Prime Minister Mark Carney swept aside criticism of the federal emissions cap and environmental assessment regime Friday, saying critics arguing the policies are preventing energy projects from being brought forward are “wrong.”
Speaking at an event at the Canadian Club in Toronto, Carney also pushed back on criticism of the $78-billion deficit in his government’s budget tabled Tuesday.
He argued that slashing the deficit — the main target of Conservative critics of the budget since Tuesday — would require eliminating a host of benefits and provincial transfers.
“We can hunker down, slash the deficit, turn inwards, and in the words of The Tragically Hip, wait for the ‘trickle down’,” Carney told the business crowd.
“That would mean getting rid of our key social programs, eliminating all of the health, education and social transfers to provinces and territories, while not investing in what we need now,” he continued.
Carney flaunted his government’s first budget throughout his speech to the business crowd, arguing it would spur private investment while cutting down on government operations spending as the country’s economy pivots away from the United States.
Carney also took a swipe at the U.S. during a subsequent Q&A session. When asked by business journalist Amber Kanwar what “extra” thing Canada has to attract corporate investment over the United States, Carney quipped: “the rule of law.”
Kanwar also asked Carney bluntly why the government wasn’t taking more risk in its latest budget.
For example, she said, the energy sector argues that Justin Trudeau-era policies like the emissions cap and the Impact Assessment Act are preventing them from proposing projects to Carney’s newly created Major Projects Office.
“They’re wrong,” Carney cut in bluntly. “They’re wrong because, literally, we are getting projects coming in. We’re in discussions with the province of Alberta directly on things.”
Carney’s government
set the stage for an eventual scrapping
of the controversial oil and gas cap in its budget.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is a particularly vocal critic of the emissions cap as well as the Act (colloquially known as C-69). She has argued that they have “devastated Alberta’s economy” and are part of nine so-called “bad laws” she wants Carney to repeal.
She’s also pushing to have a yet-to-be-submitted proposal to build a million-barrel-a-day bitumen pipeline from Edmonton to British Columbia’s northern coast included as one of the projects to be fast-tracked by Carney’s Major Projects Office.
But when asked specifically about the office approving a new pipeline project, Carney jokingly dismissed the question as “boring.”
He then turned to the Toronto room to ask anyone working on a pipeline to raise their hands. Apparently seeing no hands rise, Kanwar asked if that was a problem.
“No, no, no,” Carney said increasingly emphatically.
“Don’t worry, we’re on the pipeline stuff. Danielle’s (Smith) on line one. Don’t worry, it’s going to happen,” he added. Then he nuanced: “Well, something’s going to happen. Let’s put it that way.”
He also argued that new data centres and intelligence infrastructure will have a “much bigger impact” on productivity and Canadians’ standard of living than new pipelines.
Carney’s government has shown increasing signs of annoyance towards recent questions from journalists, provinces and the energy sector about if and when his government would recommend new pipeline proposals to the Major Projects Office.
Last week, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson suggested the question of whether the country can, in fact, build a new oil pipeline to be an “overfocusing” on a “hypothetical.”
Carney’s speech capped an eventful week for the Liberals, who tabled the budget Tuesday, welcomed a floor-crossing member to their ranks from the Conservatives and survived two confidence votes related to the budget.
With Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont joining government ranks, the Liberals are just two seats shy of a majority government.
Asked at the end of Friday’s event about how many MPs his party needed to form a majority, Carney mumbled “a couple.”
He then turned to the room and said with a wink: “So call your local MP if they’re not a Liberal.” He then thanked the crowd and walked off stage.
National Post, with files from Stephanie Taylor
Cnardi@postmedia.com
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.
