Opinion: Carney's dead end for Alberta oil

Discount, if not outright dismiss, the conciliatory comments from Premier Danielle Smith and some hydrocarbon-sector leadership after the announcement of the first list of projects for review by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Major Projects Office. The brutal reality remains that the Carney government resists any expansion of Alberta’s oilsands sector.

It’s not simply that expanded oil-pipeline infrastructure to the West Coast or the U.S. was absent from the initial list. More significant is the government’s continued insistence that incremental oilsands production must be decarbonized before it can be considered acceptable to economically underpin such infrastructure.

Decarbonizing Alberta’s oilsands requires capturing the carbon dioxide emitted during production, then compressing and pip