UPDATED: Carney refuses to rule out export taxes on Alberta oil or Sask uranium and potash

It seems Prime Minister Mark Carney didn’t get the memo on export taxes on Western Canadian energy and minerals.

At a campaign stop in Halifax, Carney clung to the option of imposing export taxes on Alberta oil and gas along with Saskatewan’s potash and uranium as weapons in the escalating trade war with the United States.

Speaking to reporters, Carney said he needs all means available to him, including retaliatory export tariffs, in negotiations with US president Donald Trump, who is set to increase levies on Canadian goods starting April 2 — which he has dubbed American “Liberation Day.”

“With respect to (Trump), the point is to have substantive discussions,” Carney said.” The point is not theatre. The point is to get serious. Sovereign nation to sovereign nation.”

When asked whether available options would include export controls or taxes and specific products, Carney replied: “Those measures are options for Canada.”

It comes after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith met with Carney last week in Edmonton and told him in no uncertain terms that she won’t “accept an export tax or restriction of Alberta’s oil and gas to the United States.”

Either that, or risk an unprecedented “national unity crisis.”

Smith also presented the PM with a list of demands, including oil and gas corridors in all directions, the repeal of the ‘no new pipelines act’, C-69, and the lifting of the tanker ban off the West Coast. 

Smith also demanded that the oil and gas industry emissions cap and clean energy regulations be repealed, along with the federal prohibition on single-use plastics and a net-zero car mandate. 

She also pressed for direct control over the industrial carbon tax.

The rapprochement between the two lasted less than 12 hours before Carney confirmed assertions from his environment minister Terry Duguid that a Liberal government fully expects to retain the emissions cap.

Likewise, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said in Calgary on Friday that politicians of all stripes need to be mindful that the US will remain Canada’s largest trading partner and most important ally long after Trump is gone.

“I would say that each of us as Canadians need to look at, you know, this conversation, despite some of the rhetoric that we hear coming out of the White House. But look at it from the perspective of, you know, where do we want to find ourselves?” he said.

“All of this political rhetoric, tariff talk back and forth is not good.” 

Trump said this week he “may give a lot of countries breaks” from what he calls “reciprocal” tariffs starting April 2. 

But he's still determined to raise what he called "significant revenue" on other countries through a proposed External Revenue Service agency. “We’ll be announcing some additional tariffs over the next few days, having to do with automobiles, cars, and having also to do a little bit with lumber down the road – lumber and [semi-conductor] chips,” Trump said.