Premiers get cosy in Kelowna
Alberta and B.C. ‘best friends’ with common goals to pursue
It was as if the last year had never happened.
When Premiers Alison Redford and Christy Clark held an exuberant joint news conference in Kelowna on Friday, they didn’t just hit the reset button on their relationship, they hit the erase button.
Gone was any hint of the acrimony that defined their relationship the past several months over the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. Frosty relationship? What frosty relationship?
It was like that infamous episode in the old TV series Dallas, when the supposedly dead Bobby Ewing emerges from the shower and we’re asked to believe the entire previous season had been a dream. Except, of course, Dallas was more believable.
“We have so much in common and so many interests that we need to pursue together,” Clark declared, after presenting Redford with a bottle of B.C. wine. “British Columbia and Alberta have been friends for a long time. We are the best friends in this country.”
Perhaps so, but it hasn’t appeared that way of late, certainly not since last July when Clark paid a surprise visit to the Alberta legislature to demand B.C. receive a “fair share” of the revenues from the pipeline. For the next 10 months, as Clark geared up for B.C.’s May provincial election and to prove to voters she wasn’t Alberta’s lapdog, she repeatedly demanded a piece of the oilsands action as a condition for approving the pipeline. Redford responded emphatically that would never happen.
At one point, Clark acknowledged the neighbouring premiers shared a “frosty” relationship, a description that no doubt warmed the hearts of pipeline opponents. But that was before Clark’s Liberals won the election. Now she’s feeling secure enough to embrace Redford on the public stage, literally and figuratively.
“There’s so much more that unites us than divides us,” said Clark, pointing to the need for collaboration on such issues as immigration, labour and skills training.
Fine, but what about Northern Gateway?
“The way you get there is to start talking and to make sure you’re having a friendly, respectful conversation, which is what we had today,” said Clark. “This dialogue is underway and we’ll see where it leads us. You don’t bridge the divide, you don’t find a way to resolve differences that you have, unless you talk.”
The only person happier than Clark on Friday was Redford herself.
“As we move forward there’s lots of opportunity for discussion and I think that if we focus on what really does unite us, which is wanting to make sure we’re growing our economies, that’s our best opportunity to work through some of these issues,” said Redford.
The Alberta premier has been asking for the hatchet-burying meeting ever since the B.C. vote. Instead of Clark coming to Edmonton, though, Redford flew to Kelowna where Clark has just kicked off a byelection to regain herself a legislative seat.
The get-together might seem a bit redundant given that Redford and Clark were already scheduled to meet this weekend at the annual western premiers’ conference in Winnipeg. The difference is that at the Winnipeg summit they’ll also be dealing with their colleagues from Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Clark and Redford wanted some private time to reboot their relationship.
Redford was so keen to talk to Clark without any distractions that she flew to Kelowna before flying to Fort McMurray to see the flooding that has devastated that community. Her reward was to hear the B.C. premier soft-sell her province’s “official” opposition to the pipeline proposal as outlined in B.C.’s brief last month to the federal Joint Review Panel studying the project.
“We are not opposed to economic development and we are not opposed to resource development. For heaven’s sake I was elected on a mandate for both in this recent election,” said Clark, who made it clear that even though B.C. rejected Enbridge’s plan, the province is still open to the proposal if it deals better with environmental protection.
“We just didn’t see the fact base that would support us being able to support the Enbridge proposal as it stands today.”
In other words, the door that’s been slammed shut more times than a British bedroom farce, is actually still open.
This is not to say Clark will support the pipeline. There’s still the thorny issue of how B.C. will get its “fair share” of revenue from the project.
B.C. politicians have mused about collecting a toll fee on every barrel of bitumen pumped through the pipeline but that would invite other provinces to charge a toll on B.C. natural gas being pumped through Alberta, for example, on its way to the U.S.
Still, for those who want the pipeline to go ahead, the good news is Clark and Redford are friends again and talking.
For those who don’t want the pipeline to go ahead, the bad news is Clark and Redford are friends again and talking.