Alberta Premier Rachel Notley was in Ottawa on Thursay to speak to a Senate committee studying proposed legislation that would change the way major energy projects are approved.

Bill C-69 proposes changes to the way environmental assessments on large natural resources projects are handled, which includes pipelines and mining.

Notley has said that she is concerned the changes would impact the province’s right to manage its resources as it would put energy projects through more lengthy reviews.

The Premier spoke to the energy, environment and natural resources committee on Thursday morning and said that Bill C-69 is extremely important but that the way it is currently written does not work for Albertans.

“With respect, people here in our nation’s capital just don’t seem to get it,” she said. “Bill C-69 as written does not work for Alberta, and therefore in my view it does not work for Canada.”

Notley says she doesn’t think the system the bill is replacing is any better and that changes need to be made to the process for approving infrastructure projects.

“We can’t swap one broken system for another broken system, we can’t build trust with more investor uncertainty, we can’t replace a no pipeline system under the previous Conservative Government with a no pipeline system under a Liberal one,” she said. “The only solution to the problem I’m describing is modern, well-regulated pipelines to move our product around the country. For the last four years we’ve been making that case across the country.”

She spoke about Alberta’s economy and how important our energy industry is to all Canadians.

“As I like to remind audiences around this country, there is not a school, hospital, road, bike lane or port anywhere in Canada that does not owe something to a strong energy industry. And so when Alberta’s energy industry is hurting, everyone in Canada is affected in some way.”

Notley talked about Alberta’s efforts to build new petrochemical and upgrading facilities here to get more value for our resources and about the latest investments in renewable energy.

“Alberta is now one of North America’s hottest renewable energy markets,” she said.

She added that Alberta can’t continue with projects like this if Ottawa makes it almost impossible to build the energy infrastructure that is needed.

Notley pointed out that the energy industry accounts for seven per cent of Canada’s GDP but that Alberta’s economy is facing another crisis because we ‘ran out of pipeline capacity.’

“And that meant that the value of our energy dropped to roughly 20 percent of the price we could have secured on world markets. WTI was over 50 dollars per barrel, while Albertans were getting under 10. At that point it was costing our national economy 80 million dollars a day. And so our government was forced to curtail oil production by almost 10 percent,” she said.

She said that she is pleased that the Trans Mountain project continues to move forward but that many people are frustrated by the delays.

“Let’s remember that the first application for Trans Mountain began in 2013, and six years later in 2019 we still don’t have an approval and we don’t have construction underway. This is not a way to build our economy, we must do better as Canadians. If we were more strategic we could be leading the world, not chasing it. We could be getting so much more out of our products. But instead we’re forced to curtail production and lease rail cars to move our products,” said Notley.

She says seven out of ten Canadians support the Trans Mountain pipeline project and that significant changes need to be made to Bill C-69 to ensure objectives are met.

Notley says she has laid out a package of amendments to the bill in a formal submission for the Senate to consider including setting harder limits on the time it can take to do a review and making sure reviews take into consideration the number of jobs a project will produce.

She also wants most new Alberta energy projects exempted from the bill because of existing provincial review processes and her government's climate change policies.

Notley wrapped up her speech by saying that changing the way infrastructure projects are approved is long over-due and that Bill C-69 must be fixed for the sake of the country’s economy.