Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith makes a keynote speech at the LNG 2023 energy conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada July 13, 2023. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo
CALGARY—Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says building a pipeline to British Columbia’s northwest coast to export Alberta oil and gas is the industry’s top priority, ahead of other potential routes.
Smith made the comments on Sept. 6 during the Canada Strong and Free Network conference in Calgary—an annual Conservative networking event—after being asked whether she thought Manitoba’s port town of Churchill was a realistic option to increase her province’s oil and gas exports.
She said Churchill would be a “viable option,” but that building a pipeline to B.C’s northwest coast is the first step many in the industry want to see realized.
“When I talk to the industry and they look at the economics, they say the very first priority would be going to the northwest BC coast, but we still have to figure out what the economics look like for Churchill,” she said.
The port of Churchill has been championed by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew as a good option for Western provinces to get agricultural, mineral, and energy products to other countries through Hudson Bay.
Prime Minister Mark Carney also voiced support for the port, saying late last month it would be among the infrastructure projects set to receive upcoming government investment.
“A number of those investments, the first of which we will be formally announcing in the next two weeks, are with respect to new port infrastructure,” Carney said during an Aug. 26 press conference in Germany, where he discussed the possibility of supplying liquefied natural gas (LNG) to German buyers.
“Some of the examples in the public domain will include reinforcing and building on the Port of Montreal, Contrecoeur; a new port, effectively, in Churchill, Manitoba, which would open up enormous LNG plus other opportunities; and other East Coast ports for those critical metals and minerals.”
Meanwhile, Ottawa’s support for a pipeline to B.C.’s northwest coast has been less clear, although a list of major projects the Carney government plans to fast-track includes one such proposal, described as being in the “concept” phase, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.
Premier Smith has consistently advocated for building a pipeline to B.C.’s north coast to export Alberta oil and gas to Asian markets, particularly as part of efforts to reduce reliance on the United States amid ongoing tariffs.
Ottawa in 2016 shelved the Northern Gateway pipeline, a project that would have transported oil from Alberta to Kitimat on B.C.’s north coast. In 2019, it implemented a ban on the traffic of large oil tankers off British Columbia’s north coast—first proposed in 2015 by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—ending any prospects for the pipeline.
Smith has long urged Ottawa to lift the tanker ban, a request she reiterated at the Sept. 6 event, saying that the ban, along with legislation like the Impact Assessment Act and the proposed oil and gas emissions cap, undermines Alberta’s resource development.
The Impact Assessment Act, previously known as Bill C-69, imposes federal environmental evaluation requirements for major projects, such as pipelines. The emissions cap would require oil and gas companies to lower their greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent below 2019 levels by 2032.
“If we’re going to get our bitumen pipeline to the west B.C. coast, you have to have a rewrite of the C-69 policies, you have to get rid of the tanker ban, and you have to get rid of the emissions cap,” Smith said on Sept. 6.
“No point in building a brand new shiny pipeline if you can’t encourage your oil producers to fill it.”