OTTAWA – Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says that United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney's rhetoric on pipelines is starting to mirror the isolationist proposals made by U.S. President Donald Trump.
"He's essentially saying that, what we should do is build a wall around Alberta. I wouldn’t be surprised if, tomorrow, he comes out demanding that B.C. pays for it," Notley said in an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CTV's Question Period.
"And then the next day he’ll come out and wonder why it is that we can’t get the pipeline built," she said of her provincial rival.
Notley has been crisscrossing Canada on what's been described as a pipeline road trip in which she’s spoken in favour of the expansion of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.
Kenney has criticized her approach, saying she should bring sanctions on British Columbia over their opposition to the project, and if she doesn’t he’s said that he would, if he’s elected premier.
"He’s approaching and recommending a very isolationist view of how Alberta should engage with the rest of the country," Notley said. She thinks this is the wrong approach and doubts it’ll be effective.
"He’s just not going to build a pipeline by crossing his arms, sticking out his lower lip, pouting, and then somehow suggesting that the answer to it is to ask Kinder Morgan to actually stop shipping what they’re already shipping in order to get this done," she said.
"I mean, none of this makes sense. It is rhetorical, it’s not logical, it doesn’t make sense, and that’s exactly the same kind of strategy that we see south of the border," said Notley.
Singh 'not on the right page' on pipelines
In addition to opposing Kenney’s pipelines approach, the Alberta premier acknowledged she is at odds with other top New Democrats.
Both federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and B.C. Premier John Horgan are opposed to the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion.
Notley says, while she agrees with them on many things, they're in the wrong here, because they see environmental protections being in competition with jobs.
"As far as the federal party goes, as far as the new leader goes, they are not on the right page with respect to this particular matter," said Notley.
"And I’m going to continue to make that case to all New Democrats across the country."
Federal marijuana tax proposal 'ridiculous'
Notley also weighed in on the ongoing dispute between the federal government and the provinces over the proposed 50-50 split on the $1 per gram. or 10 per cent of the retail price. excise tax on legal marijuana.
She said, speaking as both a premier, and as the chair of the Council of the Federation, the federal proposal is “ridiculous” and not supported by premiers. She’d prefer to see the provinces get to keep all of the money, until it’s been worked out just how much money they are having to spend on setting up the new legal marijuana regime.
"The vast majority of cost in implementing the new marijuana legislation falls to the provinces and so it makes utterly no sense that the federal government would arbitrarily take 50 per cent. They have said all along that this was not meant to be a revenue generating process, and so don’t treat it like that," Notley said.
