Welcome to the Mark Carney major projects sweepstakes

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One of the perverse joys of politics is when an elected official looks you in the eye and tells you that the thing going on directly in front of your face is not happening.

This happened twice during Mark Carney’s Oprah giveaway day on Thursday: You get a port! And you get a tunnel! And everybody gets a pipeline, whether or not they want one!

The first came at the tail end of the Prime Minister’s press conference in Vancouver with B.C. Premier David Eby, in which they announced nearly $20-billion in federal commitments for the province’s infrastructure priorities, along with a pledge to uphold the federal tanker ban off B.C.’s North Coast.

That meant that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith would not get her preferred northern pipeline route, and also that one of Mr. Eby’s deal-breakers had been resolved.

But after Mr. Eby and Mr. Carney spent 40 minutes extolling all these great things they’d decided to build together simply because it was the right thing to do, a reporter asked the Prime Minister how he would respond to someone who said that the MOU is “a quid pro quo” for his pipeline announcement with Ms. Smith later that same day.

Mr. Carney waved off the idea, saying, “This is a representation of what we are all trying to accomplish to make Canada more independent, more resilient, more prosperous, more sustainable, more inclusive.”

Then it was Mr. Eby’s turn to deny that Mr. Carney had come to town hauling a bag of treats.

“One of the realities of British Columbians is we build big things, we get big things done. And to be honest, we’ve been a bit quiet about it,” the Premier said. “Those days are over.”

To reduce this deal to being about Alberta is unfair, he said: “It is a generational federal commitment that we have been asking for for a long time.”

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Of course, the Premier also said that the agreement ensures that British Columbians “are fairly compensated for the environmental risks” of a potential pipeline, and that he would not fight the project in court.

So, it would seem that the actual response to anyone inclined to call the B.C. agreement a quid pro quo is: You bet.

And fair enough, really. Any province in the vicinity of Alberta right now must feel like it’s pretty difficult to make itself heard, so Mr. Eby decided to seize his leverage and make some noise.

The second instance of that absurd sleight of hand came several hours after the Vancouver announcement when Mr. Carney was in Calgary with Ms. Smith to unveil plans for a new pipeline to southern B.C. It will be built by the federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation, with the private Pembina Pipeline Corporation contributing a small stake.

That was a stark change from the original plan. The MOU that the federal government and Alberta signed with great fanfare in November explicitly called for a pipeline to be “private sector constructed and financed.” On Thursday, neither the Premier nor the Prime Minister could answer how much taxpayers could expect to pony up for the project.

Then, near the end of the press conference, a reporter asked the obvious: Why does the private sector consider this pipeline so risky that it requires government support?

Ms. Smith ran through a roster of past projects – Keystone, Energy East, Northern Gateway – cancelled for one reason or another after fat investments had already been made. It takes some effort to help companies “understand that this is a real process” now, she said.

“Maybe over time as more and more certainty comes in, maybe we’ll be talking with Scott about him wanting to take on a larger and larger share,” Ms. Smith said, grinning in the direction of Pembina CEO Scott Burrows. “But we want to make sure that a company knows that we’re walking this path with them so that we can get it to the end.”

Immediately after the announcement, Pembina issued a press release whose first sentence noted that the agreement was “non-binding.” It also said that the company’s construction contribution was 10 per cent, with the option for another 10 per cent once the hypothetical pipeline “enters commercial operation.”

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A few troubling questions stem from the lack of a private champion for this pipeline.

One possibility is that this is strategic hesitation, like when a city needs a new stadium or arena. The longer investors waffle, like a cat on the doorstep deciding whether to go in or out, the more public money tends to get plunked down to sweeten the deal.

The rushed timeline around this pipeline – and the fact that it’s an olive branch of national unity, not simply economic development – would only weaken the negotiating position of the public partners. Of course taxpayers are ending up on the hook.

Ms. Smith likes to talk about “de-risking,” but another word for that same idea – one she would surely hate – is subsidizing.

If the private-sector hesitation is real, then something different seems awry. The entire point of the federal government’s Major Projects Office, its Building Canada Act and indeed the whole thrust of Mr. Carney’s economic policy is to build big things faster. He could hardly have greased the skids any more for this pipeline – at least within the universe of things he controls, oil supply and demand not being among them.

But it appears that none of that has been enough to – say it with me – catalyze private investment yet.

So, are taxpayers going to own a money-printing machine, as Ms. Smith likes to portray it, or something much less certain? The delays, shifting government priorities and unpredictable demand that may have scared private investors away from the pipeline still exist – it’s just that now we’ll all be covering them.

It makes no sense that Mr. Eby tried to refute the idea that he landed a quid pro quo; he should be crowing that at least his province got a windfall out of this.