Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is demanding Prime Minister Mark Carney to explain discrepancies within his cabinet on whether Ottawa will uphold a federal emissions cap.
Carney on Thursday claimed he plans to scrap it — yet his Environment Minister Terry Duguid this week said the Liberals plan to keep the emissions cap in place.
Smith at a press conference in Calgary on Friday confirmed she spoke about the emissions cap — which she argues is a “production cap” — during a meeting with the newly selected prime minister the day before.
“I made it clear Alberta will no longer tolerate an emissions cap on oil and gas — which absolutely works like a production cap that scares away billions in investment and thousands of jobs, makes us more dependent on the United States, and has been found by Ottawa’s own Parliamentary Budget Office to be greatly destructive to the Canadian economy,” said Smith.
Carney both privately told Smith and repeated himself at a public press conference later in the day that he was not in favour of the hard cap.
“He said he was interested in results — in getting projects like pipelines in the ground,” said Smith.
“That was good to hear because we all know you can’t fill new pipelines and cap oil production at the same time.
“The prime minister’s words sounded kind of nice yesterday — until I found out that his new environment minister had just told media on the other side of the country that the federal Liberals would be keeping the emissions cap in place.”
Smith told the Western Standard she has reiterated her commitment to achieve net-zero by 2050 to both former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Carney, and called for their alignment on the matter — rather than a five or 10-year “unrealistic timeframe.”
“You have to wait for technology to develop, you have to wait for capital turnover to develop and you have to be able to have companies with confidence to invest today knowing that their investments are not going to be stranded,” said Smith.
“But I'll tell you what I think the pathway is, because I've met very often with the oil sands operators. One pathway is developing carbon capture utilization and storage pipelines.”
“Another part of it is … nuclear energy. I know that our friends in Saskatchewan provide 20% of the world's supply of uranium for nuclear. We have a cross-border agreement with them. We want to see the appetite for nuclear in Alberta. That could be a second part of the solution.”
“The third part of the solution is director air capture. There's a $50 million demonstration facility in central Alberta that is working on different proposals to do direct air capture and then turn the CO2 into useful products.”
“And so that takes time. You can't just snap your fingers and say that's got to be done by 2030 — you have to give that time to play out. But I think it's that combination of factors that will allow us to be able to by 2050 achieve the target of fewer emissions, but still be able to develop our oil and gas resources.”
Smith told reporters it’s “time for the prime minister to be clear with Canadians” about his intentions with energy, production and pipelines, especially as pertains Alberta.
“This has been the same story for the last 10 years. Liberals come to Alberta — smile for the cameras — tell everyone how much they are going to work with Alberta and support the energy sector. Then they leave, go home, and proceed to do everything in their power to roadblock and scare away investment from the energy sector,” said Smith.
“Now they are doing it when Canadians are literally demanding that we build new pipelines and production to become more independent from the United States. So, it’s time for the prime minister to be clear with Canadians — is he prepared to lift this job-killing, destructive and unconstitutional production cap law that his predecessor attacked us with – or not?”
“Albertans and Canadians want the answer before they go to the polls — not after. In fact, we want the answer today. Who wasn’t telling the truth yesterday — the prime minister or his environment minister? We all deserve to know.”