Is another 'grand bargain' necessary to build another pipeline?

At question period on Monday, two Conservative MPs beseeched the government to approve a pipeline that very afternoon.

"The prime minister is meeting with premiers in Saskatchewan today," said John Barlow, MP for the Alberta riding of Foothills. "Will he approve a pipeline at that meeting?"

Such a request raises other questions. Questions like, what pipeline? To where? To be built by whom? And under what conditions?

Whatever the stated desire for a new pipeline to transport oil out of Alberta, there is no actual proposal for a pipeline on the table to approve. But it also bears noting that the meeting in Saskatoon on Monday was not about pipelines, per se. The first ministers were meeting to discuss "nation-building" infrastructure projects. And there are many kinds of projects that might qualify as nation-building — infrastructure like ports and railways and public transit and electricity transmission lines.

But while no pipeline was approved on Monday, at least the notion of a pipeline was referenced approvingly in the official communique that the prime minister and premiers released at the conclusion of their discussions.

In writing, the first ministers agreed that, "Canada must work urgently to get Canadian natural resources and commodities to domestic and international markets, such as critical minerals and decarbonized Canadian oil and gas by pipelines, supported by the private sector, that provide access to diversified global markets, including Asia and Europe."

That only leaves all of the other aforementioned questions to answer.

When asked by a reporter on Monday to explain the federal government's disposition toward a pipeline, Carney suggested there was general agreement between the western and territorial premiers for a "corridor" that would run from the Pacific northwest to Grays Bay in Nunavut. "Within that," he said, were "opportunities" for a pipeline that would carry "decarbonized" oil to new markets.

"If further developed, the federal government will look to advance that," he said.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith went further to suggest there was a "grand bargain" to be made. Expanded pipeline capacity, she said, would be a boost to the Pathways Alliance, a consortium of major oil companies that have spent the past few years loudly insisting that they are very eager to move forward with a large carbon capture project (just as soon as they can get enough public funding to do so).

But if the notion of a "grand bargain" on oil and climate policy sounds familiar, it might be because that's what Justin Trudeau once proposed — and seemed even to have struck, at least for a little while.

Trudeau came to office insisting that pipelines could only be built by winning "social licence." And in Trudeau's version of a grand bargain, serious climate policy — including a price on carbon — would be paired with a new pipeline to the West Coast. The Liberal government then went so far as to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline and expansion project (TMX) to ensure a new pipeline was built.

On some levels Trudeau succeeded. While burning some of his own political capital, public support for TMX increased, the project was completed and national climate policy was meaningfully strengthened during his time as prime minister. 

But Trudeau still left office with Smith and other Conservatives portraying him as an anti-oil zealot, a climate radical and a threat to national unity. Meanwhile, support for Trudeau's consumer carbon tax eroded so much that Carney was more or less compelled to abandon it.