David Eby to meet Carney amid Alberta pipeline deal

Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to meet with B.C. Premier David Eby on Wednesday morning, and david eby enters the talks after warning that Alberta is getting preferential treatment from Ottawa. Pipeline politics will be high on the agenda after Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced an implementation agreement for a proposed pipeline to B.C.’s coast on Friday.

The agreement lays out a timeline that puts Alberta’s proposal to the major projects office by July 1 and construction as early as September 2027. It also includes a deal on industrial carbon pricing, giving the federal government and Alberta a framework that B.C. is now confronting from the outside.

Friday’s Alberta agreement

Carney and Smith announced the implementation agreement on Friday, setting out the path for the proposed pipeline project. The document’s timeline is specific: Alberta must submit its proposal to the major projects office by July 1, and work is expected to begin as early as September 2027.

That schedule is now part of Eby’s meeting with Carney. The B.C. premier has already said he strongly opposes a pipeline to the north coast, putting him on the other side of the project from Alberta and the federal government’s new arrangement with Smith.

Eby and Ottawa

Eby said Alberta is getting preferential treatment from Ottawa, partly because of the threat of separatism. He also said, “This country cannot work if separatists, separatist premiers, others get all of the attention of the federal government and those provinces where we’re standing squarely behind Canada, where we are fighting for Canada, where we couldn’t be more pro-Canadian in the projects we’re advancing.”

His criticism puts the meeting on a narrower track than a routine provincial discussion. Carney will be sitting down with a premier who has already drawn a line against the north coast project while arguing that Ottawa is leaning toward Alberta.

North coast opposition

A statement from the Coastal First Nations advocacy group says its members will never allow a pipeline or oil tankers to the north coast of B.C. The group said Friday’s announcement does not increase the chances of a pipeline or oil tankers reaching the north coast.

That leaves the federal timeline intact and the political resistance equally intact. Alberta has its implementation agreement, B.C. has its opposition, and Carney is meeting Eby while both sides are already on record about where the project should go next.