GUNTER: Carney must commit to tie federal transfers to Quebec to pipeline access

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Quebec’s provincial government released its 2025-26 budget on Tuesday

“Wow, Lorne, please tell us more!”

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OK, it might seem a bit of a stretch to start a column for Albertans with news about Quebec’s provincial budget, but the Quebec budget has implications for Alberta.

Quebec’s spending plan for the year contains a record-high deficit of $13.6 billion, along with a long, slow path to balance.

Quebec is on a countdown to an election of its own, so of course their budget is full of spending whizzbangs and gewgaws designed to woo undecided voters. For instance, there’s a billion a year for “innovation” grants and a renewed commitment to cheap university and college tuition for Quebec residents and inexpensive daycare.

Now you might think that a province going nearly $14 billion into the hole this year wouldn’t have money for innovation grants or scads of other non-essential spending, but you’d be wrong. And that’s where Alberta comes in.

The Quebec budget only has the money it needs for lavish new spending this year and only gets balanced by 2030 (at the earliest), if Quebec gets more transfers from Ottawa. And with the feds in the middle of their own election and with the Carney Liberals desperate to hold onto seats in Quebec, of course their provincial government is going to get the enriched transfers it’s demanding.

And, of course, the feds will get that extra money disproportionately from Alberta.

Once again, Confederation’s golden goose is going to get squeezed, this time so both the federal and Quebec governments can win their respective elections. After which, both will very likely continue to pursue policies that stunt Alberta’s energy sector, which ironically is the source of the money Quebec is demanding, in the first place.

So here’s a suggestion for Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney.

You’ve said that, if elected, you would push for a transportation corridor right across this country from the West Coast to the East Coast. And that corridor would be for highways, railways and pipelines.

Since the Quebec government and your own Quebec Lieutenant, Steven Guilbeault, have been two of the biggest impediments to building a pipeline across Quebec to refineries and ports on the East Coast, how about you say right now that any increased transfers to Quebec will only come after Quebec agrees to a transportation corridor that includes a pipeline.

Not before. After.

Prove, Mr. Carney, your genuine commitment to expanding Alberta’s oil and gas industry by tying the easy flow of cash to Quebec to that province’s willingness to co-operate with the development of the country’s abundant natural resources, including oil, the oilsands and natural gas.

Such a manoeuvre would kill two birds with one stone. Not only would it end Quebec’s two-faced behaviour — demanding Alberta’s money while rejecting our oil. It would also prove your own sincerity, sir.

You have spent much of the past eight years since you left the Bank of England pressuring banks, insurance companies, large corporations and governments to defund the oil and gas industry. You’ve been as “green” or greener than Trudeau and Guilbeault. Your own willingness to tie grants to Quebec to that province’s willingness to go along with Canada becoming an energy superpower would prove you truly have turned over a new leaf.

Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made nine demands of Carney. Among them, repeal the no-more-pipelines act, lift the tanker ban off the B.C. coast, eliminate the emissions cap on the oil industry, scrap the net-zero power grid mandate, scrape the electric vehicles mandate, halt the censorship of energy companies and executives, and guarantee Alberta ”full access to unfettered oil and gas corridors to the north, east, and west.”

The Quebec budget offers Carney a way to prove he’s listening.