On March 6, 2026, the federal and Alberta governments announced an agreement in principle that, it was claimed, would help to accelerate the review of major projects. The press release issued by the federal government stated that this new agreement delivered on the commitments made in the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding signed in November 2025 and would “bring a ‘one-project, one review’ approach to major infrastructure initiations in Alberta” and “create a more streamlined assessment process that delivers major projects faster, reinforces strong environmental protections, and ensures the rights of indigenous communities are respected”.

https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/backgrounders/2025/11/27/canada-alberta-memorandum-understanding

In a subsequent interview with the CBC’s show Power and Politics, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stated that the deal represented the culmination of “a lot of years of battle”, clearly giving the impression that it would mark a significant change in the prospects for building new energy projects, including pipelines that would allow increased access to foreign markets. A reading of the actual agreement and an understanding of the challenges posed by current project assessment requirements make it clear how modest this change is.

It is important to understand what the agreement in principle actually does and does not do.

What it does:

• It expresses a common undertaking of both governments to work together more cooperatively with respect to the regulatory reviews of proposed energy projects, with the goals of eliminating duplication and streamlining assessment.
• When a proposed projects is primarily within provincial jurisdiction, it confirms Canada’s intention to recognize Alberta as best placed to undertake an assessment and to rely on Alberta’s environmental assessment or regulatory processes to assess adverse effects of the project including those effects within federal jurisdiction, as defined in the federal Impact Assessment Act (IAA).
• When a proposed project is or includes a federal work or undertaking or is on federal land, it confirms Canada’s commitment to integrating Alberta’s environmental assessment and regulatory process requirements into the federal assessment.
• In the event that both federal and provincial assessments apply to a proposed project, It expresses the parties’ commitment to avoid duplicative processes; in those cases, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) and the applicable Alberta regulator will develop a cooperative arrangement that will lead to a single assessment process to meet the legislative requirements of both jurisdictions.
• It expresses the parties’ intention that any impact assessment required under the agreement will be completed within a maximum of two years from the receipt of the initial project description.
• Where a joint assessment process is undertaken, it confirms that the parties will jointly review potential conditions to include in the decision documents.
• It expresses the intention of both parties to “seek to coordinate” open, transparent, effective and timely communications with the public to support participation in assessments.

What the agreement does not do.

• It does not grant Alberta any role in the impact assessment of projects where those impacts occur outside of Alberta.
• It does not change any of the criteria that must be applied by the federal government in assessing the impacts of projects under the Impact Assessment Act or the Canada Energy Regulator Act.
• It does not change any of the factors that might affect project approvals, conditions or rejections after the completion of the project assessment phase.

In short, while the agreement is a desirable one in terms of reducing duplication of regulatory functions and it may help to reduce the time that projects spend in the assessment phase. It has at best only a marginal benefit in terms of increasing the prospect that projects will be approved. It does not at all address the central barriers to the construction of oil and natural gas pipelines to the Pacific coast. To understand the limitations of this agreement, one must view the context within which project assessment occurs.