Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says Imperial Oil’s “very disappointing” plan to lay off roughly 20 per cent of its workforce by 2027 reinforces the need to build more pipelines.

Smith is blaming Ottawa for the layoffs at the Calgary-based company.

“The industry for the last 10 years has been hampered and hobbled by federal government decisions,” she told an unrelated news conference in Calgary on Tuesday.

“This is what happens when you have uncertainty, and this is part of the reason why we have to work very quickly to get to a resolution with Ottawa so that we can start building again … no one likes to see these kinds of consolidations.

“If we can realize the aspiration of building our pipelines north, south, east and west, doubling our production, then there’s a lot of opportunity fo

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