MONTREAL — Liberal leader Mark Carney says pipelines are “not necessarily” the large projects his government would prioritize to deal with the “crisis” of the trade war with the United States.
On Sunday, both Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre were interviewed on
Tout le monde en parle
, a very popular televised Quebec talk show on Radio-Canada.
While both guests brought talking points that were so similar they earned a remark from host Guy A. Lepage — “do you find Mr. Poilievre has good ideas?,” he asked Carney half-ironically — they were quizzed on very different topics.
Carney fielded questions on his promise to make Canada an energy superpower, with Lepage wondering why Carney is remaining quiet on climate change in a marked departure from his predecessor Justin Trudeau.
Carney said Canada needed to become an energy superpower to ween itself off foreign energy including U.S. oil, which he erroneously said made up 70 per cent of the barrels used in Quebec. The State of Energy in Quebec 2025 report by researchers at HEC Montréal found that roughly 40 per cent of the province’s oil comes from the U.S.
The Liberal leader said the threats against Canada from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration are an opportunity to reduce Canada’s dependence on foreign energy and develop its own resources “if there is social acceptability.”
But when Lepage noted that building a cross-country pipeline takes time and the trade war with the U.S. is happening now, Carney appeared less committal about building such a project immediately.
“It takes time,” he agreed. “We are in a crisis, we must act. We must choose a few projects, a few big projects. Not necessarily pipelines, but maybe pipelines, we’ll see,” he added in French.
Carney has previously said that he wants to build pipelines across the country to “displace” foreign oil but would require buy-in from provinces and territories.
On Sunday, he also argued that Canada also had to invest further in carbon capture technology to reduce carbon emissions of its energy sector to be competitive internationally, particularly for the European Union.
During the Liberal leadership race earlier this year, Carney’s campaign admitted that he
had muddled messages on pipelines
. During a campaign stop in B.C., he said his government would use “emergency powers” to accelerate the building of major projects, including energy infrastructure.
“We as a nation need to build some new pipelines for conventional energy,” he told CBC in February.
But days later, he said in French that he would never impose such a project on an unwilling jurisdiction, suggesting that provinces might have a veto on projects such as an east-west pipeline. A spokesperson later clarified that he meant provinces would be consulted before projects were approved.
In March, Carney announced that the federal government and premiers had agreed to develop a national energy and trade corridor.
Part of that discussion included finding ways to move energy and critical minerals across the country more efficiently.
Asked by reporters whether his government would spend federal tax dollars to build an oil and gas pipeline, Carney said the matter is not “black and white” but didn’t rule out federal participation in the future.
“It’s about getting, yes, pipelines built across this country so we can displace imports of foreign oil,” Carney said
.
National Post, with files from The Canadian Press.
cnardi@postmedia.com
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