There’s no need to make the explanation of the carbon pricing, carbon capture and bitumen pipeline deal announced Friday in Calgary by the federal and Alberta governments too complicated. It’s actually pretty simple.
After all, notwithstanding their political differences, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Danielle Smith have more objectives in common right now than they don’t, so it couldn’t have been that hard for them to reach an agreement.
Mr. Carney has served many years as an expert in and senior representative of international finance capital, of which the oil industry remains a key component in Canada. While neither an expert nor a deep thinker, Ms. Smith has been a lobbyist for the oil industry and an effective public proponent of its preferred policies throughout her career as a journalist and politician.
Of course they weren’t going to have all that much trouble finding ways to grant the Canadian oilpatch its wish for a pipeline to the West Coast, preferably completely paid for by taxpayers, plus slow-walked carbon taxes and big subsidies for the carbon-capture boondoggle to build social license for the pipeline.
They may have their differences, but they are flying in formation when it comes to the oil industry.
They have immediate parallel political needs as well. Ms. Smith must thread the needle between appearing to be an Alberta separatist and appearing to be a patriotic Canadian unifier to hold her fraying but still united voting coalition together – and, not incidentally, to hang onto her job as premier since separatists now clearly dominate her party.
Friday’s deal lets her do that – for the moment, anyway. And the moment is all Ms. Smith ever thinks about. To give her her due, it seems to work.
Mr. Carney needs to keep his coalition together as well. Instead of MAGA separatists on the right who would really rather be part of the United States so they could own machineguns and call people hateful names, he needs to appease moderate green voters in British Columbia and Quebec and somehow hold the country together.
Since the contradictions of using bitumen as the glue to keep their political coalitions together will become more obvious over time, they’re in a hurry to get the deal done and some pipe laid so the doubters on both sides of the political spectrum can be told there is no alternative. For this reason, we should take seriously their promise that work on the pipeline, whatever route it takes, will start next year.
The simplicity of this political equation seems to have confused the Canadian political and business commentariat, grown used to sustained attacks on Ottawa by conservative Alberta governments. Commentators’ theories and explanations, as a result, were all over the map Friday and yesterday – sometimes with unintentionally hilarious results.
According to Carson Jerema in The National Post, it’s all a dirty trick by Mr. Carney to “ensnare Danielle Smith in pipeline blackmail.” Ottawa’s gift of “free rein to polluters” (as Environmental Defence put it in a news release) “will give anti-energy B.C. Premier David Eby an effective veto,” according to the Post.
Meanwhile, over at the environmentally inclined National Observer, Max Fawcett agreed … sort of. Mr. Carney isn’t taking a wrecking ball to Canada’s climate policies, he’s saving the country by defusing Ms. Smith’s constant carping about Canada, Mr. Fawcett asserted. “He understands the value of appearing to say yes to certain forms of economic development while creating or accelerating the conditions that will make it a non-starter.”
Postmedia’s Rick Bell – who often acts as a sort of de facto minister of propaganda for Ms. Smith’s United Conservative Party Government – was enthusiastic, with mild reservations. “Carney is the prime minister and Smith says there was no choice but to meet him in the middle,” he wrote, leaving his usual breathless hyperbole to his colleague Don Braid. “She figures this deal did just that and it is a win for Alberta and a far cry from those days of ‘anger, frustration and despair’ under Trudeau.”
Well, the last time Ms.Smith said something like that, about the memorandum of understanding with Ottawa that set the stage for Friday’s deal, she was jeered at her own party convention.
And then there was Mr. Braid – Postmedia’s other high-profile Alberta political columnist – who went right over the top with a panegyric to Ms. Smith that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in the pages of Pravda or the People’s Daily in the 1950s.
“She has won every single battle with Ottawa over the past year,” said Mr. Braid, sending his hosannas heavenward. “In scope and importance, her victories against Ottawa outweigh former PC premier Peter Lougheed’s limited victory in the oil pricing crisis after 1980. … Smith may have set up this province for decades of economic gains.”
Well, if Mr. Carney is sneakily giving Mr. Eby a veto, British Columbia’s premier doesn’t seem to happy about it. And if Ms. Smith is saving Confederation, you have to wonder why she’s pushing ahead with her separatist referendum agenda. It seems to me that coastal British Columbians are as unhappy with this state of affairs as are Alberta separatists. And if anyone’s thinking about the constitutional requirement for consultation with First Nations, no one seems to be talking about it.
You have to wonder if, despite Ms. Smith’s best efforts to keep the UCP united, something’s going to give as the separatists that now control the party push for it to officially declare itself to be a separatist party. Can political entropy in Alberta be far behind?
And how comfortable will some members of Mr. Carney’s narrow majority in Parliament be in a government that appears to have completely tossed the environmental policies of the Trudeau era, unlamented though they may be here in Alberta. Steven Guilbeault, the former federal environment minister? B.C. MPs Will Greaves and Stephanie McLean?
Is it possible that the biggest winner in this deal of the century could turn out to be … Avi Lewis?
I wouldn’t be gloating if I were Danielle Smith. She hasn’t stopped the separatists from wanting their demands met. Danielle Smith and the UCP are in support of these separatists, and by their actions, they are a separatist party. Who will want to partake in a venture that has uncertainty, given these separatists, and what they are doing? Danielle Smith is also two faced. Ottawa bashing one moment, while looking like she is working with Mark Carney.
I can only think of one thing that will please all parties, including Smith’s basket of deplorables.
https://youtu.be/AT9GGTq_v6s?si=xYsRL2BNFLP7W0DV
While Trump runs around like Chicken Little *claiming* “deals”, Carney is the one actually making them. The problem with “deals” is that they come with fine print and bulldozers that plow over citizen’s ecological and First Nations’ rights.
Carney is a conservative. He’s rather see profit than people. He was voted in as the opposition to Trump and we’ve seen just enough of that to keep us off his back. We’re doing “Big Things”, the majority of which are lining international corporate pockets and locking us in debt traps–not creating sustainable local business trade.
Maybe Carney’s not playing Smith…but everyone else. What happens with Alberta voters and everyone else now that Carney can say, “I gave that greedweasel everything she wanted and she’s still trying to split up the country?” He’s handing out MOU’s like cake slices at a party but MOUs are not legally binding treaties or financial obligations. It can only be one of two games he’s playing here. He’s either buttering up everyone else so choking it down will be smoother, or he’s setting up Smith. If anyone else sees a third play her, I’d love to read it.
Hasan Piker is talking about having Avi Lewis on his show but they couldn’t find a scheduled time on his trip to Vancouver. If they are talking, you can bet there’s a plan in the works. That’s tens of millions of eyeballs, including young Canadians.
Where’s Nenshi? He’s got a power story on the mass doxxing and I barely heard about it. He should be everywhere. This is the kind of thing that gets right-wing pod/newscasters drooling. Mamdami didn’t win because CNN gave him coverage–he won because Fox, did. The NDP needs to come to grips with the fact that CBC is not their friend.
B, let’s not overthink this, it could be as simple as Carney just wants another pipeline.
Also I agree with GerEnz below that the O & G oligarchs likely see more disruption to their gig with AB out of Canada than in. They would quietly support the Feds if they strongly challenge/attack the separatists but Carney doesn’t because he’s pretty aligned with the UCP & Ms. Smith – so long as he doesn’t get blamed for any fallout.
“Meanwhile, over at the environmentally inclined National Observer, Max Fawcett agreed … sort of.”
The National Observer (CNO), and lead columnist Max Fawcett, are first and foremost cheerleaders for the Liberal Party — apologists for decades of Liberal failure on climate.
CNO campaigns hard for the Liberals every election. CNO’s op-eds read like Liberal Party campaign ads. Under absurd headlines like “Carney’s green dream team”. And “It’s time to shift from relief to gratitude as Carney helps steer the climate transition”.
In his latest, Fawcett spins himself into knots defending Carney’s assault on Canada’s climate policy.
The former editor of Alberta Oil Magazine, inexplicably The Observer’s lead columnist, fills cyberspace with climate disinformation.
CNO recently cancelled its comments section so readers cannot protest. Propaganda does not like pushback.
—
Fawcett: “Carbon pricing in Canada isn’t dead yet.”
Consumer carbon pricing is most certainly dead. Carney’s first act in office was to cancel the carbon “tax”.
With a penstroke, Carney has weakened industrial carbon pricing not just in Alberta but across the nation.
—
Both Carney and Fawcett embrace the O&G industry’s CCS boondoggle.
Pathways Alliance admits that its taxpayer-funded CCS project would capture a mere fraction of upstream emissions.
The CCS project would reduce oilsands emissions by 10-12 Mt a year by 2030. If it works as advertised. Which it won’t.
2) Fawcett: “The agreement with Alberta deprives the separatists — and the premier who keeps enabling and empowering them — of fresh ammunition in their campaign against Canada and its supposed hostility towards their province’s resource sector. That alone is a major win.”
Fawcett misses the boat.
No evidence that a new pipeline will appease Alberta separatists. Did the last one?
The separatists have an endless stable of hobbyhorses. If one falters, any other will ride.
There is no satisfying Big Oil or Alberta.
The O&G mafia’s appetite for subsidies is bottomless. Industry resistance to regulation, monitoring, climate action, and accurate emissions reporting is absolute.
Smith’s game is to rile up the disinformed masses against Ottawa. Keep the public distracted from the UCP’s destructive, anti-democratic policies. Keep the fires burning!
“Smith said the deal [MOU re energy/climate policies including new pipeline] with Carney alone isn’t and won’t be enough to quell the separatist desire held by party members, noting that energy policy is just one of many issues Alberta has with Ottawa.” (CP, Dec 02, 2025)
“Danielle Smith’s oil deal with Mark Carney was supposed to quiet Alberta’s separatists. Too bad they didn’t get the message” (Toronto Star, Nov. 28, 2025)
“Pipeline deal with Ottawa met with boos at Alberta UCP convention” (CP, Nov 28, 2025)
“Jack Mintz: An oil pipeline won’t end Alberta’s alienation” (FP, Jan 16, 2026)
“Donna Kennedy-Glans: A pipeline deal won’t be enough to tame Alberta’s separatists” (NP, Nov 26, 2025)
Dave Cournoyer (Substack): “Won’t a new pipeline make the separatists happy?” (May 16, 2026)
It does not matter what Carney did for the O&G industry or the Premier last week. What is he going to do today?
The extortionist tactics and threats will continue. The more powerful the monster grows, the less willing it is to give that power up.
The O&G industry wants Ottawa to repeal all climate policies. Even then, they won’t be happy.
They just keep upping their demands.
Taxpayers will have to pony up for CCS, SMRs, clean-up and reclamation — and even then the O&G industry won’t be happy.
Endless blackmail and extortion.
Welcome to the petro state!
The UCP’s fortunes depend on perpetual victimhood, terminal outrage, and endless hostility to Ottawa.
Carney’s capitulation to Alberta’s demands only fuels Alberta’s right-wing pathology.
3) Fawcett: “For better or worse, and probably worse, there is no effective climate policy without Alberta’s participation.”
Disingenuous.
Where the federal government has jurisdiction, it can simply lay down the law to provinces.
The federal government can simply impose its carbon pricing backstop if provinces fail to adopt their own “equivalent” pricing schemes.
No need to negotiate away climate policies.
All this does is weaken climate policy across the nation, as other provinces seek exemptions and delays.
No certainty that Smith will live up to her side of the non-grand bargain.
Unsurprisingly, Environment Canada’s latest “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections” report indicates that measures taken since Carney took office take Canada in the wrong direction: increasing the gap between Canada’s climate performance and its emissions targets.
“Ottawa confirms it will miss emission targets unless major policy shifts are made” (CNO, Dec 17, 2025)
Don’t let anybody, Liberal cheerleaders included, tell you it’s clever to toss most of your important tools out of your toolbox and rely on just one or two.
In a climate emergency, we need all the (cost-effective) tools in the toolbox. Carney has tossed most of them away.
Tossing climate policy tools out of the toolbox one after another adds up to a plan to fail.
Fawcett talks out of both sides of his mouth on climate action. Alternately admonishing the “cynical” Conservatives for their failure to take climate change seriously and advocating for fossil fuel expansion under the Liberals.
Talk about cynical.
Mark Carney is a climate criminal. His supporters/enablers are complicit.
Even if Carney halts the carnage today, his legacy will be one of lasting damage to Canada’s environment, economy, social fabric, indigenous relations, and int’l reputation.
I am fascinated by your closing question, and I suspect the answer is, “Yes, it’s very possible.” If Mr. Lewis continues to be the only leader not cheering on the petroleum industry and other party leaders continue to ignore and mock his every comment, then this fiasco may well turn out to his long-lasting benefit.
Cole: It is my opinion that thanks to this, as well as Mr. Lewis’s natural talent as a retail politician, the NDP will take back its traditional seats on Vancouver Island and elsewhere in coastal B.C. Time will tell whether or not I am right. DJC
As there is no one who has come forward to announce themselves as the financier for these pipelines, it will be left to the First Nations to buy them. In a time when Alberta’s seppies are blaming First Nations for denying them the FreeDUMB republic of their hopes and dreams, handing them the means to own a pipeline should drive the UCP/TBA/APP base into knots. They may get their referendum, but they will never get their country. What’s left? Probably, given how unhinged these idiots are, violence.
In the midst of this growing firestorm, Queen Danielle seems to be showing signs of strain. Her nearly teary-eyed angst-filled public rebuttal to the court’s decision has the look of Smith waiting for someone to throw her a life vest. Of course, now would be a good time for Carney to step up and offer her the perfect get out of jail card, an appointment to the Senate. And there’s no doubt she will take it.
What with David Parker seemingly on the run and hiding in Texas, and the rogues’ gallery that made up Alberta seppies movement, this whole thing broke pretty fast.
Viva la revolució, but whatever.
It is increasingly possible there will be an energy detente between Alberta and Ottawa now. Not only is there some alignment in political interests now, but also more in economic interests. With the continuing problems in the Middle East, energy from Canada is secure, so mucg more desirable and valuable now than it was even just a few months ago.
There was and remains a significant environmental wing in the Federal Liberal party, but its power was greatly diminished when Poilievre turned Canadians against carbon taxes. Interestingly, no other major Federal party really pushed back against this at the time.
The biggest obstacle to this detente now is Smith continuing to encourage and support separatism. If the Feds invest their political capital in supporting Alberta’s energy industry, the provincial government will also have to invest some of theirs at some point soon in supporting Canada. However, I’m not sure if Smith is capable of really doing this politically or tempermentally.
Other Federal political leaders are mostly observers right now to what happens between Ottawa and Alberta, but they could benefit if things fall apart.
Are separatists and the O & G industry the same crew? I’m not sure. What is best for the energy oligarchs? While the TBA crowd is loud and boisterous, the fossil fuel people have infinitely more money, more lobbyists, more brains, and a 100+ years of experience in manipulating two bit conservative politicians with no skills into doing industry bidding, usually with some low ball offer that the rubes snap up because their minds cannot fathom those kind of numbers. In the long run – follow the money. In Alberta, O&G is the money, and if they don’t want Alberta to separate, we won’t. To my mind, separation is bad for business.
The only problem with your hypothesis is that the oil industry in alberta isn’t dominated by alberta players, and it never really has been. A LOT of those companies are ….. wait for it…. AMERICAN.
His name escapes me right now but there is a fella from southern Alberta who wrote a bunch of long form blog articles about the history of the oil industry in alberta and from the very first wells being drilled it was dominated by the Rockefellers. It’s not such a simple one to one anymore, but the Americans are huge players in Alberta’s oil patch, and actually some of the people down there, like the guy with shit in his pants in the White House, think it belongs to THEM.
So, while sectors of the alberta business elite are I’m sure very opposed to separation or even any talk of it as it is definitely a chill on investment, I don’t think the oil companies are on that side of the board, and I would be watching them carefully. Those people will do anything to get what they want, including razing entire societies into dust.
I think Carney is playing Smith as a moron, and knows full well there will be no pipeline to the west coast. After spending many years going with a group of 12 friend salmon fishing to Prince Rupert and listening to the people stating why they would never allow Rich Albertans to force an oil pipeline down their throats and put their salmon fishing livelihood at risk.
Their reasoning made perfect sense and we signed a petition to help them make certain it didn’t happen, and it appeared that Enbridge Pipeline came to their senses and dropped pushing it. Every oilman we talked to about it stated that it was a really stupid idea and the risks of a spill were enormous. After all it will cross rivers and streams over 1,000 times and these are major salmon spawning habitats.
They had a good reason to stop it. Stating that over the years they had gone for weeks on end without any natural gas when a flooded raging river or landslide had taken out their pipelines, and there was no way they were willing to take a chance with much damaging oil, can you blame them?
Economist have been telling us that they have been sending letters to Carney pointing out how dangerous this would be and we are confident that he will listen to them and we bet the Indians involved will make certain that it doesn’t go ahead, don’t you?
“they’re in a hurry to get the deal done and some pipe laid”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw8S_Kv89IU
Political theater that is supposed to send some sort of message with apparent multiple interpretations, but it will never be enough for the perpetual growth ideologues and all those individuals who always want more and are never satisfied.
In this instance the double entendres are perfectly appropriate.
In the early nineteen fifties, Pravda would have been singing the praises of a state that had endured a civil war with 12 million casualties and invasion by a multitude of imperialist powers, 27 million dead defeating the Nazis, as well as the total devastation of 1/3 of the country by the Nazis, and still brought 15 peasant nations into the forefront of industrialized development in less than three decades. Our system at the time produces Emmet Till’s murder. A li’l red-baiting never hurts in a province and country with leaders like Marlainia and the Carny Banker.
The clear opening that these events provides to Lewis and the federal NDP is going to force the issue of de-linking the federal and provincial wings of the party, especially in the western provinces where the provincial sections have become the farm team/surrogates for the federal Liberals. As long as the federal Greens remain mired in terminal flakiness, he has the field pretty much to himself.