The Carney-Smith energy & pipeline MOU - is Carney crazy like a fox?

From Victoria Times-Colonist newspaper

Lots of opinions tonight, pro and con, about the Carney-Smith energy and pipeline MOU and the subsequent resignation from Cabinet of Carney's Quebec lieutenant and official languages minister Steven Guilbeault.

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Carney and Smith are uniters! They have been able to get environmental activists and climate denying Alberta separatists to unite in their opposition to the MOU.

— Duane Bratt (@duanebratt.bsky.social) November 27, 2025 at 1:28 PM

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At least now Smith and Poilievre can shut the f up about "obstructionism". There is no private money going into any new pipeline on the planet besides Africa. It's almost like Carney knows something about private investments and the market.

— Smith (@infotransfer.bsky.social) November 27, 2025 at 12:44 PM

Carney to reporters: there won’t be a pipeline without a private investor. Carney to the chamber of commerce: here are all the ways we’re bending over backwards to attract a private investor:

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— Rachel Gilmore (@rachelgilmore.bsky.social) November 27, 2025 at 2:56 PM

Mark Carney is going to make Danielle Smith look like a fool. He gave her all the rope she needs. Go ahead Dani, get that pipeline built with no investments, BC telling you to fuck off and the Indigenous folks not allowing it. When the pipeline doesn't happen, you can't blame the Libs this time.

— CaptainCoby (@captaincoby.bsky.social) November 27, 2025 at 10:26 PM

One problem for Carney - he may not quite appreciate how progressive and small-l liberal Canadians are totally disgusted by Smith for all her pandering to Trump and Maple MAGA and her anti-trans, anti-harm reduction, anti-science, and anti-education policies. We don't trust her either:

Oh, and I'm not the only one who recognizes this misuse of people. bsky.app/profile/plan... #cdnpoli Carney is a damn snake, and Guilbeault's resignation signals that too. We should be fighting Smith if anyone, not having to waste time blaming Ottawa for appeasing a Petrofascist with Trump's ear.

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— Saskboy from Saskatchewan (@saskboy.bsky.social) November 27, 2025 at 10:20 PM

This makes a point I hadn't considered before:

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The CBC At Issue panel discusses how the Carney Liberals are now working with the Alberta's Smith UCP on pipelines, carbon capture, and reduced environmental regulations:
 

TLDL (Too Long; Didn't Listen): Hebert reports a feeling of "betrayal" from environmental activists while Coyne gives credit for a proper carbon pricing regime and a political gain to get the Alberta conservatives on side, while Raj says Ottawa conceded too much to Alberta. While Raj and Hebert question whether Carney's support in BC will be maintained, Coyne notes the possibility of more Liberal support in the Prairies. 

Some commentary from politics-watchers:

Max Fawcett / Canada's National Observer

The method to Mark Carney’s madness
...industrial carbon pricing was expected to deliver the bulk of Canada’s emissions reductions through 2030 and beyond. But it was being undermined by Alberta’s deliberate and repeated attempts to dilute the effective carbon price in its province, and the broader credit market over which the province exerts a significant influence as a result of the sheer size of its industrial emissions. Under the terms of the MOU, Alberta will ramp its industrial carbon pricing system up to a minimum effective credit price of $130 per tonne....
The MOU also commits both parties to the construction of “large transmission interties with British Columbia and Saskatchewan to strengthen the ability of the western power markets to supply low carbon power to oil, LNG, critical minerals, agricultural, data centres and CCUS industries.” What it didn’t say, but what Carney surely knows, is that an expanded intertie with British Columbia will also significantly improve the economics of wind and solar projects in Alberta. As a 2023 Pembina Institute report noted, “expanding the interties would also significantly reduce the need for new abated natural gas generation to meet peak-winter demand during low-wind hours.”
In exchange for these spoils, he traded two major Trudeau-era climate policies that might have already been rendered moot. An increase in the effective industrial carbon price to $130 per tonne would make both the emissions cap and Clean Electricity Standard largely redundant, while the industrial carbon price combined with new east-west interties will encourage more low-cost renewable energy in a province that has deliberately resisted it...
This MOU strikes me as one giant wink to the climate community — one that commits Ottawa to supporting an oil pipeline Carney knows will never get built.
That’s because Smith and whoever steps up as its proponent will still need to negotiate with impacted First Nations, who have so far been steadfast in their opposition to the idea. They would have to negotiate with BC Premier David Eby, who will be looking ahead to the next election and the prospect of rallying his base around fighting back against another Alberta oil pipeline. And, most importantly, they will have to convince the oil and gas industry to invest in the sort of high-cost growth projects that would be needed to fill the pipeline.
That isn’t going to happen. The oil and gas industry may have deliberately cultivated a reputation for itself as a place defined by risk-taking and swagger, but today’s oil and gas sector is run by glorified spreadsheet jockeys who consistently shy away from even the smallest quantum of uncertainty. And while they might support the political ambitions of Premier Smith and the UCP, but they have a legal fiduciary duty to their shareholders — one that requires them to seriously assess the prospect of things like peak oil demand and its impact on any new projects they might want to build.
The MOU, then, is textbook Carney. By telling a political adversary what they wanted to hear, he’s gotten them to agree to something he needs. He’s effectively daring Danielle Smith to do the work required to get her coveted pipeline built, knowing full well she can’t actually do it. But Smith’s concessions help advance his government’s climate agenda far more than anything the previous federal government managed to achieve in, and with, Alberta. For a guy who wasn’t supposed to be a good politician, he’s turning out to be pretty good at it — better, even, than the one he replaced...

Andrew Coyne / The Globe and Mail

The Alberta-Ottawa energy deal marks a major shift in Canadian politics
Boom.
Until this week, among the more reliable constants in Canadian politics were that the federal Liberals would oppose building any new pipelines to the B.C. coast (the Trans Mountain exception proving the rule); that Alberta’s United Conservatives would oppose any extension of carbon pricing (beyond what the province already had in place); and that the two governing parties, so different in outlook and support bases, would remain perpetual sparring partners.
All that has just changed. The memorandum of understanding Mark Carney and Danielle Smith have just signed goes far beyond the fate of a single pipeline. It is an intricate, many-sided puzzle, requiring buy-in not only from the governments of Canada and Alberta, but British Columbia, Indigenous groups, and regulatory authorities; involving issues ranging from trade diversification to climate change to national security; covering industries from oil and gas to electricity transmission to nuclear power to artificial intelligence; and requiring changes in a number of federal and provincial regulatory policies...
...In broad strokes, the two governments have each agreed to drop their worst, most costly climate policies. The feds will not proceed with the pending oil-and-gas emissions cap, and will exempt Alberta from the clean electricity regulations. In exchange, Alberta will agree to a much more stringent industrial carbon pricing regime, with “a financial mechanism” to ensure this remains in place for the long term...

Alberta Politics by David Climenhaga

Danielle Smith doesn’t need a pipeline to Prince Rupert – she just needs Mark Carney to promise she can have one
Alberta’s premier and Canada’s PM will make their pipeline ‘grand bargain’ official today – there’s no shortage of people who are going to hate it
Danielle Smith doesn’t need a pipeline to Prince Rupert, she just needs Mark Carney to promise she can have one, with sketchy details to follow.
Then, just like that, Alberta’s premier could call an early election and get her United Conservative Party re-elected based in her success pushing Canada’s new Liberal prime minister around with her sly threats of sovereignty association.
As an added bonus, that would give her a way to defuse the embarrassing grassroots recall campaign that’s been making some of her UCP MLAs so nervous.
Love that scenario or hate it, dear readers, you have to admit it’s a possibility....
[Note that Climenhaga said he wrote this on Wednesday, before the agreement details were announced]

Evan Scrimshaw / Scrimshaw Unscripted

Guilbeault’s Resignation A Win For Canada
On Doors And Asses
I have to laugh.
I’ve already made clear my view of the MOU - it’s a good deal in the national interest that the Liberals should enact - but the resignation of Steven Guilbeault is news that I couldn’t even hope for. Seriously, after that Packers win, my day couldn’t be better, especially given how useless and incompetent Guilbeault has always been.
The theory of Guilbeault has always trumped the reality of him. He’s a terrible communicator in English and was a disaster as Environment Minister, because the job of a Liberal Environment Minister is to be progressive but not antagonistic to Alberta and Saskatchewan. That was something he could never do, and he should have been fired for it....
... But I think the idea that “the Liberal left” is flexing their power is nonsensical. I’m sure the Liberal left is not thrilled with this deal, but Guilbeault is not the one who would be proving that point. If Dabrusin decides she can’t back this deal, write that story, but there’s no reason to think that will happen. It’s also not clear to me that a deal that locks Alberta into Net Zero by 2050 and gets an industrial carbon price through is bad for the environment.
At the end of the day, Guilbeault’s resignation is a good thing for the country and for the party....
...There’s no question that the Trudeau Liberals fucked up the climate file under Steven Guilbeault. The decision to pin it all on a carbon price and have no solution on how to sell it during a bad economy has left the anti-emission side of Canadian politics fucked. That’s his legacy, not his bad attempt at saving face.
Good fucking riddance.

I thought this was an important statement ending Carney's speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce today (which starts at the 10 minute mark of this post)  

TLDL: "The other option is to take risks, to invest boldly in our future."