Carney calls pipelines “boring,” touts data centres instead

Carney dismissed pipelines as “boring” in a Toronto speech, seemingly mocking concerns about new oil infrastructure while championing data centres and tech as the future of Canada’s economy.

Source: X

Prime Minister Mark Carney dismissed pipelines as “boring” in a Toronto speech, seemingly mocking concerns about new oil infrastructure while championing data centres and tech as the future of Canada’s economy.

Speaking at the Canadian Club Toronto on Thursday, Carney made the comments while discussing the 2025 federal budget.

When asked whether a pipeline was coming, Carney replied, “It’s so boring.”

“Don’t worry, we’re on the pipeline stuff. Danielle’s on line one. Don’t worry, it’s going to happen — well, something’s going to happen,” he said.

Carney claimed that intelligence infrastructure would have a bigger impact on Canada’s productivity.

“It’s an easy conversation to have about a pipeline, because it’s one thing we can see, but the reality is that there’s much, much more to the Canadian economy, and there’s much, much more to the future of the Canadian economy. And so we’re attacking it on all sides,” he said.

Carney appeared to joke about Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s calls for a new West Coast pipeline.

The remarks come as Carney’s government faces ongoing pressure from Alberta to expand market access for oil and gas. Smith has urged Ottawa to include a West Coast bitumen pipeline on its next list of major projects, which she said should be unveiled around the Grey Cup, and warned that if the federal government and British Columbia do not cooperate, she will turn south to willing partners in the United States.

“There is no universe where Alberta will tolerate being landlocked in our own country by our neighbouring province, especially when the same industry he continues to demonize has generated so much wealth for his province and the country,” Smith previously said. “The Supreme Court has determined that the reason we have a country and have given trade and commerce power and control over ports and inter-provincial infrastructure to the federal government, is for exactly this reason, so that a parochial premier isn’t able to block nation-building projects.”

Carney’s comments also follow a declaration signed on Wednesday in Vancouver by B.C. Premier David Eby and coastal First Nations leaders, calling on Ottawa to uphold the federal Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which prohibits crude oil tankers on the province’s northern coast.

Eby said repealing the ban “makes absolutely no sense either economically or for the country,” while Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz countered that “one province or one premier cannot block the assets of five million Albertans in our most important industry.”

While Alberta argues that new pipelines are vital to Canada’s prosperity and energy security, Carney told the Toronto audience that data centres and “intelligence infrastructure” would “have a much bigger impact on productivity in this country.”