Mark Carney has agreed an energy deal with Alberta centred on plans for a new heavy oil pipeline reaching from the province’s oil sands to the Pacific coast, a politically volatile project that is expected to face stiff opposition. The move proved politically damaging within hours, with the minister of Canadian culture, Steven Guilbeault, who is the former environment minister, announcing he would leave cabinet. He said the agreement “sets the state for an industrial transformation” and involved not just a pipeline, but nuclear power and datacentres. Carney’s government will exempt a possible pipeline project from the existing coastal oil tanker moratorium and emissions cap. Even before Carney and Smith made their announcement, however, First Nations said any new pipeline was effectively dead on arrival.
