Prime Minister Mark Carney is avidly wooing the west — but will his own caucus trip him up?

Last Friday, Carney met with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to reassure her that Ottawa’s got her back on a second bitumen pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast. After the tête-à-tête, Smith said: “This morning I said ‘if’ a deal gets signed, and afterwards I said ‘when’ a deal gets signed,” describing it as “an indication of my improved level of confidence.” 

Later the same day, Trade and “One Economy” Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced a 30-day public consultation on changes to major project approvals. These include imposing a maximum timeline of one year, transferring approval for pipelines from the Impact Assessment Agency to the Canada Energy Regulator or the Major Projects Office, and exempting projects from reviews for at risk species where it is in the public interest to do so.  

Both these moves were made not just to speed up major projects, but to quell separatist sentiment bubbling away in Alberta.........

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