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Alberta is also calling for a hard timeline of 300 days for pipeline reviews, rather than the 600-day review timeline included in the new legislation.

Better late than never.

It’s now almost the end of October and Bill C-69 was introduced in February, which is when United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney started urging Premier Rachel Notley to create a united front and fight this bill in Ottawa. He was repeatedly mocked in the legislature for months by the NDP government for suggesting the government fight this damaging proposed legislation.

At least now, they are finally onside. Kenney and many industry leaders believe Bill C-69 is so severely flawed that it should be scrapped, rather than reworked.

Kenney told the crowd that should he be elected premier of Alberta in the anticipated May election, he would go to great lengths to kill the federal Liberal government’s bill.

“I’m prepared to do whatever we can to advance our demands just for fairness in the federation,” Kenney said Thursday morning.

“One strategy that has been proposed that I think has merit would be to say to the federal government that if you insist on proceeding with the No More Pipelines Act — Bill C-69 — if you refuse to guarantee us the construction of a coastal pipeline to significantly reduce the price differential, then we will put equalization on the table. Not waiting five years for a negotiation but immediately, by triggering the 1998 Quebec secession reference of the Supreme Court of Canada, which says that if a province holds a referendum on a constitutional amendment with a clear question and a clear majority voting in favour, it imposes on the federal Crown a binding obligation to negotiate that amendment in good faith with the province,” Kenney said to rousing applause.