On the eve of the federal New Democrats’ national convention in Edmonton, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley delivered a kitchen-table sermon vowing to get a pipeline built linking the province to a coastal port and the overseas markets beyond.

The 15-minute televised address on Thursday pits the provincial party against federal party members calling for the official adoption of the Leap Manifesto championed by celebrity activist Naomi Klein, among others.

Thomas Mulcair, whose leadership is also on the table this weekend, has so far avoided a stance on the manifesto first launched during the federal election last fall.

But pressed again and again in a recent interview, he said he will embrace the document — and its call to keep fossil fuels in the ground and oppose oil pipelines — if party members decide this weekend it should do so.

“If the party decides that’s the way, as the leader of the party, I’ll do everything I can to make that a reality…,“ Mulcair said in the interview with CBC's The National.

Premier Notley, who has appealed for calm in the heated debate over pipelines and the opposition to Energy East in Quebec, in particular, went on the offensive in her address Thursday night.

The decline in oil prices is having a severe effect on Alberta families and the provincial budget, she said, but also the greater Canadian economy.

“Every Canadian benefits from a strong energy sector but we can’t continue to support Canada’s economy unless Canada supports us,” she said. “That means one thing: building a modern and carefully regulated pipeline to tidewater.

“We must get this done or everybody loses.”

Notley said she won’t let up on pushing for a new pipeline.

“We must get to yes on a pipeline,” she said.

The numbers are stark. Two years ago Alberta collected $10 billion from oil royalties; next year that will be down 90 per cent.

Yes, the province is “dangerously dependent on the price of oil,” she says.

“That’s a dependence we need to reduce. In the meantime, the oil price shock goes right to our province’s bottom line.”

Long the economic engine of Canada, Alberta will have announced a deficit next week in excess of $10 billion, Notley said in the televised address also aimed at dampening expectations ahead of what will be a grim provincial budget.

While some see the appeal as a reversal, Notley has voiced support for both the Energy East pipeline that would connect Alberta to the East Coast and for Kinder Morgan’s expansion of its existing pipeline into Metro Vancouver.

The Northern Gateway through northern B.C. is a non-starter due to the widespread opposition of First Nations and local communities and the U.S. administration rejected the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf Coast last year.

Notley’s appeal was met with a deafening silence from other governments and the federal NDP leader on Friday.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said this week that expansion of the pipeline network is a national priority.

The association did not respond to requests for an interview but has said spending in the oil and gas sector is expected to decline $50 billion for the two-year period since 2014.

The number of wells drilled in Western Canada has dropped from 10,400 in 2014 to 3,500 this year.

“Connecting our resources — by all means and in all directions — to more markets is critically important to improve the prosperity of all Canadians, even with the current declines in prices and investment,” association president Tim McMillan said in a statement.

For its part, the environmental group Oil Change International refutes that claim. Different markets outside the United States will not net Alberta any higher prices for oil, it said.

“There is no longer a sound economic argument for increased market access to tidewater,” the group said.

The Alberta budget will be tabled April 14.

