![\"smith](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Smith-Carney-West-Coast-Pipeline-Press-Conference-1200x810-1-1024x691.jpg\")
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By: Kenneth P. Green<\/p>\n
Get the Latest Canadian Focused Energy News Delivered to You! It’s FREE: Quick Sign-Up Here<\/a><\/p>\n In a\u00a0celebratory press conference<\/a>\u00a0the day after Canada Day, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a major advancement of the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding first forged in late\u00a02025<\/a>, regarding the province\u2019s long-expressed desire to see a pipeline built to the West Coast, allowing greater access to lucrative markets in Asia.\n<\/p>\n There\u2019s no question the project offers many potential economic and employment benefits to Alberta\u2019s economy and Canada more generally. There\u2019s also no question that the project is being misrepresented as a public-private partnership, but is, in reality, almost entirely a government project.\n<\/p>\n According to the\u00a0agreement<\/a>\u00a0between Alberta and Ottawa, the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission (a provincial Crown corporation), the Trans Mountain Corporation (which is owned by the federal government) and Pembina Pipeline Corporation (a private company) \u201cwill be responsible for the Project\u2019s development costs and management of associated risks and liabilities that may arise during construction and operations of the Project.\u201d The agreement also promises unspecified but \u201cmeaningful Indigenous equity participation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Again, while pitched as a broad public-private partnership, the plan is anything but. It\u2019s a public infrastructure project with a side-helping of private-sector involvement, most notably in the ancillary \u201ccarbon capture\u201d and underground storage project (known as \u201cPathways\u201d), which is a federal precondition for the project. Pembina will only contribute to the project\u2019s commercial and technical success by \u201cleveraging its expertise in contracting, budgeting, engineering and construction, as well as Indigenous engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the various political actors will no doubt secure coveted policy goals. Alberta, it seems, will get its million-barrel-a-day pipeline to carry its oilsands product to a port on the Pacific Ocean, at the cost of having to implement a vast untested carbon capture and underground storage program that could make the cost of production of Alberta oil less competitive (or non-competitive) on the global market against producing jurisdictions (Venezuela, for example) that require no carbon storage.\n<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s federal government, meanwhile, gets to see Alberta brought to submission on a raft of its own priorities, such as Ottawa\u2019s new near-universal electrification of everything\u00a0strategy<\/a>, the idea of mandating carbon capture to produce \u201cdecarbonized oil,\u201d and of course the expansion of carbon-emission rationing as a component of Alberta\u2019s economy via a\u00a0higher industrial carbon tax<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the British Columbia government gets to force Alberta to take the longest possible route to connect two points on a map with a pipeline, while potentially profiting from its share of the project. Specifically, B.C. looks to land billions of dollars to upgrade the Robert Banks terminal in Delta and score another $3 billion for the George Massey Tunnel replacement project.\n<\/p>\n But before the celebrations grow too exuberant, it\u2019s worth repeating\u2014this is not a private initiative of market actors taking on both risks and potential profits. It\u2019s essentially now public infrastructure where taxpayers bear the cost and risk for \u201cprofits\u201d interpreted as government revenue.\n<\/p>\n![\"GLJ\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Jenik-Freight-Desktop-Banner-1400x179-V3-March-11-2026.png\"\/)
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