OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Danielle Smith on Friday announced an agreement-in-principle to streamline major project approvals in Alberta, branded as the "One Project, One Review" framework. Under the new arrangement, federal and provincial environmental assessment processes will be consolidated into a single review — which, on a careful reading of the agreement, may not actually need to take place.
The agreement, which both leaders described as "historic," promises faster approvals, fewer duplicated processes, and "real respect" for Indigenous rights. Pressed on which review — the federal one or the provincial one — would be the single review, the Prime Minister said both, simultaneously. The Premier said neither, depending. Neither response was followed up on.
"This is what Albertans have been asking for," said the Premier, who declined to take questions and stood next to a sign that read Building Together, Faster. The Prime Minister, speaking after the Premier had left the podium, said that the federal government remained committed to "the highest standards of environmental and Indigenous consultation," and that those standards would be applied, in some form, by someone, at a future point.
The framework arrives less than a week after the Assembly of Treaty Chiefs passed a unanimous non-confidence vote in the Alberta government, citing consultation failures on resource projects. Asked whether the assembly had been informed of the new framework before it was signed, both governments said they had been working "closely with Indigenous leadership," then declined to identify which leaders, on what dates, regarding what projects.
Environmental groups described the agreement as "a deregulation document with a regulatory branding strategy." A spokesperson for one organization, reached for comment, said the agreement reads "like a press release that grew a paragraph and then was signed by two people." The Premier's office said the criticism was "predictable" and that critics had not read the agreement, which the office declined to provide.
A senior federal official, speaking on background, characterized the deal as "the Prime Minister giving the Premier what she wanted, on terms she could not have negotiated on her own, in exchange for her continued attendance at meetings." The Premier's office described that characterization as "petty," and "exactly what we got."