Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says pushing for more oil pipelines through her province isn’t a betrayal of the voters who put her NDP government in office, but a way to get natural resources to market more effectively.
Speaking with The West Block‘s Vassy Kapelos this weekend, Notley defended her support of the Trans Mountain pipeline project, recently approved by the provincial government in British Columbia.
The Alberta government’s throne speech, delivered last week, included a promise to go to court to defend the pipeline project, if necessary, and a promise to help speed the approval of the Energy East pipeline linking Alberta oil with the East Coast.
“The fact of the matter is, with our climate leadership plan, we have put a cap in place on emissions,” Notley said.
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“The level of production that we currently have does not allow us to strategically select our markets in a way that ensures that Albertans and Canadians get the best return for this resource … Doesn’t mean that we’re going to increase production … it’s just about getting the best return for the owners of the resource.”
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The Trans Mountain project, which will triple the capacity of the line that runs from the Edmonton area to Metro Vancouver, is “fundamentally important” to Albertans in terms of job creation, Notley said.
“I think that there’s a lot of benefit to us getting access to tidewater; Canadian tidewater on both the west and the east coast,” the premier said.
Long term, she added, “it would be good for Canadians to buy Canadian oil.”
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