CANADA - Prime Minister Mark Carney and the leader of Canada’s oil-rich Alberta province took a major step on Friday toward building an oil pipeline that could substantially increase crude exports to Asia. Expanding overseas energy exports has emerged as a key part of Carney’s strategy to reduce Canada’s economic reliance on the United States, but plans for a new pipeline are facing strong resistance over environmental concerns. Alberta’s conservative premier, Danielle Smith, was a relentless critic of Carney’s climate-focused predecessor, Justin Trudeau, accusing him of suffocating the province’s oil industry. However, she has sought to work cooperatively with Carney. Carney and Smith cleared a key hurdle toward a new pipeline on Friday by signing an agreement on industrial carbon pricing, a system that imposes fees on large-scale CO2 emitters. Oil companies have criticized the system, but Smith said on Friday that the prohibitive rates set under Trudeau’s government had been “rolled back.” Ottawa and the Alberta government agreed that the rate would gradually rise to CAD 130 (USD 96) per tonne of CO2 emissions by 2040. Trudeau had previously proposed a rate of CAD 170 by 2030.

At the announcement in Calgary, Carney said a final proposal for a pipeline serving Asian markets should be submitted to his major projects office by July 1. He said Canada had earned “the trust of Asian countries who want our energy because they know that we are a safe, stable, reliable partner in a world that is anything but.”

Carney has repeatedly warned that the trade hostility ushered in by U.S. President Donald Trump is not temporary and that Canada must prepare for a fundamentally different economic relationship with the United States, including by strengthening ties with Asia.

Pipeline approval is also contingent on developing what Carney described as “the largest global initiative for carbon capture and storage.” Some Indigenous groups and First Nations have said they will oppose any pipeline running from Alberta to Canada’s Pacific Coast.

The leader of the left-wing New Democratic Party, Avi Lewis, argued that Friday’s announcement “marks the Carney government’s official surrender to the oil and gas lobby.” The announcement also comes at a politically sensitive moment. Alberta separatists have gained record-high support — roughly 30 percent — for independence by criticizing Ottawa’s control over the province’s oil industry. Carney, who was raised in Alberta, insists that the province can prosper within a united Canada. (Bssnews)