Carney defends energy infrastructure plan, Smith comment ahead of Calgary stop

RICHMOND – Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s campaign heads to Alberta Tuesday, where he faces fierce criticism of the Liberal record on resource development and backlash over comments he made earlier this week about Premier Danielle Smith.

The Liberals are hoping their meteoric recent rise in the polls, and Carney’s Edmonton upbringing, will allow them to build on the two Alberta seats they held when Parliament was dissolved last month.

But as Carney prepared Tuesday for a campaign rally in Calgary, he was pressed to explain his stance on pipelines and the province’s premier.

At a rally in Victoria on Sunday, Carney said that while Ontario Premier Doug Ford had been pushing Canada’s case against U.S. tariffs on the conservative Fox News network, it would be “a bad idea” to have Smith appear.

Smith has been accused of being too cozy with U.S. Republicans. She told a U.S. right-wing media outlet in March that the White House should pause its tariffs on Canada until after the election because they were helping the Liberals in the polls. She also said that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is “very much in sync” with the Trump administration.

Smith shot back at Carney on Monday, saying that his joke suggested a dismissive attitude toward her.

On Tuesday, Carney dismissed it as a “lighthearted comment” when asked whether such comments contribute to Western alienation.

“I have a lot of respect for the premier,” he said.

Carney is also being asked to explain his stance on pipelines and why he is refusing to repeal Bill C-69. The Liberal government under former prime minister Justin Trudeau passed the Impact Assessment Act in 2019 to overhaul how big national infrastructure projects are reviewed for environmental impacts and to ensure proper consultation with Indigenous Peoples.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called the legislation an “anti-pipeline law” and has vowed to repeal it.

On Monday, Carney said that while it would be better for Quebec to use Alberta oil instead of importing 70 per cent of its supply from the United States, a pipeline would require support from Quebec and affected First Nations.

On Tuesday, he was asked whether it’s OK to give Quebec a veto over a pipeline. He said he rejected the question.

“I am a proponent of building big energy infrastructure in this country, but if we are going build big energy in this country, there is a ‘we’ in that,” Carney said.

After hosting a meeting with premiers as prime minister just before the election, Carney said he’d agreed to a one-project, one-assessment plan to streamline federal and provincial approval processes for large-scale projects in the national interest. That would include new pipelines.

He cited that plan again on Tuesday.

“What I’ve proposed, both at the first ministers’ level and more broadly, is that we as a country use this crisis to identify those projects of national interest, many of which — not all of which, but many of which — are energy infrastructure projects, so that we can get those agreements, so that we can come together and we can accelerate,” he said.

Carney said C-69 actually allows Ottawa to rely on impact assessments done by the provinces or territories.

“That is part and parcel of how we can make this work,” he said.

Carney is pitching massive new energy and trade corridors within Canada to help overcome this country’s reliance on the U.S. for exports.

On Monday evening, Carney told supporters gathered in an overflow room outside a rally in Richmond, B.C. that Canada is fighting U.S. tariffs using tools that work.

“Americans understand three things: money, lawyers and Fox News,” he said.

“Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.”

The Liberals’ surge in the polls is coming to some extent at the expense of the NDP, which has fallen into a distant third place and stands to lose many of its seats, including those in British Columbia.

This week, former NDP MP and B.C. provincial cabinet minister Murray Rankin endorsed Liberal candidates, including Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Taleeb Noormohamed, the Liberal incumbent in Vancouver Granville.

Noormohamed told reporters at the Monday rally that he was honoured by the endorsement.

“This is an election that matters to Canadians and people of consequence who care about people — all Canadians who care about this country are coming together,” Noormohamed said. “He’s not somebody that gives an endorsement lightly.”

Carney told the rally crowd he hopes to unify the country with workable solutions to the problems Canada faces.

“I’m not a career politician. I am a pragmatist,” he declared, prompting a roar of applause from the thousands gathered in a hotel ballroom.

Lynn Pernisie said she attended the rally with her husband Darrell because they were encouraged by Carney’s pledge to accelerate home building. She said the Liberals’ investments over the past decade are only now starting to have an impact.

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“Prices are dropping off and so many condos are being built, so I think there’s going to be a change,” she said.

The couple said they’ve built a life in Vancouver since moving from Saskatchewan more than three decades ago, but they have many friends who are struggling to do the same due to “astronomical” housing prices.

She said she supported Trudeau’s government but she feels that “Carney has a lot of really good experience that Justin didn’t have.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 8, 2025.

— With files from Kyle Duggan in Ottawa.