May says voting for Carney’s budget a ‘mistake’ after Alberta pipeline deal

Green Party leader Elizabeth May says the energy deal signed with Alberta amounted to a 'significant betrayal and a reversal' which has her questioning the worth of Carney's word.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May says supporting the Carney government on the budget vote is a “mistake” she won’t make again.

May told The Canadian Press the memorandum of understanding Prime Minister Mark Carney signed with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on energy — specifically the part that applies federal tax credits to enhanced oil recovery — amounted to a “significant betrayal and a reversal” which has her questioning the worth of Carney’s word.

“I don’t know if the prime minister lied but I think he needs to consider what his word means when his word was given,” she said.

“He obviously thought getting a deal with Danielle Smith was more important than his word.”

As The Canadian Press reported Friday, then-cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault was dispatched to win May’s vote for the budget last month, having received assurances from Carney’s office that tax credits for enhanced oil recovery would not be in the budget or added to it afterwards.

Enhanced oil recovery is a carbon storage technology that captures carbon dioxide from industrial emitters and injects it underground at oilfields. That increases pressure and pushes more oil out of the rock, while the carbon dioxide is trapped underground.

Environmentalists, including Guilbeault, see a tax credit for enhanced oil recovery as a direct subsidy for oil production.

The section of the budget addressing tax credits for carbon capture utilization and storage, often abbreviated as CCUS, said enhanced oil recovery would not be eligible for a federal subsidy. May had heard rumours that the government was going to reverse that decision.