EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says while other western premiers meeting in Yellowknife will be talking about how to spend money, she’ll be working in Alberta figuring out how to earn it.
Notley says she is not attending the meeting on Wednesday because her time is better spent making sure the Trans Mountain pipeline project goes ahead.
She says Alberta needs to be able to pay for important programs to be discussed at the meeting such as pharmacare.
She says it’s not business as usual because B.C. Premier John Horgan is trying to shut down the pipeline and take $15 billion out of the Canadian economy.
She says it might be worth going to the meeting to chastise Horgan if a decision on Trans Mountain were still a long way off, but the deadline is too close now for her to do that.
Owner Kinder Morgan has set May 31 as the date by which it needs to have enough certainty to proceed with the pipeline’s expansion.
Alberta sees the pipeline as key to moving bitumen from the province to the coast and from there to lucrative overseas markets.
