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Premier Rachel Notley has always put a lot of faith in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Maybe too much.

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After Trudeau’s federal Liberals were elected in 2015, Notley envisioned a new path for Alberta’s domestic diplomacy, based on co-operation with the new prime minister.

That led to a tentative national climate deal, conditional on construction of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion.

But now there’s a whiff of pipeline betrayal in the air. And the premier, who has so far aimed her pipeline strategy at B.C., is starting to swing her sights to Ottawa.

That’s where the attention belongs. It’s time the heat was turned up on the strangely docile prime minister. There’s a growing view that his pipeline support is fading.

In the legislature Wednesday, Notley said that if the pipeline isn’t built, there’s no way Alberta will sign on to Ottawa’s plan to raise the carbon price to $50 by 2022.

“Our government was very clear well over a year ago that we will sign on to the federal government’s pan-Canadian framework with the approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline,” she said in response to a question from UCP Leader Jason Kenney.