F.L. (Ted) Morton is professor emeritus and an Executive Fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. He is also a former minister of energy and minister of finance in the government of AlbertaFor Albertans, the new minority Liberal government is a huge disappointment but not a disaster. At least not yet. Carney needs help from Premier Smith as much as Alberta needs help from Ottawa.Thanks to the Trudeau anti-energy policies of the past decade, Carney inherits a national economy that is a fiscal train wreck. Without radical policy changes, Canada will continue sliding down the Trudeau trough: higher prices, less affordable housing, bigger deficits and debt, and a weaker Canadian dollar. Remember, this is why Poilievre and the Conservatives were set to win a majority government until Trump’s 51st state insults changed the ballot question..Carney also faces the probability of a newly elected PQ separatist government in Quebec next year. And depending on how he reconciles his conflicting campaign comments on climate change/energy policies, he may also face new independence-seeking parties in Alberta and Saskatchewan. These would be daunting challenges for any prime minister, but especially for one who until last Monday never held an elected political office in his life.But Alberta’s economic future is equally bleak. Thanks to those same Trudeau policies, capital investment has fled from Western Canadian oil and gas. That was the clear message at first quarter corporate board meetings in downtown Calgary last week.Or, just look at the balance in your Registered Retirement Savings Plan or Registered Retirement Income Fund. And at $59 US/barrel — another Trump achievement — the Alberta government budget has flipped from a $5 billion-dollar surplus last year to a $5 billion-dollar deficit for 2025. And it could get worse soon, depending on how Carney chooses to proceed..To avoid this economic meltdown, both governments will need to work together to build new energy transportation infrastructure. Canada — or more precisely, Western Canada — has what the rest of the world desperately needs — not just oil and gas, but also grains, meats, timber, bauxite (fertilizer,) uranium and other rare minerals. The stupidity of the Trump tariffs actually creates new opportunities for Canada to expand exports to our democratic friends and allies in Europe and Asia.The window of opportunity for Alberta-Ottawa cooperation is now. The federal election campaign has created a new national understanding of Canada’s energy infrastructure deficit. New pipelines are no longer just an issue for Western Canadians. For perhaps the first time ever, consumers/voters in Ontario and Quebec understand that it is economically dangerous to be over-reliant on exports to the US; that the development of new export pipelines will benefit all Canadians, not just Alberta..Yes, Carney is burdened by a lifetime of climate change commitments. But, these need not be a deal killer. Climate change is a global issue, not just a Canadian issue. New Canadian LNG exports to China, India and Korea would dramatically reduce the CO2 emissions that their coal-fired power plants now produce.Now is the time for Smith and Carney to capitalize on this new national awareness, to articulate the vision of Canada as a clean energy superpower.If Carney wants to avoid becoming Prime Minister Carnage — sucked into the double vortex of recession and independence movements — Smith has laid out the path forward. Her pre-election list of nine short-term policy changes covers the same reforms identified in the post-election open letter that Canadian energy executives have sent to Carney. Let the bargaining — and the compromises — begin.Smith actually has more political space than Carney. She has already begun to build public support for the deeper institutional reforms that will strengthen Alberta’s autonomy and make us less vulnerable to predatory and destructive federal policies: replacing the RCMP with an Alberta police force; collecting Alberta's own income taxes; and withdrawing from the CPP to form an Alberta pension plan.None of these are radical. They are already being done by Quebec, Ontario or both. But they send a message — both to Carney and the rest of Canada: We are tired of waiting..But what if Carney was lying? What if his campaign statements about unlocking Western Canada’s oil and gas were just a short-term political tactic to help win the federal election? What if he now embraces the 'Go Green or Go Home' policies that he has actively supported for the past decade? Is Alberta hooped?No. Smith has never embraced independence as a solution. But neither has she closed the door. She has made it clear that the status quo is not an option. Her first piece of legislation as premier — Bill 1, The Alberta Sovereignty Act — states that Alberta will refuse to enforce any federal laws or policies that attack Alberta’s interests or rights under the constitution. She has already used the Sovereignty Act to protect Alberta gun owners. Last week Smith launched a constitutional challenge to the federal clean energy regulation — a legal motion that Quebec and Saskatchewan will most certainly support and join. And her recent amendments to Alberta’s referendum legislation — reducing the required number of signatures and extending the time allowed to collect them — all but guarantee that there will be some sort of Alberta independence question as part of our municipal elections this October.Alberta’s options don’t stop there. Smith’s policy team is well aware of the strategies that former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed used, to successfully challenge some of Trudeau’s National Energy Policy in the 1980s: restricting or even stopping the export of oil and gas to the rest of Canada; and using an Alberta Crown corporation to shield Alberta oil and gas sales from federal taxation.Bottom line, so far Smith has played her cards well. She’s been prudent — hoping for the best but planning for the worst. Willing to work with Carney to make Canada the clean energy superpower that we have the potential to be. But, plenty of ammunition in reserve if Carney opts for Go Green or Go Home. Yes, the latter would be ugly and disruptive. But the finger on the trigger would be Prime Minister Carnage’s not hers.F.L. (Ted) Morton is professor emeritus and an Executive Fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. He is also a former minister of energy and minister of finance in the government of Alberta. .Due to a high level of spam content being posted, all comments undergo manual approval by a staff member during regular business hours (Monday - Friday). Your patience is appreciated.
