Danielle Smith says she's giving Carney until Grey Cup to fix nine 'bad laws'

OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is softening an ultimatum she gave Prime Minister Mark Carney several months ago, saying she hopes to negotiate a resolution of the nine federal laws she says are throttling Alberta’s oil and gas sector by Grey Cup.

“I can tell you that we are hoping to have some kind of agreement with the prime minister, by Grey Cup, where he gives a clear indication that he’s prepared to address the nine laws that have created an investment climate that is hostile to private investment,” Smith told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Smith was taking questions from the media a day after meeting briefly with Carney, just before he left Ottawa for a visit to Washington, D.C.

She wouldn’t divulge details of the meeting but said she was “very hopeful” that she and Carney could reach an agreement on the nine so-called “bad laws.”

She also didn’t say what the consequences of not reaching a deal by Grey Cup would be.

Smith said last spring that the winner of April’s federal election would need to repeal or substantially revise the laws — which include the electric vehicle mandate, West Coast tanker ban and emissions cap — in the first six months of their term “to avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis.”

So far, the Carney government has paused the electric vehicle sales target for 2026 and reportedly opened the door to dropping the emissions cap , in exchange for emissions reductions commitments from Alberta and the oil and gas industry.

Smith announced last week that her government would act as the initial proponent of a new heavy oil pipeline to northwest British Columbia. She added that she hoped to submit an application for the pipeline to the new federal Major Projects Office by May 2026.

The project’s viability will hinge largely on whether the federal moratorium on tanker traffic along B.C.’s North Coast is reversed.

Federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson wouldn’t say when asked on Friday whether he’d support lifting the tanker ban to make way for the new pipeline, saying that the matter was a “hypothetical question right now, because there is no project before us.”

Smith wasn’t asked about Hodgson’s remarks, but took aim at B.C. Premier David Eby, who called her pipeline announcement “fictional” in recent comments.

She called Eby’s comments “un-Canadian” and “unconstitutional”, noting that the courts have made it clear that B.C. cannot unilaterally block Alberta oil from reaching the coast.

“The reason we have a country and (we’ve) trade and commerce power … to the federal government is for exactly this reason, so that a parochial premier isn’t able to block nation building projects,” said Smith.

Eby said on Monday that a new coastal pipeline would too great a risk to Great Bear Rainforest and B.C.’s North Coast, which he called one of the world’s “most precious and intact ecosystems.”

The Grey Cup, set for Nov. 16 in Winnipeg, will coincidentally kick off almost six months to the day after Carney named his first post-election cabinet in mid-May.

National Post rmohamed@postmedia.com

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