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A southern route for the new proposal means the federal tanker ban on northern B.C. will remain, something B.C. Premier David Eby has pressed Ottawa to keep in place.

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“We determined that this route offers the fastest, most cost-effective path to expanding Canada’s energy exports,” Smith told reporters at an evening news conference.

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As part of the announcement, the province is partnering with Ottawa’s Trans Mountain Corp. and Pembina Pipeline on the pipeline proposal. The new development would be planned and built by Trans Mountain Corp., Carney said.

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According to a Pembina news release, the project would be jointly owned by both governments and Pembina (with a 10 per cent stake, initially), with a working interest available for Indigenous ownership.

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Environmental critics said majority government ownership demonstrates the lack of a solid business case for the pipeline.

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“If there was any kind of reasonable return on investment to be made, a private company or companies would have put up the cash,” Chris Severson-Baker, executive director of the Pembina Institute, said in a statement.

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“Instead, Albertan and Canadian taxpayers will now shoulder the cost of 90 per cent of this project.”

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Meanwhile, a deal is expected to be finalized soon between the two governments and the Oil Sands Alliance, a group of the country’s largest oilsands operators.

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The companies would build a multibillion-dollar carbon capture network connecting multiple facilities to an underground CO₂ storage hub near Cold Lake.

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The five producers in the group — Suncor Energy, Imperial Oil, Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy and ConocoPhillips Canada — have recently criticized the province’s industrial carbon tax, noting Canada is the only major oil-exporting country with such a levy.

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However, Alberta and Ottawa are now finalizing a trilateral agreement with the group’s members “that will include a series of regulatory reforms and growth incentives needed to expedite growth in oilsands production,” as well as build Pathways, according to a provincial government release.

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A West Coast pipeline would help reduce the country’s reliance on exporting oil to the U.S., and lead to a lower price discount on Canadian crude by ensuring sufficient pipeline capacity for years to come.

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“This is a significant day,” Oil Sands Alliance president Kendall Dilling said in an interview.

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“No party got everything they wanted, but there’s lots of value for everybody, and we found a middle ground . . . and it’s going to enable us to move forward.”

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As for Project Greenlight, Pembina Pipeline and its partners — Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management — have given the go-ahead to building a new 932-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power generation facility in Sturgeon County, north of Edmonton.

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The project has the regulatory approval to double its capacity to more than 1,800 megawatts. A data centre customer has not been announced, but analysts and reports have identified tech giant Meta as the party.

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The development is expected to support about 1,000 construction jobs, and 30 long-term positions.

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Pembina Pipeline CEO Scott Burrows said Greenlight will increase domestic demand for natural gas, which will be used to generate electricity for AI-focused data centres as the sector grows in Alberta.

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Scott Burrows, president and CEO of Pembina Pipeline. Supplied/Britta Kokemor photo

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“The first one always is the hardest to get done, and we hope to see incremental demand,” Burrows said in an interview Thursday morning.