To Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s hard stance on the Trans Mountain pipeline is all about politics.

On Monday, Trudeau refused to change his mind on the controversial acquisition of the $4.5-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project from parent company Kinder Morgan — even after the project was struck down by the Federal Court of Appeal because the government failed to adequately consult Indigenous peoples on the project and consider environmental impacts.

Instead, Trudeau said the court decision gives clear direction on what is needed for the government to get the project rolling, despite resounding opposition from Indigenous groups and environmentalists across the country.

The only explanation for his optimism, May said, is that he’s trying to win political favour in a province that is about to enter the throes of a provincial election.

“They’re obviously trying to help (Alberta Premier) Rachel Notley hang onto Alberta,” May told iPolitics after a press conference in which she set out her party’s concerns going into Parliament’s newest sitting. “It’s political; it’s not economic, it’s not based on policy.”

Alberta’s leadership is up for grabs in a looming provincial election that has to take place by next May. Already, it looks as if Albertans will stick to their tradition of electing Conservative governments.

In an April survey of 1,200 Albertans conducted for the CBC, 53 per cent said they would vote for the United Conservative Party under Jason Kenney — putting the party on course for a decisive victory come 2019. Notley’s NDP government trails Kenney’s, with a 29 per cent approval rate.

Kenney could prove a problem for the prime minister if the former sweeps to power next year. The election front-runner has repeatedly called the prime minister names such as “an empty trust-fund millionaire” who’s unable to understand political nuances in key legislative decisions like the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

“This is about standing up for Alberta against a federal government that has inflicted massive economic damage on our province,” he told the Canadian Press in May.

Recently, the United Conservative Party leader went as far as suggesting Alberta’s loyalty to the country as a whole could be on the fence after the Federal Court steamrolled the province’s pipeline plans.

To May, it’s not so much that Trudeau likes Notley, but more that the prime minister “wants to block Kenney at all costs.”

Alberta’s current NDP government has often sided with the prime minister in the battle between the country’s two western provinces over whether the 1,150-km pipeline should be expanded. That is, until recently — when Notley threatened to pull the province out of a federal climate change strategy until the prime minister appeals the court’s decision.

By launching his support for Notley, May said Trudeau is “abandoning all his environmental promises,” such as ending fossil-fuel subsidies.

“They had time to study the decision … and still decided not to get out of wasting $4.5 billion in public funds on a five-year-old pipeline,” she said.

If the Trans Mountain expansion project goes through, it would triple the amount of oil shipped to Burnaby, B.C., to be sold on international markets at a better price.

What the government should be doing instead is investing in Canadian-owned oil refineries in Alberta that, May continued, would create an immediate infusion of jobs and align climate change goals with increased production in the oilsands.