By Cam Scott
It can be dizzying to track the policy reversals and capitulations of Mark Carney in the present “trade war” with the US. Most Canadian counter-tariffs have now been lifted, and a US-led normalization is well underway.
Predictably, it seems that much of this Trump-instigated contest has come to a truce, and the year’s jockeying will only have been to the benefit of capital on both sides of the border. The risk, unfortunately, is that trade resumes not as a return to prior terms, but under far more dangerous conditions for the working class.
As Trump intensified his rhetoric against Canada, Carney and his class allies made a show of patriotic pluckiness, only to rush through some of the most comprehensive deregulating and threatening legislation in decades. The patently Trumpist Bill C-2 (otherwise the Strong Borders Act) would give the government nearly unlimited discretion to cancel and suspend immigration documents if passed, while Bill C-5 (the Building Canada Act) empowers the executive branch of the government to rush through intensive infrastructural and development projects in the “national interest” without environmental assessment or Indigenous consent.
This too closely resembles Trump mandates in the United States, including sweeping executive orders to “unleash America’s energy.” (In Canada too, Doug Ford’s Bill 5 in Ontario borrows the language of “unleashing,” portraying any labour law or environmental regulation as an unacceptable restraint.)
The Trump package is more strident on the face of it, ordering the review and dismantling of any agencies or activities that “potentially burden the development of domestic energy resources.” But recent events in Canada indicate a closely related program of corporate authorship.
Many Indigenous nations, environmental groups and critics from the left have decried Bill C-5 as a neocolonial strategy and a dangerous legal omen. But the true meaning and intent of this legislation comes into clearer focus by the day, as Carney taps class allies in key industries to oversee the major projects that the bill would expedite.
Government by lobby
As per Bill C-5, Carney means to rush development by way of a single Major Projects office in Calgary, a hub for oil and gas lobbyists and the home of global monopolies such as Suncor Energy. Calgary is not only a strategic location for extractive and carbon-intensive industry, but the political centre of a distinct ruling class fraction whose fortunes are closely linked to those of US capitals.
The economic current of Alberta separatism runs south, as the province’s corporatist political culture sees to the close unity of its government with investors. A 2025 analysis by CBC found that the province of Alberta spends millions of dollars a year on US lobbyists, including key Trump allies such as Checkmate Government Relations and Capitol Counsel. Premier Danielle Smith comes from the lobbying world herself, as former president of the Alberta Enterprise Group – a business coalition purposed at US investment and the deregulation of interprovincial trade.
These lobbies comprise the uncredited and unelected leadership of Smith’s right-wing coalition, whatever chaotic forces it gathers from a myriad of petty resentments closer to home. In spite of an historical basis for prairie populism in the concerns of independent producers, the dominant strand of hard-right politics in Alberta today only serves the transnational monopolies that such meddling firms represent.
For this reason, Alberta stands apart from other provinces in its response to the US-Canada trade war. Ontario and Alberta remain the largest trading partners to the US among provinces, but with crucial differences. While US threats to automotive workers continue to oblige Doug Ford’s falsely defiant stance, the resource-based economy of Alberta and its global market share in energy prompts Smith’s far more conciliatory response.
And despite this marked difference, Carney’s recent moves by way of Bill C-5 appear to be a massive gift to Smith’s typical business partners.
Major Projects
On August 29, the Carney government announced that this new Major Projects Office, facilitating expedited development in the wake of Bill C-5, will also be led by Trans Mountain’s former CEO and present chair Dawn Farrell. On news of the appointment, Smith boasted of her close advisory relationship with Farrell, gloating that she and the Prime Minister had found “something in common.”
That something is apparently a resolve to privilege carbon intensive projects in the energy sector under cover of “national sovereignty.”
Farrell oversaw last year’s completion of the Trans Mountain Expansion, which the Canadian government had acquired from Kinder Morgan through the Trans Mountain Corporation in 2018. This controversial pipeline pushed through the territories of more than one hundred distinct First Nations with no regard for consent, and it threatens the planet with more than 84 million tons of carbon emissions each year. Still today, the expansion is the only pipeline in Western Canada that doesn’t intersect the US, and both Smith and Carney continue to vocally advocate for a second route.
Farrell’s appointment and the location of her office clearly privilege the energy sector, as Carney’s new accord with Smith and her cronies alludes to the certainty of repair with US monopolies. In fact, the creation of this office and its placement in Calgary resembles Smith’s past proposals for a government-operated “concierge” to streamline the approval of large-scale development projects. No wonder the news finds her gloating.
Smith and the United Conservative Party clearly feel vindicated by Farrell’s advance – and in the glow of Carney’s green light to investors, she’s taking her agenda on the road. This same week, Smith leaves on a tour of Colorado to speak on the necessity of “North American energy security” with industry representatives, and to advocate for free trade and continued supply of Alberta’s oil fields to US refineries. Whatever direction her proposed pipelines extend, this is hardly a plan for Canadian, much less Albertan, independence.
Much of Smith’s salesmanship concerns an enormous and greenwashing carbon capture operation, backed by industry giants through the Pathways Alliance. Farrell’s new office is expected to fast-track this sprawling project too – though it’s worth noting that carbon storage does nothing to reduce emissions from the use of oil and gas products, only their production.
Conveniently, Canada’s own emission reports do not factor in the environmental impact of exports, which is reattributed to the buyer at market, and this offloading runs cover for resource-intensive half-solutions such as carbon capture. The advantage to industry is clear, where massive investment in this area would forestall divestment from fossil fuels by decades or more.
This is but one part of a larger puzzle, and it’s equally obvious that Bill C-5 means to remove the risks associated with new continental pipelines by transferring the financial onus of infrastructure to the government – that is, to working people. Dawn Farrell’s record in this regard is clear, having brought the TMX to completion in the face of public outcry, and her appointment boasts of further such developments.
With these realignments underway, any popular movement against capitalism and its right-wing must reject distracting rumours of a continental split in corporate power, and simply follow the money. Where there’s profit to be had, flanks of the ruling class are sure to make amends.
[Photo of 2017 Vancouver rally against pipelines: Washington Conservation Action]
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