Clark explicitly threatened to halt pipeline progress unless Alberta entered negotiations over compensation.

 

source: The Canadian Press / Chris Young (left)

Former B.C. premier Christy Clark is suddenly warning that Danielle Smith could go down as “the worst premier Canada has ever had” if Alberta independence gains ground.

That’s rich.

Because long before today’s separatist movement surged, Clark was one of the politicians actively fuelling Western alienation by treating Alberta’s energy industry like a cash machine to be shaken down, while threatening to block nation-building infrastructure unless B.C. got paid off first.

In 2012, Clark publicly unveiled her infamous “five conditions” for Alberta oil pipelines crossing British Columbia. One of those conditions demanded that B.C. receive a “fair share” of the economic benefits from Alberta resource development because B.C. was “bearing the risk.”

She didn’t stop there.

Clark explicitly threatened to halt pipeline progress unless Alberta entered negotiations over compensation. According to reporting at the time, Clark said: “If Alberta is not willing to even sit down and talk, then it stops here.” 

Her government turned Northern Gateway into a years-long political war, demanding concessions while Alberta watched yet another export route get bogged down in interprovincial obstruction and political theatre.

And what happened next?

Northern Gateway died. Energy investment fled. Western frustration deepened.
And millions of Albertans concluded Confederation only works when Alberta pays and everyone else vetoes.

Even Clark’s own rhetoric at the time framed Alberta energy as something requiring special political permission from B.C., despite pipelines being federally regulated infrastructure tied directly to Canada’s national economy.

Now, more than a decade later, the same political class that spent years blocking pipelines, delaying projects, and lecturing Alberta about “social licence” suddenly seems shocked that separatist sentiment exists at all.