Notley paints a greener oilpatch for Bay Street

Acting on climate change now ‘price of admission’ to new energy markets

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is signalling to Bay Street that there’s a new sheriff in the oilpatch, one who is greener than her predecessors.

In a major speech to the Empire Club at the Hilton Hotel on Friday, Notley emphasized her NDP government is business-friendly.

“Under our leadership, Alberta’s abundant oil and gas reserves will remain open to investment. We will maintain one of the most competitive tax systems in Canada,” she said.

But Notley said her oil-rich province can, and will, do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

“Albertans feel strongly, as do many business leaders in the energy industry, that it is long, long past due for us in the government of Alberta to get it right on the environment,” the premier said.

“If we don’t get it right on this issue, a solution is going to be imposed upon us . . . by others — by a federal government, by our markets, who will increasingly insist that energy products that they buy be mined and processed responsibly,” she said.

“It is my hope that by acting decisively on the issue of climate change, we will reframe the current national debate over pipelines and energy infrastructure.”

That could ultimately be good for business, she said.

“The province needs to act because doing so, quite frankly, is going to increasingly be the price of admission to those new energy markets that we know we must develop.” Notley, whose New Democrats ended almost 44 years of Progressive Conservative rule in Alberta in May, was at Queen’s Park on Thursday to meet with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

The two premiers, along with other provincial leaders as well as representatives from Ottawa, will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference that begins in Paris on Nov. 30.

“A real reduction in emissions is our goal,” Wynne said Thursday.

“We are all taking action,” added the Ontario premier, whose province is implementing a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaking with reporters after Friday’s Empire Club address, Notley said she was in Toronto — and New York and Montreal — to assure investors that her province remains a “good, stable place” to do business.

But she said she wants to “reframe the debate about energy infrastructure.”

“Responsible energy development and environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive concepts.”