HOUSTON — Call it a case of looking to the past while keeping an eye to the future.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she wished former Jean Chrétien were running for the Liberal leadership last night after the former prime minister said he supports an east-west pipeline from Quebec to Alberta.
“Too bad he wasn't running again for prime minister,” she said while opening the Alberta House lounge at the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston on Monday.
To that end, Smith crammed for an immediate federal election to provide the present government a mandate to deal with trade issues.
Smith’s comments came after Chrétien said he supports an east-west pipeline to Quebec during remarks after Mark Carney’s coronation in Ottawa the night before.
Chrétien, whose tenure as PM was marked by support for the oil sands and Alberta’s oil sector. For a Liberal PM, his support for a national industry was unusual and his comments drew an audible gasp from the crowd.
But it came with the caveat that Canada should apply a tax to US oil exports and then use the money “to build a pipeline for natural gas from Alberta (to) Quebec.”
It’s a moot point, because export taxes are clearly off the table.
Smith was flanked by a host of government and private sector officials to preach the message that Alberta is still open for business despite the prospect of a full-blown trade war with the US, Alberta’s — and Canada’s — largest trading partner.
In her remarks, she said US officials could come to their senses and start working on a mutually beneficial energy relationship now, or salvage one by necessity out of the wreckage from a trade war.
She noted that Alberta’s exports of 4.3 million barrels per day (bpd) exceeds the entirely of US exports.
But she also advocated east-west and even north-south pipelines within Canada to reduce reliance on a single customer.
“ 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. So I you know that's, that's just five that I know of, but there's, there may be more options as well.
Meanwhile, incoming prime minister-designate Mark Carney will have his hands full with the Trump administration.
That’s because Energy Secretary Chris Wright sent mixed messages to the Canadian crowd with a fiery cheerleading speech long on Trumpisms but short on any substance apart from ‘drill baby drill’.
While he vowed to rip up Biden’s “irrational” and ”quasi-religious” climate policies, he also pressed Trump’s punishing trade agenda designed to make America the world’s “dominant“ fossil fuel producer.
In fact, Trump intends to set up a “department of energy dominance” to essentially crush foreign competition, including Canada.
“The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is — a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world.”
But it also spells bad news for Canada, and Alberta in particular because it is clear he seeks to align America as Canada’s biggest competitor in addition to being its largest customer.
“We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more American energy production and infrastructure, not less,” he said.
Wright didn’t answer how Trump is able to square his desire for more Canadian pipelines like KeystoneXL with potentially crippling tariffs on Canadian oil and gas.
Smith confirmed Alberta is still pursuing claims under the old NAFTA agreement to recoup billions in losses from Biden’s rejection of KXL in 2021. Calgary’s-based TC Energy already lost USD$15 billion in a similar trade suit.
Smith will be on a panel discussion with American officials on Wednesday and she intends to broach the topic.
“Yes, yeah, we'll be talking. I'm on stage with (conference chairman) Daniel Yergin, and I let him know that this is a novel approach for Alberta to be taking.“
