LILLEY: Alberta is winning again with pipelines, AI investment and new growth
· Toronto Sun
“It was a good week,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told me Thursday with a big smile on her face.
A good week is an understatement.
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Over the previous week, Smith stood with Prime Minister Mark Carney and announced a new southern pipeline route to Canada’s Pacific coast . A few days later, she stood at the podium with Ontario Premier Doug Ford and announced a feasibility study for a 3,300-km pipeline from Hardisty, Alta., to Sarnia, Ont., one that would be entirely Canadian-built and remain wholly within Canada.
Finally, her government landed one of the largest private-sector investments in Canadian history with Meta’s announcement of a $13-billion data centre and electricity-generation project for Sturgeon County, just north of Edmonton.
“We’re trying to demonstrate that we are turning a page on those 10 bad years, and we hope that this is a new relationship we can build with Canada so that we can start building again,” Smith said.
Foolish to underestimate Smith
Smith, and these announcements, aren’t without detractors.
The pipeline to the West Coast will, at this point, be funded by governments and, while there are private-sector partners involved, it isn’t a private company pushing the project. The Ontario pipeline proposal is being dismissed by some as unworkable and, again, it remains a government-driven initiative at this stage.
And, of course, there is a cottage industry on the fringes of both the political left and the political right dedicated to attacking and opposing data centres.
But it would be foolish to underestimate Smith and her ability to get things done.
After 10 years of the Trudeau government and with a new prime minister in Carney — who had been one of the world’s leading evangelists for net-zero policies — few believed Smith could move him to where he is today. Not only is he helping advance a pipeline project, but the memorandum of understanding the two signed last November suspended the Clean Electricity Regulations, allowing the Meta project to proceed.
“The kind of announcements we made today would not have been possible without them,” Smith said. “That’s a sea change from where we were 18 months ago.”
Alberta’s biggest win may be the Meta investment
Brett Wilson, the investor, former Dragon’s Den star and the man behind Prairie Merchant Corp., said the Meta announcement was a major win for Smith and Alberta.
“What they’re doing up in Sturgeon County is unbelievable. A $13-plus-billion investment. The cash that’s going to come out of that for Alberta is extraordinary.”
He noted that, unlike the West Coast pipeline announcement, there wasn’t a single person from Ottawa — not even Evan Solomon, Carney’s AI minister — at the Meta announcement.
This was a deal Alberta largely managed on its own, and the investment is significant. So, too, is the $250 million a year in revenue that Smith expects the project to generate for governments.
Global demand is reviving Canada’s pipeline dreams
To pipeline detractors, especially those criticizing the pipeline to the coast, Smith says there will be no shortage of customers looking to put product in the pipe — and no shortage of buyers waiting at the other end.
“With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, the number of international Asian country leaders that I’m talking to, ambassadors, who say, ‘You know, if it can be closed once, it can be closed again. And we need to have a secure supply of energy,’” Smith said.
She added that representatives from foreign countries are asking only two questions: How much oil can Alberta supply, and how quickly can they get it?
Wilson believes the pipeline proposals have already changed investor thinking.
“The announcement now of the Southern Pipeline Route makes a huge difference to allowing real conversations in the background,” he told me.
For years, pipeline discussions were dominated by regulatory uncertainty. Now governments are openly backing construction and trying to create certainty for investors.
When Alberta grows, Canada benefits
These are countries that Smith says have had little trade with Canada in the past, and opening those markets through energy exports will create opportunities for other Canadian products, from agriculture to manufactured goods.
“Energy will lead, but so many other commodities and products will follow,” she said.
That may be the most important point of all.
The benefits of Alberta’s resurgence don’t stop at Alberta’s borders. New pipelines mean more trade, more investment and more tax revenue. New data centres mean more demand for Canadian energy and more opportunities for Canadian workers and businesses.
Alberta is winning again, and when Alberta wins, so does Canada.