Actress and climate activist Jane Fonda took some big swings Wednesday at the new progressive governments in Edmonton and Ottawa after a whirlwind trip to Fort McMurray to fly over oilsands sites.

Fonda said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent pipeline approvals show people “shouldn’t be fooled by good-looking Liberals.”

At a news conference demanding an end to oilsands expansion, featuring indigenous leaders and Fonda, Trudeau was widely criticized for three pipeline approvals in December.

News even broke during the panel discussion at the University of Alberta's Lister Centre that British Columbia had granted environmental approval for Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain expansion from Alberta to the B.C. coast, one of the projects Trudeau had earlier OK'd.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip said he was extremely disappointed by “the lies of the Trudeau government” on the environment and First Nations issues.

Phillip said he had hoped to see a complete rebuild of the National Energy Board — a Liberal campaign promise — when Trudeau came to power, but received new pipelines instead. He promised that when it came to pipelines, "the future is going to be incredibly litigious in British Columbia."

Fonda also criticized the Alberta NDP government's plan to win social licence with its new climate laws, including a carbon tax and a coal phaseout by 2030, saying the idea was "ridiculous."

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Premier Rachel Notley shot back. She said Fonda had no right to lecture the people of Fort McMurray, especially during an economic downturn.

"First of all, that's super tone deaf. But secondly, I would suggest that dining out on your celebrity is something that one ought to pair with knowledge and research. She failed to do that," said Notley.

"It's very clear she didn't know what she was talking about."

Economic Development Minister Deron Bilous said the government offered Fonda and her team a briefing on the NDP's climate efforts, which they failed to attend.

"It was so sad to see the people in the Fort McMurray airport be hostile to us,” Fonda said.

A flight delay meant she was stuck at the airport for six hours after what was already a rocky visit to the northern city.

She said temperatures were approaching -40 C and an interview with CBC was interrupted by a woman berating her for bashing the city, still struggling to recover from last May's wildfires.

In Edmonton, Fonda said repeatedly she has the interests of workers in mind when she protests the oilsands, and said the long shifts and difficult labour are harming the people who work there.

Fonda said no more pipelines can be approved because the consequences for the environment will be dire. She called for a complete halt to oilsands expansion.

The government sees action on the environment as paving the way for that expansion.

In the Climate Leadership Report, in which much of the government's climate plans were born, the tone is urgent but less alarmist.

"Meeting a two-degree transition will require a significant change in energy use globally, but perhaps not as dramatic or as quickly as some might think," it reads.

To meet the global goals of the 2015 Paris agreement, the authors of the report expect natural gas usage to increase, coal usage to decline and oil to be somewhere between the two.

An accelerated decline in worldwide oil consumption will only occur between 2030 and 2040.

That allows for tens of trillions of investment dollars in future oil and gas projects, according to the International Energy Agency.

"We've shown, and are showing the world that the environment and the economy can go hand in hand," said Bilous.

sxthomson@postmedia.com