SASKATOON—Building bridges — and possibly pipelines — while battling barriers.
As Prime Minister Mark Carney meets Monday with the premiers, he wants to fast-track “nation-building” infrastructure projects and eliminate interprovincial trade barriers to strengthen a Canadian economy under attack from U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Partnership is a theme for our discussion this morning,” Carney said Sunday in Calgary at a roundtable with leading figures from the oil and gas industry before the first ministers’ meeting.
“It’s a critical time for our country. The world’s certainly more divided and dangerous and the imperative of making Canada an energy superpower in all respects has never been greater. We will do everything we can at the federal government level to support those partnerships,” he said.
In a letter to the prime minister released Sunday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her province wants to get its products to market while reducing dependence on the U.S., meaning pipelines to tidewater must be among Carney’s nation-building priorities.
“Failure to have an oil pipeline on the initial list will perpetuate current investment uncertainty and send an unwelcome signal to Albertans concerned about Ottawa’s commitment to national unity,” warned Smith, referring to the potential for a referendum on secession in Alberta.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford — who signed a memorandum of understanding Sunday with Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe to remove barriers to trade and labour mobility between the two provinces — said it was “encouraging” that Carney was in Calgary earlier in the day to meet with energy executives.
“This prime minister is really sending out olive branches across the country. He understands the previous prime minister (Justin Trudeau) totally ignored Alberta, totally ignored Saskatchewan. That was unacceptable,” said Ford.
“Let’s get rid of all this regulation and red tape that’s prohibiting us from moving forward at a rapid speed, because it all depends on the speed right now,” he said, noting Trump “wants to annihilate our economy” with tariffs on Canadian products.
With Carney pledging to lift Ottawa’s hurdles to internal trade by Canada Day, just one month from now, Ford stressed Ontario has also inked accords with Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
“I’m confident we’ll come up with a deal (with Quebec, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador),” he said, pointing out internal trade barriers cost the Canadian economy $200 billion annually and can add 15 per cent to the cost of many goods and services.
Quebec Premier François Legault’s government tabled a bill Friday to get rid of some interprovincial trade barriers that have limited labour mobility for workers from other parts of Canada.
“What we’re doing is sending a signal that Quebec is open to interprovincial trade. If we want to have better access to the Canadian market, we have to accept to open ours,” said Quebec Minister for the Economy Christopher Skeete.
But Quebec, which has a shortage of construction workers, plans to keep in place labour barriers in that sector.
Saskatchewan’s Moe said the leadership change in Ottawa is palpable among the premiers.
“Credit to Prime Minister Carney. He is aware that there’s … a feeling of alienation in certain areas of the nation, and Saskatchewan almost certainly would be one of those areas,” he told reporters.
“I would say that it’s a reactionary feeling due to the layering of policies that we’ve seen over the last number of years. That the feeling is, is that it has cost Saskatchewan communities and industries jobs.”
To that end, Moe said “a port-to-port corridor throughout Western Canada … would essentially open up not only the Asian market, but advance our access into the European market as well, for many products.”
British Columbia Premier David Eby, who has headed on a trade mission in Asia and will miss the first ministers’ meeting, said “the asks of Alberta are very predictable” in terms of oil and gas.
“Premier Smith has been advocating for this pipeline access for a long time. I’m not surprised that she is continuing to advocate for it,” Eby said Saturday.
“There’s no project yet currently — of which I’m aware — and so if finally a project is proposed and financed, whether private or public, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Some First Nation leaders and environmentalists have expressed concern about new pipelines at a time when the world is trying to wean itself off of carbon-emitting fuels.
Before flying to Saskatoon, Carney announced Marc-André Blanchard, Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations, will be his new chief of staff starting next month, succeeding interim chief Marco Mendicino, who is considering a Toronto mayoral run.
He has convened a major summit here for the first time since 1985 to signal to Western Canada that Ottawa is listening to its concerns after a decade of his predecessor’s policies that rankled many in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The confab comes as the U.S. president’s tariffs aimed at Canada are helping to clear the logjam of interprovincial trade barriers that have left regions competing with one another.
