Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has claimed for years federal government policies under 10 years of Liberal government have hamstrung Alberta’s oil and gas industry, limiting investment and market access, and threatening jobs and economic growth.

Those claims have been echoed by federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, yet Alberta production since 2015, when the Liberals gained power, has increased by 42%, making Canada the fourth largest oil producer in the world. Alberta has also seen the second highest economic growth of Canadian provinces since the COVID recession. Moreover, when no private investor wanted to take on expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline, in spite of the oil industry’s insistence that it was essential for them, the Liberal government bought it and built the expansion.

Both Smith and Poilievre complain bitterly about Canada’s emissions cap, part of our international commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Oil and gas emissions represented 30% of Canada’s emissions in 2023 and growing.

Poilievre took aim at emissions regulations again last week, fresh off his byelection win. Meanwhile a spring 2025 poll by Abacus Data found 72% or Albertans want to maintain or increase federal climate action. (The reason that is surprising is our first-past-the-post........

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