Here’s the problem with Canada’s ‘industrial carbon price’

OTTAWA — The success or failure of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s gambit with Alberta on pipelines and the environment could come down to a single complex and contentious policy: the industrial carbon price.

Last week’s memorandum of understanding signalled a major change in federal climate policy. National measures that apply in Alberta — the heaviest greenhouse gas emitter of all provinces, by far — got scrapped, suspended or watered down in exchange for commitments of co-operation from the staunchly pro-oil administration in Edmonton. The changes were enough to please Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, hitherto a withering critic of Ottawa’s climate and energy policies. They also prompted Steven Guilbeault, a former Liberal environment minister, to quit Carney’s cabinet in protest.

But