Premier of Quebec François Legault talks with reporters as he arrives to take part in the First Ministers meeting at the National War Museum in Ottawa on March 21.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Quebec Premier François Legault says opinion is changing in Quebec where there’s traditionally been significant opposition to oil and gas pipelines.
The current crisis in relations between Canada and U.S President Donald Trump’s administration has triggered a national debate about building new pipelines across the country to send more deposits of oil and natural gas to overseas markets. One obstacle has been public opposition in Quebec to any new pipelines crossing provincial territory.
Mr. Legault, speaking at a meeting of premiers with Prime Minister Mark Carney Friday in Ottawa, said he knows other provinces want to talk about building more pipelines.
“We’re open to these kind of projects,” he told reporters. He said Quebec has always maintained a prerequisite for new pipelines that cross its territory must obtain “social acceptance from Quebec population.”
However, he said he sees right now, given “what Donald Trump is saying,” that “the opinion is changing right now” in Quebec.
Mr. Legault in addition to social acceptance for a new pipeline, there needs to be firm plans on what would be built.
“We need to have also real project, [a] concrete project, financed by the private sector” on the table, he said.
Just ahead of the meeting, federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne met with his provincial and territorial counterparts in Montreal.
Following the meeting, Mr. Champagne said they discussed potential large nation-building infrastructure projects under their jurisdictions that could boost economic growth.
He said this could include new hydroelectric transmission projects across provincial borders.
“I’ve been asking to identify at the federal level, first, kind of these nation building projects,” he said.
“The same thing can be done at the provincial, territorial level. I think if you have finance ministers working together to identify, let’s say 10, 12, 15 projects of national interest that we can all focus our energy to achieve, I think we’ll have been a great service to Canada, because a lot of these projects are interprovincial.”
Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy mentioned Northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire as a priority for development.
“The status quo is no longer an option,” he said.
British Columbia Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said her province has identified 18 major projects as priorities, which she said are mostly clean energy projects as well as mineral and LNG projects.
“Minister Champagne has challenged us to identify more projects, and I’m very hopeful that on the other side of this trade conflict, Canada will be so much stronger,” she said.
The premiers and Mr. Carney met Friday in Ottawa to discuss progress on reducing interprovincial trade barriers and discuss infrastructure projects that could carry Canadian commodities to overseas markets.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who is currently chair of the Council of the Federation, which consists of all premiers, said there are lot of “large infrastructure projects we’d like to discuss,” including pipelines “going east, going west, going north, going south” as well as rail and port expansions.
He noted the meeting was at Canada’s War Museum where those gathered were surrounded by military tanks.
Mr. Ford said Mr. Trump’s protectionist tariffs and threats of tariffs amount to an “economic war we’re facing right now as a country,” he said. But we’re going to stay united. We’re going to fight like we’ve never fought before to protect our sovereignty and our interests and our economy."
B.C. Premier David Eby attended the meeting by teleconference, the Premier’s office said. Other premiers either attended in person or also by teleconference.