for your insights. Not much more needs to be said.
FWIW….
Latest poll in bc (Oct 6th-Research Co.)
–David Eby has a 16pt lead over John Rustad , when British Columbians ponder who would make the best Premier. In an online survey 44% would vote NDP, up 1 point ,since a similar poll in June.
Also…Alberta teacher prompts petition on province’s private school funding.
Chief electoral officer approved independent school funding petition on Tues. — Janet French CBC news Oct 7th.
(Private schools get 70% funding, but no money for public schools…..who knew ??
So do taxpayers in Alberta know where ‘any’ of their tax dollars are going? Is this why the UCP are always claiming the Liberals are taking all their money and more importantly were they complaining when Harper and Mulroney were in power??)
Danielle Smith behaves like a petulant child. She has to throw bait at her rabid following. It’s tiresome to hear her put so much. Meanwhile, Alberta has too many problems that she isn’t dealing with.
When even the oligarch’s paper of record, The Grope N Fail who never met an oil patch nor pipeline they didn’t love reports that it’s childish preformative politics on Smith’s part and Canada won’t have it–time to stick your fingers in your ears and hum whenever Dixie Dani starts up her nonsense with Eby.
Even they see it for what it is–another way to cause division within the country and undermine our sovereignty.
Eby an Smith may be playing a distraction game but Smiths message is getting lots of plays in the BC media.
If radio show phone in comments and newspaper comments are to be believed then her message is making waves !
TB
Full disclosure: as a Canadian who lives on the Salish Sea, the only inland sea surrounded by temperate rainforest, I have to admit I’d rather have supertankers full of diluted bitumen embark to the fabled shores of “Asian Buyers” from the excellent Port of Prince Rupert rather than from Burnaby on Burrard Inlet whence any supertanker full of dilbit —which can’t be cleaned up when spilled because bitumen sinks when the diluent evaporates—must sail through many natural navigational hazards in addition to the congested marine traffic to and from several large port cities (Seattle, for example, is located on the Puget Sound part of the Salish Sea; Victoria, for another, on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, is likewise a Salish Sea port city) on its voyage of over 250 km to open ocean. In contrast, vessels enter directly into deep, open ocean immediately upon leaving the 2nd-largest deepwater harbour in North America which is Prince Rupert.
But dilbit export from the TMX pipeline terminus at Burnaby is what we got despite disapproval by millions of people who live on the Salish Sea, including officially from the governments of both BC and Washington State.
How this happened is probably one of the most complicated chapters in our nation’s development; like the increasing level of human-caused greenhouse gasses in Earth’s atmosphere, past and present policy with regard the world’s 3rd-largest deposit of petroleum known—Alberta’s so-called “tar-sands”—will substantially impact Canada’s environmental, economic, political, and diplomatic status for a long time to come.
Recounting how we got here is irked by increasing conflation and confusion of “politics” and “partisanship” where even respected pundits and journalists now describe Donald F tRump’s lecture to unprecedentedly convened generals as “totally political” when it was in fact about the most partisan thing the US presidunce could have possibly said. Did Premier David Eby commit this increasingly tolerated semantic sin when he described Danielle Smith’s preposterous pipeline proposal as “political” when its hackneyed logistics look suspiciously psephological in the partisan sense? Psephology could, in theory, be political in the sense of advancing public policy electorally —as does a referendum about a specific issue—but which, in Smith’s scandal-plagued circumstance, is most likely partisan. As in the survival of her government and possibly her party, that is.
We may safely infer as much from Smith’s public record thus far but, to be fair as well as clear, getting resource to market is a perfectly rational policy, just like protecting projects already politically achieved or well on their way to getting done. Yet, easy citation of either premiers’ predicaments which of course have ingredients of psephology (in both their cases, how to get re-elected looks difficult at present), policy, and politics (which is how policy gets done) effectively adds another subplot. A hint as to which one most flavours this brewing stew might be gleaned in the aspersions Eby and Smith cast anbout each other’s patriotism which, too boldly seasoned, would spoil any taste of real political legitimacy. Both Eby and Smith have their political and partisan problems around which the stalking-horse of pipelines may wind endlessly. It’s prob’ly happened before.
The backdrop, especially on the Albertan stage, are Trudeaus, pére et fils, at one end the National Energy Program and, at the other, the TMX pipeline. The mythological character of this 45-year period is revealed by the facts that the former is never forgotten while the latter is barely remembered even though so recently completed in May, 2024 (the unforgiven NEB, on the other hand, spanned only 1980-85).
Talk about stalking-horse politics, I always thought the Kitimat terminus for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline was so very inferior to Rupert (Kitimat is at the head of the 90km-long Douglas Channel full of islands and atolls, with another 60km to go through the Hecate Strait archipelago before reaching open ocean, to say nothing of meaningfully consulting legally required with each First Nation along the proposed route and the many environmental challenges going straight through the mountains ) that it must have been a bait-and-switch ruse that would allow the Harper government to look conciliatory by switching to Rupert when predicable protests mounted against Kitimat. Problem was, Harper got delayed by that 2nd minority in 2008 and then got unelected in 2015 so he never got the chance to affect the switch. His nemesis, Justin Trudeau, simply accepted lower-court findings that Enbridge/Harper had not done due diligence with respect environmental protection guidelines and SCoC protocols for meaningful consultation with FNs without treaty, effectively killing the project. And of course affecting a major plot-point in the mythological arc of Trudeaus being out to kill Alberta’s primary industry.
JT’s eagerness to compensate for that, as well as trying to make amends for his father’s hated NEB program, manifest in the federal government buying out Kinder Morgan’s twinning of the several decades-old Transmountain pipeline, presumably because laying pipe in an existing right-of-way would make FN and environmental requirements easier to meet and TMX therefore quicker to complete—with a little help from the feds (recall that BC Premier John Horgan vowed “to use every tool in the toolbox” to stop TMX but the SCoC reference opinion found there were no such tools in the Constitution). JT never got much thanks from Alberta, naturally, but he did get the idea that he could preclude competition against a TMX pipeline which, at a final bill of $34 billion, would need all the help he could give it to even remotely hope for payback before he became a great-grandfather—and that was to impose a supertanker ban on the north Coast, and maybe even appease Coastal FNs—or at least postpone yet again the Crown’s obligation to settle treaties.
But it doesn’t matter through which lens one looks at the Rupert plan, political, partisan or psephological, the real issue is treaties: without at least interim agreements from each and every treaty-less FN in BC, a process which any such FN can make as long or as short as it sees fit (so long’s it complies with Aboriginal Title introduced into law by the 2014 SCoC William , or “Tsihlqot’in” written decision), Smith’s proposal is rendered moot—which is precisely why it looks like what it probably is: a ploy to get her rivals over a barrel of good old Albetar bitumen.
Her obfuscation is pathetic. When queried about critical Coastal FNs which immediately disapprove of her plan, she resorted to a “what-about” tactic that we also have to weigh that position against the many Alberta FNs, treaty nations all, which do not oppose the project or, indeed, that there’s some kind of constituted legislative body comprised of supposedly federated FNs that we haven’t heard from yet so we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Her trite ‘my one-little-two-little-three-little-Indians outweighs your four-little-five-little Indians’ (apologies to the late Bobby Gimby) is bogus calculus: there is no such multi-FN deliberative body, and each FN without treaty is a stand-alone entity with respect negotiation of treaties and interim agreements—and a pipeline doesn’t work without complete continuity.
Smith might have pulled on a political Superman’s cape, but she’s almost certainly spitting into the partisan wind (with apologies to the late Jim Croce).
Excellent commentary, Scotty, but I have to take issue with you on one point. There are no atolls in Douglas Channel. DJC
Well well, Mark Carney is coming out and it is not pretty. It almost feels like the MAGA crowd got their Tamara and and Barber back unscathed and Carney is ready to just be part of the fun.
Considering lifting the ban on tankers and emissions? Wow I definitely voted for MAGA not progressive politics.
Where are the values? Gone with the wind.
I thought we were safe from a MAGA epidemic. Not so sure anymore.
When I read Smith thought Eby was un-Canadian I laughed. He isn’t the one suggesting their province hold a referedum on leaving Canada. Smith trotted down to Mara la go to “bond” with the maga monsters. Trump had been talking about invading Greenland if necessary and Canada becoming the 51st state. Eby didn’t do that. Eby, seems more focused on B.C. and Canada.
Smiths comment about the coast isn’t B.C.’s but Canada’s. Yes, the coast is part of Canada, but it is populated and protected by the people of B.C. If we don’t want pipelines to our coast, then that’s it unless its a national emergency. Smith is just pandering to the oil/gas crowd. Some First Nations aren’t interested in the pipeline either. We don’t tell other provinces we want to destroy their land and water, they should stop trying to use and destroy our environment so they can financially benefit.
Yes Eby has a few things he would rather some would not focus on, like the BCGEU strike, a negative surplus, drug issues, homelessness, but hey thats politics.
If I had to choose between Eby or Smith, I’d want Eby as a Premier. Smith doesn’t appear to care much for the average Albertan.
Dixie Dani missed the entire point of the exercise. Again. Whether because she’s too stupid to understand it, bought, or just trying to fan division or some/all of the previous points, pick one.
The point of Carney’s exercise is (whether I agree with the results or not) is to write a University-level proposal of private money+public money projects that will create profits and jobs in the Canadian economy that pay back the initial public outlay.
Another pipeline can’t do that.
I had to write funding proposals back in the day. Smith clearly doesn’t understand how to do that basic task. It’s not a sales job, it’s a job of knowing how to use the numbers to prove what benefits will be the result of handing over cash to run your project and if it’s a loan–how it will be paid back. It’s not picking fights with your competitors for the cash, it’s proving your case why your program deserves the money not more than anybody else but because your previous/same projects are successful. When you can, you show them how many other funders are behind you and your program’s record of success to prove you’re worthy of the public trust.
Alberta hasn’t paid for the last pipeline, yet. Private companies bailed out of it, leaving Canadian taxpayers to bail the project, out.
Talk about crappy risks.
You don’t get on the public mic and start b*tching about the funder, the other projects and how you’ll leave public service and take your agency with you if you don’t get every penny you’re demanding.
Smith is publicly tantrumming for this and blaming Eby but she hasn’t even submitted the paperwork, I’d wager. And if she did, I want to read it.
I could use the laugh.