Ottawa

The fight over oil is now a fight about Confederation

Alberta Premier Alison Redford is unimpressed.

Redford said such an arrangement would be a first in Canada. She said many pipelines that cross Alberta carry resources from B.C., and mused about whether B.C. would be willing to give Alberta a cut of the royalties it earns from those resources. She said Clark is essentially suggesting “that somehow the fundamental fiscal arrangements of Confederation need to change.” “When you start doing that, it means every commercial project in Canada will now become or would become a matter for interprovincial negotiation,” Redford said.

Alberta’s Intergovernmental Affairs Minister chimes in.

“I don’t think that’s a contemplated option,” said Cal Dallas heading into a late afternoon cabinet meeting. “Clearly we need to move all kinds of product around the country through a variety of different infrastructure types and that hasn’t been the way we’ve done business in the past and I don’t believe there’ll be early contemplation of an option of such as you’re describing.”

“We don’t have any history of sharing in uranium in Saskatchewan or the vast mining resources that exist in Ontario and Quebec and certainly with respect to forestry products and the like that move from west to east from British Columbia so the answer is we have a system in place, it’s worked well.”

Looking for more?

Get the Best of Maclean's sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for news, commentary and analysis.
  • By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.