Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would “support” the construction of pipelines, provided there is a consensus among provinces and a plan for carbon capture and storage to “get carbon down.”
In his first interview since becoming prime minister, Carney told CTV’s Vassy Kapelos that “the point of building a pipeline, the point of building out carbon capture, is to get the results. To get those barrels to the market, to get carbon down. You can do both.”
When asked directly if he’d support the building of one or multiple pipelines, Carney said “yes.”
“Secondly, because I understand the need for that consensus. I’m a prime minister who can help create that consensus. When I talk about being an energy superpower, I always say in both clean and conventional energies,” said Carney.
“So what does that mean? Yes, that does mean oil and gas. It means using our oil and gas here in Canada to displace imports wherever possible, particularly from the United States. It makes no sense to be sending that money south of the border or across the ocean.”
Additionally, he said his definition of making Canada an “energy superpower” also means “more exports without question.”
Carney went on to say that Canada must use all other “components” necessary to become a superpower as well such as nuclear, hydro and “potentially in carbon capture and storage, which is going to be one of the determinants of competitiveness and productivity in a number of sectors.”
Kapelos then pressed him on whether Canadians could expect the leadership of “Mark Carney of Value(s) or the prime minister of the campaign,” referring to the book Carney authored.
Value(s) outlined Carney’s net-zero goals for climate change, wherein he penned that “backtracking on ambitious climate agendas is more difficult if politicians share the same goals and expect to be held accountable”
“Your book Values extensively talks about a reorientation of the market around the climate imperative,” said Kapelos.
Carney pushed back by saying that “at the core” of how he discussed the energy transition in his book was that “the future is low-risk, Canada being low-risk as a business investment place, low-cost.”
“We’re getting costs down, including in the oil sand. That marginal production is low cost and get carbon down,” he said.
Kapelos then asked about how people in Alberta and Saskatchewan could trust that the Carney government wouldn’t just be a continuation of former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s old policies.
Under the Trudeau government, policies such as the emissions cap on the oil and gas sector and Bill C-69. The latter bolstered the environmental and social review process for energy projects to get approval, which was enacted much to the detriment of Western Canadians.
“We will change things at the federal level that need to be changed in order for projects to move forward,” answered Carney, who went on to say that such changes could “absolutely” include “both” the emissions cap and Bill C-69.
“I’m not going to do it conceptually. I’m going to do it on specifics. Do it for moving forward,” he said.
Carney will meet with premiers in Saskatchewan on June 2 for the first ministers meeting.