EDMONTON — When the UCP and the federal government took steps toward a proposed oil pipeline to the B.C. coast in May, Premier Danielle Smith hailed it as a win for Alberta in its decade-long fight, but not every Albertan viewed the details of the agreement as a victory."I suppose you can say that we keep on fighting until perfection is achieved, but I prefer to focus on the victories, and we have absolutely changed the public conversation," said Smith during an interview with the Western Standard. In Alberta, the prospect of getting Prime Minister Mark Carney's government to agree to work toward a new pipeline was seen by many as a victory. Conversely, like any negotiation, a "win" typically requires some concessions, and in this case, the UCP agreed to implement an industrial carbon tax reaching $130 per tonne by 2035. Economists have warned that the carbon tax puts Alberta's oil industry at a disadvantage to those in the U.S. or overseas. Other individuals wonder why companies would invest in a region with such environmental restrictions, even if the regulations are "better than what they could have been."Smith will admit that the deal is not perfect; she would have liked to see the carbon tax floor stay where she froze it at in May 2025, which is $95 per tonne, but she said: "You don't get 100% of the things that you want.".For Smith, the "victories" outweighed the "concession," especially given that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that federal governments have the authority to set carbon tax floors, and the scheme dictated by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would have seen prices rise to $170 by 2030. "A lot of the of our problems get solved by building another million barrel per day pipeline to the coast, which gives us another half a trillion dollars worth of value to our economy, which allows for us to keep taxes low, and it allows for us to pay for the things that Albertans care about," Smith said. "But so those are the things that we have to put things in context of scale, and I think that's a pretty big win." Alberta created a carbon tax in 2007 and set the price at $15 per tonne.According to Smith, the UCP consulted with businesses in 2025, and companies did not want to abolish the industrial carbon tax because "a number" of them invest in emissions reduction technology based on the structure. “I think we got a huge concession in the fact that it's reduced now to a point where it will take off 250 billion dollars worth of additional compliance costs,” Smith said. “But make no mistake, I mean, it was an Alberta government that put that initial program in place in 2007.”.Alberta and Ottawa made further progress towards building a B.C. coast pipeline in July when the UCP submitted the project's proposal to the federal government, and the federal government later declared it a national interest. Those who criticize the agreement pointed out that the proposed project will be predominantly public-funded, and taxpayers are paying for it because private groups do not want to invest in Alberta's oil industry. For Smith, it was proof that progress is being made. "Now, finally, we're going to be able to build natural gas power plants," Smith said. "For a number of years, no one wanted to build them because they could potentially face jail time in 2035 if they weren't 100% carbon-abated.""That's now not the approach that we're going to take, and now we have a number of different companies who've stepped forward, wanting to build power that will keep our electricity bills low."
