B.C. Premier Christy Clark really has no choice at this point but to salvage some pride and stand up for B.C. by opposing Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project. This after essentially getting slapped in the face — politely but publicly — by Alberta Premier Alison Redford — who rejected British Columbia’s demand for “a fair share” of royalties from Alberta’s oil pipelines.

It should make for an interesting backdrop to Canada’s premiers getting together in the Council of the Federation meeting in Nova Scotia this week, where energy will be front and centre on the agenda.

This caps a somewhat bizarre number of days that saw the B.C. Premier sneak in and out of meetings with Redford and also Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, presumably where she laid out the five conditions she placed on her government’s support for Gateway that she had her Ministers release.

Four of the conditions dealt with safety and First Nations accommodation vaguely enough to allow for fudging an agreement, but the real kicker was the demand for some form of revenue sharing to balance the fact that B.C. would bear the majority of the risk, while Alberta would get the majority of the reward. Read more …