MONTREAL — Liberal chief Mark Carney says pipelines are “not essentially” the big initiatives his authorities would prioritize to take care of the “disaster” of the commerce conflict with america.
On Sunday, each Carney and Conservative chief Pierre Poilievre had been interviewed on
Tout le monde en parle
, a extremely popular televised Quebec discuss present on Radio-Canada.
Whereas each company introduced speaking factors that had been so related they earned a comment from host Man A. Lepage — “do you discover Mr. Poilievre has good concepts?,” he requested Carney half-ironically — they had been quizzed on very completely different matters.
Carney fielded questions on his promise to make Canada an power superpower, with Lepage questioning why Carney is remaining quiet on local weather change in a marked departure from his predecessor Justin Trudeau.
Carney mentioned Canada wanted to develop into an power superpower to ween itself off international power together with U.S. oil, which he erroneously mentioned made up 70 per cent of the barrels utilized in Quebec. The State of Power in Quebec 2025 report by researchers at HEC Montréal discovered that roughly 40 per cent of the province’s oil comes from the U.S.
The Liberal chief mentioned the threats in opposition to Canada from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration are a chance to cut back Canada’s dependence on international power and develop its personal sources “if there may be social acceptability.”
However when Lepage famous that constructing a cross-country pipeline takes time and the commerce conflict with the U.S. is occurring now, Carney appeared much less committal about constructing such a challenge instantly.
“It takes time,” he agreed. “We’re in a disaster, we should act. We should select just a few initiatives, just a few large initiatives. Not essentially pipelines, however possibly pipelines, we’ll see,” he added in French.
Carney has beforehand mentioned that he needs to construct pipelines throughout the nation to “displace” international oil however would require buy-in from provinces and territories.
On Sunday, he additionally argued that Canada additionally needed to make investments additional in carbon seize know-how to cut back carbon emissions of its power sector to be aggressive internationally, notably for the European Union.
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Throughout the Liberal management race earlier this 12 months, Carney’s marketing campaign admitted that he
had muddled messages on pipelines
. Throughout a marketing campaign cease in B.C., he mentioned his authorities would use “emergency powers” to speed up the constructing of main initiatives, together with power infrastructure.
“We as a nation have to construct some new pipelines for standard power,” he informed CBC in February.
However days later, he mentioned in French that he would by no means impose such a challenge on an unwilling jurisdiction, suggesting that provinces might need a veto on initiatives reminiscent of an east-west pipeline. A spokesperson later clarified that he meant provinces can be consulted earlier than initiatives had been accredited.
In March, Carney introduced that the federal authorities and premiers had agreed to develop a nationwide power and commerce hall.
A part of that dialogue included discovering methods to maneuver power and significant minerals throughout the nation extra effectively.
Requested by reporters whether or not his authorities would spend federal tax {dollars} to construct an oil and gasoline pipeline, Carney mentioned the matter will not be “black and white” however didn’t rule out federal participation sooner or later.
“It’s about getting, sure, pipelines constructed throughout this nation so we will displace imports of international oil,” Carney mentioned
.
Nationwide Publish, with recordsdata from The Canadian Press.
cnardi@postmedia.com
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