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But what’s different today than back in 2017 when the TMX tussle was erupting, aside from ever-changing energy markets?
By Chris Varcoe – This Article and More by Chris Varcoe Here
Does this sound familiar — a premier from British Columbia opposes a pipeline from Alberta that would move oil to the West Coast, and seeks to block it?
In turn, an Alberta premier fires back.
“Enough is enough . . . We need to get these things built.”
The year was 2017. The Alberta premier was Rachel Notley.
The issue was the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Today, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is expressing a similar view — that Canada needs to get major projects built, including a greenfield oil pipeline to the Pacific Coast, rather than trying to find novel ways to obstruct them.
And a budding feud between the B.C. and Alberta governments in 2025 has echoes to the past, when then-B.C. premier John Horgan said he was prepared to use every tool in the toolbox to stop the Trans Mountain expansion (TMX) project from going ahead.
“The challenge is Canada has divisions and differences of opinions about energy infrastructure,” Kevin Birn, Canadian oil markets chief analyst for S&P Global Commodity Insights, said Tuesday.
“And those differences, I don’t think, have been resolved.”
Last decade, Horgan’s pledge to use every measure to thwart the TMX project didn’t work and the expansion began operating last year. It’s now exporting record amounts of crude to customers in Asia, helping diversify Canada’s oil exports beyond the United States.
Yet, the obstruction came with a price.
It led to threats and anger between the neighbouring provinces with talk of a B.C. bitumen blockade, Alberta’s threat to retaliate with a wine ban and discussions about turning off the oil taps.
The private sector proponent, Kinder Morgan, was set to walk away from TMX due to the growing political uncertainty, prompting the Trudeau government to buy the pipeline to ensure it was completed.
That step, along with other factors — including legal delays — drove up the final project cost to $34 billion from an initial $5-billion budget.
Today, B.C. Premier David Eby is lambasting what he calls the Alberta government’s “fantasy bitumen pipeline” proposal because it is acting as proponent for a new oil artery to the northern B.C. coast.
In Ottawa talking to reporters, Smith returned the volley.
“Premier Eby’s comments are un-Canadian and they’re unconstitutional,” she said bluntly.
“The Supreme Court has determined that the reason we have a country, and have given trade and commerce power and control over ports and inter-provincial infrastructure to the federal government, is for exactly this reason — so that a parochial premier isn’t able to block nation-building projects.”
The trigger to this latest provincial scrap arrived last week when Smith declared the province would act as the proponent for a proposed pipeline that could move up to one million barrels of oil per day to northern B.C. for export.
She wants to see the project included next month on the updated federal major projects list that identifies nation-building developments to be fast-tracked.
But what’s different today than back in 2017 when the TMX tussle was erupting, aside from ever-changing energy markets?
Eight years ago, the Trans Mountain expansion had already been deemed by the federal energy regulator to be in the national interest. The NDP government in B.C., opposed to the development, indicated it would restrict the amount of diluted bitumen that could be transported in the province by rail or pipeline.
The B.C. government said it was concerned about the possibility of a bitumen spill from the expanded Trans Mountain line.
Today, Eby frames his concerns somewhat differently, and said putting Alberta’s proposal on the major projects list would threaten the Pacific Coast and other “real B.C. projects” that have the support of Indigenous communities and British Columbians.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to advance major projects that can grow the economy, but also wants to garner support from provinces and Indigenous communities.
“There are a lot of needles to thread for this to come to fruition,” said political scientist Monica Gattinger, chair of the Positive Energy research program at the University of Ottawa.
“It’s really smart on the part of the Alberta government to make itself a proponent for such a pipeline . . . Only governments can really push hard on each other to make policy and regulatory changes, which would be required in order for such a pipeline to go forward.”
For months, Smith and industry leaders have been calling for federal changes that would help advance a new pipeline, such as eliminating the oilpatch emissions cap and removing the West Coast tanker ban.
To attract the investment necessary to build a pipeline — and for producers to fill the line — policy changes will be required to provide more certainty and predictability, said Business Council of Canada CEO Goldy Hyder.
“The fact that Alberta stepped in as a proponent is just another example, a la TMX, that governments are going to have to do the bidding early out of the gate, until they’re able to sell it to a private sector operator,” Hyder said Monday.
Gattinger wonders if there is a set of conditions the Eby government could agree to, allowing it to eventually back a new oil pipeline. She also notes the landscape has evolved in the past decade.
Many Indigenous communities have bought an ownership stake in resource projects across the country, and public support for oil and gas development has increased in recent years amid concerns about global energy security.
And Canada wasn’t facing tariffs from its largest trading partner back then.
This puts the new prime minister in a tough spot.
“This will probably be one of the largest tests for him, in terms of getting major projects built that will help to strengthen the Canadian economy and diversify its exports,” she said.
Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.
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