Heather Exner-Pirot, senior fellow and director of natural resources, energy and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, discusses the ramifications of B.C. electing a conservative government with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Michael Higgins: What could the election of a conservative government in B.C., one that campaigned on an energy superpower plan, mean for either confidence or momentum in Alberta’s oil patch? Heather Exner-Pirot: I think a month ago, very few people thought that we would see that conservative government. The B.C. NDP government under David Eby was probably the furthest-left government left in Canada. They had warmed up to LNG over the last year and a half, but it was still difficult to do the production, the upstream, in that province. So overall, for the sector, lots of momentum. You have to think that we will get Ksi Lisims’ LNG … and that for producers operating on both sides of the border, it’s good. For Alberta, a little bit of a caveat is that we were much more competitive than B.C. for oil and natural gas production. People would rather have set up shop here, and so now we’ll have a bit more competition from our neighbour. MH: How do you see the Alberta and B.C. governments working together now? What could they potentially accomplish that might not have been previously possible under the Eby NDP? HEP: For (Mark) Carney, he had to balance both sides, and it was difficult. I think he did an admirable job threading that needle, finding a way for Pacific Link to go through, accommodating both the B.C. NDP and their concerns, and also the Alberta UCP. (That’s a) pretty wide divergence of two political parties, two provinces to balance. But now that Carney’s working with B.C. and Alberta and they both have conservative governments, it feels like pretty smooth sailing. And I’ll say there wasn’t a lot of daylight between what Carney was advancing and what Alberta was looking for. And now B.C. is on the same page. MH: Calls have been reignited for the federal government to remove the tanker ban on B.C.’s north coast, including from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. B.C.’s incoming premier, though, is reportedly maybe a little lukewarm to the idea. How much of a door do you see potentially opening to another western route for Alberta energy exports? HEP: That’s the biggest wild card, and that we don’t know quite how it’s going to play. I don’t think the Pacific link is affected one way or another, with the conservative B.C. government, because it’s federal jurisdiction, and the B.C. NDP had already previously conceded that it would go ahead. With natural gas production, I think, B.C. already wanted to see, under the NDP government, that LNG production, the doubling, tripling of production. So it is the north coast oil tanker route where there may be some daylight between what the Alberta UCP and the B.C. conservatives are looking for. It’s probably not a top priority of the new B.C. government, but it is a top priority for the Alberta government, and so, I think they’ll probably want to move forward some more of their agenda before they inject what is a contentious issue into provincial politics as a new government. MH: Does the B.C. conservative government change dynamics at all around the elements of consultation, even potential opposition? HEP: This is the other wild card aspect: the extent to which the B.C. conservatives ran on a platform of repealing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). They were the only province that had that in place. That is creating tension and some acrimony, I think, with some First Nations. Whether that acrimony and that tension starts to get taken out on the oil and gas sector – it often does; that is often used as a bit of leverage – remains to be seen, but it’s certainly a potential. So hoping that the B.C. government finds a way to reconcile everyone’s interests, do things that are mutually beneficial for everyone, and doesn’t make oil and gas into another wedge issue. MH: How likely are the changing political dynamics to now maybe draw more private sector involvement to Pacific Link? Or or is this still destined to be a taxpayer dollar major project? HEP: That one, for sure, will be taxpayer dollars because everything about the last 10 years has made it unattractive for a private sector proponent to get involved. That being said, you could sell Trans Mountain, the built pipeline, if the government wanted to offload that asset if it wanted to recoup its costs. I think overall this is just another great amount of momentum for the Canadian oil and gas sector. MH: What’s your response to those who remain doubtful? Those who question a project like Pacific Link becoming a reality? HEP: I always like to remind people that, actually, Justin Trudeau built a pipeline to the west coast between 2019 and 2024, when almost every political economic circumstance was worse. So if you could do that with TMX in those circumstances, to me every circumstance is better for Pacific Link. I have very high confidence that that pipeline is going to go ahead. The federal government has already expended a lot of political capital. Now they’re going to expend some financial capital. But we know from the experience of Trans Mountain – which is already full, by the way – that you get all that money back in taxes and royalties from the upstream production.
