Private Sector Investors Snub Alberta Pipeline Deal
Alberta's dream of exporting oil to lucrative non-U.S. markets abroad took a major step forward in November 2025 when Prime Minister Carney sat down with Premier Smith to craft a grand bargain, which includes a potential pipeline to carry oil to Canada's west coast for sale to markets in Asia.
The deal would also cement the federal government's goal of 'carbon-neutrality' into the policy firmament of Alberta and its oil industry. Some people, including Tim Hodgson, Carney's minister of Energy and Natural Resources, extol the new deal.
Others are less enamoured, finding the overall costs borne by Alberta onerously steep. But few have focused on what seems to be an obvious implication of the Alberta/Ottawa pipeline deal: private-sector investors largely took a pass, even with the federal government's vague promises of granting permission.