Don’t even think about it.
That’s the message Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is sending to Prime Minister Mark Carney on the issue of taxing Alberta energy exports in response to US tariffs.
“I have been very clear, Alberta will never agree to an absurd and self destructive export tax on our oil and gas headed to the United States,” she said in an emailed statement to The Western Standard.
“If the Prime Minister and Liberal leader continues to ignore Alberta’s concerns and plow ahead with his eco-extremist policies like the production cap, or muse about placing an export tax on oil and gas, then I must stress he has no idea what kind of fight he is picking with our province.”
It comes after Carney on Monday openly mused about the possibility of taxing Canadian exports like oil to inflict maximum damage in an all-out trade war with the US.
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 to hit back at the US.
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.”
Even though Alberta owns the resource, Carney has the constitutional authority to shut off the taps in what observers have called the ‘nuclear’ option to punish the Americans.
That would surely drive up the costs to motorists on both sides of the border, but it could also cause localized shortages in the Midwest states that almost exclusively rely on Canadian barrels.
That kind of resentment would be hard to undo. Even Ontario’s Doug Ford backed off a threat to pull the plug on 20 million US power consumers when the rhetoric between both sides came close to crossing the proverbial point of no return. Some things you just can’t take back.
That’s why Smith has been vehement against using 4.2 million barrels per day (bpd) of Alberta crude as a weapon to tax not only Trump’s pocketbook, but also his patience.
Smith insists it would be a self-defeating move that would only backfire in the long run. As fellow Premier Scott Moe has repeatedly said, the US will still be Canada’s closest trading partner and ally long after Trump is gone.
And Trump has been sending mixed messages that suggest on energy there might be an opening for future discussions and compromise.
For instance, the US Army Corps of Engineers is reportedly going to fast-track Enbridge’s Line 5 replacement under Lake Michigan. And Trump continues to insist he wants to revive the Keystone XL pipeline.
That’s enough for Smith to suggest that the PM actually pick up the phone to talk to the US borderboss instead of hurling insults.
It comes after 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 single-use plastics ban.
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 — which he mistakenly called a “production cap” and had to correct himself.
Smith was unimpressed.
“We have had enough and we will not let his party and his government sell out our province like they have done for the last decade.”