Carney says he'll work with oil and gas industry, says he opposes 'preset caps'
CBC
Prime Minister Mark Carney has suggested he may be willing to move away from emissions caps for the oil and gas industry in a shift from his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, whose government had begun the process to regulate greenhouse gas.
Speaking to reporters in Edmonton after meeting with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Thursday, Carney was asked how he planned to counter the harmful effects of U.S. tariffs on the oil and gas industry, while also supporting an emissions cap.
Carney said he wanted to make Canada's energy sector more competitive by "working with industry and with provinces on specific ways to get those reductions, as opposed to — and last point which goes to your question — as opposed to having preset caps or preset restrictions on preset timelines."
The prime minister didn't elaborate, but his comments appear to contradict the federal Environment Minister he appointed days ago, Terry Duguid.
In a recent interview with The Canadian Press, Duguid said that, if elected, Carney would maintain the Liberals' proposed cap on emissions.
"We want that energy. What we don't want is that pollution," Duguid said.
Trudeau promised a cap on emissions from oil and gas in the 2021 election and began the regulation process in 2022.
In November, the Liberals introduced draft regulations — two years behind schedule — that require producers to cut emissions by about one-third over the next eight years, and said that the regulations did not place a cap on production.
The federal government also proposed a cap-and-trade system where each company would be given an emissions allowance equating to one unit per tonne of carbon pollution. Companies that pollute less would be able to sell their leftover allowance units for profit, while companies that don't reduce their emissions enough would have to buy allowance units from other companies to stay in compliance.
Smith said that in her first face-to-face meeting with the new prime minister she gave him an earful on wildfires and oil sales and warned him that national unity hangs in the balance.
"I provided a specific list of demands the next prime minister, regardless of who that is, must address within the first six months of their term to avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis," the Alberta premier said in a statement Thursday after her morning meeting with Carney in the Alberta capital.
Smith has been a longtime critic of Trudeau, saying federal Liberal government policies have for years illegally encroached on Alberta's resource rights and strangled its wellspring oil and gas industry.
Smith said it was Carney's idea to meet and that they had a "frank discussion."
"I made it clear that Albertans will no longer tolerate the way we've been treated by the federal Liberals over the past 10 years," she said.
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