Prime Minister Mark Carney in Rome, Italy, on May 17. Mr. Carney’s real power to push forward projects comes from a meet-the-crisis mandate to deal with the trade war initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump.Remo Casilli/Reuters
The Quebec government is open to an oil pipeline.
More than that: In a podcast interview last week, Premier François Legault mused about building a pipeline to an export terminal in Sept-Iles, on Quebec’s North Shore.
“Could we imagine having a pipeline that goes through northern Quebec which could end, for example, in the port of Sept-Iles?” Mr. Legault said in the interview.
“There are projects like that were unthinkable before Trump.”
Unthinkable before Mr. Trump. Now possible.
Take the word of a Quebec Premier who was always keen on economic development but previously argued that pipelines didn’t have the necessary social acceptance from Quebeckers.
It’s yet another sign that there is a political window of opportunity for energy development in Canada.
But Mr. Legault’s statement also underlines the challenges. There is no real project to build a pipeline to Sept-Iles. It came from Mr. Legault’s imagination. There is no solid project to build a west-east oil pipeline, either.
And Mr. Carney’s window of opportunity to approve such projects will be short. Perhaps a year.
The question is whether the industry and its backers can mount a viable, approvable pipeline project in that time.
Right now, Mr. Carney’s real power to push forward projects comes from a meet-the-crisis mandate to deal with the trade war initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The newly-formed consensus among Canadians gives Mr. Carney an opportunity to advance some of them quickly. He has said the chief purpose of the first ministers meeting scheduled for June 2 is identifying big, national projects.
But just as the unthinkable has suddenly become possible because of Mr. Trump, the crisis consensus could fade.
Mr. Carney has a minority in Parliament, and although it is only two seats shy of a majority and can govern comfortably for now, its political leeway will probably shrink.
When Culture Minister Steven Guilbeault expressed doubt about a new oil pipeline last week, it was a reminder that the newfound Canadian consensus has yet to be tested.
That’s true for potential allies, too: Mr. Legault’s government is behind the Parti Québécois in polls and faces an election next October.
Mr. Carney has emphasized his priorities will be projects that are low risk, low cost and low carbon.
“Electricity transmission is probably the one that checks all those boxes,” said University of Alberta energy and environmental economist Andrew Leach.
Projects to build east-west links for electricity transmission, or to link Atlantic provinces to Quebec’s electricity transmission network, might fit the bill.
When it comes to oil and gas, there are natural-gas projects, including several proposals to build pipelines to LNG terminals in B.C. that Mr. Carney’s government might seek to back.
Yet Mr. Carney has also said he will back an oil pipeline. Is there a viable proposal that can be put on the table, fast?
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith now favours reviving some version of the cancelled Northern Gateway pipeline project to the northern B.C. coast. But that seems destined to crash on the obstacles that killed it before.
Stephen Harper’s Conservative government approved it in 2014 with so many conditions – 209 – that its completion was always unlikely. Then courts quashed the approval for a failure to consult First Nations. That’s still a constitutional requirement that no government can skip.
Another option is to revive the abandoned Energy East proposal for a west-to-east pipeline that would carry Alberta oil to Eastern Canada. That would also be a national-security project to reduce dependence on the U.S., because it would ensure Eastern Canada’s oil supply isn’t routed through a U.S. pipeline.
The challenge, Mr. Leach noted, is the economics: the high cost of the long pipeline, and the tolls it would require could make it unprofitable for shippers.
Ottawa could perhaps find a way to approve such a project in principle, so that the route remains open if a promoter wants to build on it later. Both Mr. Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre have proposed creating an energy corridor.
But speed matters. Public support moves premiers and allies, and makes a minority government willing to take risks. The window of political opportunity for pipelines that came with Mr. Trump won’t last forever.