HOUSTON — What part of ‘no’ doesn’t Ontario Premier Doug Ford understand?
That’s the message from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to the self-proclaimed captain of Team Canada after Ford once again insisted his Western compatriot might have to take a hit and suck up a federal oil tax on barrels headed to the US.
On Monday, Ontario placed a surcharge of 25% on electricity exported to 1.5 million homes in three US states. Ford urged Alberta, which sends about 4.3 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) to points south, to reconsider her opposition to the idea of an export tax.
“A message to Premier (Danielle) Smith: one day, I think you might have to use that trump card and give approval for an export tax,” he said. “That will instantly change the game, instantly, when the Americans — and I know the Americans — all of a sudden their gas prices go up 90 (cents) to $1 a gallon. They will lose their minds, so we need to at least put that in the window.”
To which Smith replied: “Let me be clear… Alberta will never agree to such an absurd and self destructive idea. It’s not an option.”
“I’m not going to agree to do something that will cost hundreds of thousands of Albertans (and Canadians) their jobs almost overnight. That would be like placing export tariffs on Ontario auto parts. Also a bad idea,” she wrote on Twitter (“X”).
The broadside came as smith was in Houston at a global energy show to reassure her American counterparts and try to turn down the tone on anti-Trump rhetoric.
“There are many effective ways that Canada and Alberta can work together to pressure the US President to change course on tariffs — THAT is not one of them… period,” she added.
It also came as Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet once again reiterated his opposition to cross-country pipelines.
“The idea of an oil pipeline crossing Quebec to go to the east coast would have no economic benefit for Quebec."
He also claimed, falsely, that "$7 billion of Quebec taxpayers money that went out to the west and nothing came back to Quebec."
It all adds up to Smith walking a fine line with her American counterparts and members of her own team.
Last night in Ottawa, former prime minister Jean Chrétien proposed an export tax as long as proceeds were used to build pipelines.
But Smith was still looking for solutions. At the conference she told The Western Standard that there are multiple options for building internal Canadian oil outlets but admitted they are still years away.
“I think we learned that going through Montreal is probably a bit complicated, but maybe going further north, where there's a bit more support, we might be able to do something like that,” she said.