“Let’s get that pipeline through eh?” one Stampede-goer said to Carney. “Thank you for doing this. We need someone like you to push this through.”
“You know where we stand out here right? We’ve got to have that pipeline. It’s good for the country,” said another man.
Carney said he’s optimistic the pipeline will get done and that polling across the country shows it has majority support.
“I’m feeling pretty good about it now,” Carney said.
He was scheduled to return to the Stampede on Sunday morning.
Earlier Saturday, Carney reposted his sweeping 17-minute video argument for working across provincial boundaries and ditching his predecessor’s climate plan. He unveiled the video on social media June 30.
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The video opens with Carney saying Canada is facing a threefold energy crisis with high prices, global instability and a rapidly changing climate.
The solution, he says, demands collaboration across the country and reducing barriers for development, including oil and gas.
“Addressing energy security means we’re going to produce our conventional oil and gas in the most environmentally sustainable ways and export them to where they will make the biggest difference.”
His address also seems to make a special effort to speak to Albertans’ frustrations with the rest of the county, as the province heads toward an Oct. 19 referendum on separation.
“I was a teenager in Edmonton when the national energy program was introduced, and I remember how Ottawa made Albertans feel like our resources weren’t our own,” Carney says in the video, referring to former prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s policy from the 1980s.
“More recently, we were made to feel like our energy contributions were running against the tides of history,” he adds. “What should have brought us together began to divide us, contributing to a half-century of politics that have too often pulled us apart.”
Carney appeared at the Stampede with his Alberta Liberal members of parliament Matt Jeneroux and Corey Hogan as well as Terry Duguid of Winnipeg.
The prime minister wasn’t introduced as he later sat in the stands at GMC Stadium, with his wife, Diana Fox Carney, to watch chuckwagon races. Carney didn’t make a public address and blended in with others wearing cowboy hats.
Carney took off his hat and put it to his chest as he sang the national anthem and looked to the centre of the arena, where a rider stood on the back of a galloping horse while holding a Canadian flag.
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