Building a new oil pipeline to the west coast of Canada is consistent with the teachings of Jesus, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told a gathering of Christian leaders and organizations from across the province last week.

“We reached a landmark energy agreement with Ottawa that will pave the way for a new pipeline to the west coast,” Smith said during a panel at the May 4 Alberta Christian Leadership Summit, which featured cabinet ministers from her provincial United Conservative Party (UCP) government as well as federal Conservative MPs.

Smith was referencing a Memorandum of Understanding her government signed with Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney last November supporting an oil pipeline through British Columbia along with a $20 billion carbon capture and storage project.

The premier argued that a new pipeline would help meet growing global energy demand. But she also had a message specifically tailored to her Christian audience. “There’s another way to look at it,” she said. “I’m sure you remember the Parable of the Talents in the Gospels of Matthew — in it, Jesus teaches about stewardship.”

Smith said that particular biblical passage refers to humankind being entrusted with resources that must be managed carefully for the benefit of other people. This “fits with how Albertans feel about the resources that are beneath our feet,” she said.

It’s rare for a Canadian politician to explicitly link oil and gas expansion to the Bible. But there has long been an undercurrent of Christian theology surrounding Alberta’s oil patch, explained Darren Dochuk, a history professor at the University of Notre Dame and author of Anointed With Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America.

“Considering the fact she governs a province known both for its oil and religiosity, it is little surprise that Premier Smith tapped the New Testament for biblical justification of pipelines and extraction,” he wrote in an email to DeSmog.

Smith’s office did not respond to DeSmog’s detailed questions about the event.

Conservative MPs and Christian Leaders 

The Alberta Christian Leadership Summit, referred to by some as a “Pay to Pray” event, billed itself as “a direct dialogue between Christian leadership and Alberta’s government.”

The conference included one full day of talks, panels, and networking sessions, followed by a VIP breakfast the next morning. The event has around 30 exhibitors that included a home schooling association, anti-abortion organizations, churches selling books, and right-wing groups such as Action4Canada. The event MC was former NHL player Noah Welch, who opened the day outlining three spheres of society: the home, the church, and the magistrate, and claimed that in an ideal world “Jesus is Lord over all things.”

Several Alberta MLAs and ministers spoke at the conference, including Minister of Education and Childcare and Education Demetrios Nicolaides, Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf, and Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services Adriana LaGrange. On a panel, these ministers were asked how their faith shows up in their government work. LaGrange said “God has called me for this time and place”, and Neudorf said Canada’s identity is under threat and asked “are we a nation founded under God or are we not?”

Other topics included banning abortion after 24 weeks in Alberta (and how to ban abortion federally) and opposing medical assistance in dying. Stockwell Day, previously a Conservative MP and former leader of the Canadian Alliance Party, spoke about resisting “cultural Marxism” that he alleged has infiltrated Canadian society.

In the lead-up to the conference, around 100 Albertan faith leaders signed an open letter claiming that the $360 entry fee excluded all but the most well-resourced and politically connected Christian leaders. Journalist Jeremy Appel was de-registered from the event just hours before it began without an explanation.

For her part, Smith focused on the biblical imperative of extracting fossil fuels, stating “we are not just extracting energy” but powering “industries and economies across Canada and around the world.” Just as Jesus intended, she explained, “we are entrusted with resources” to “be used wisely to grow and to be returned with increase.”

According to Dochuk, Smith’s particular reading of the Gospel of Matthew is part of a broader trend in North America.

“Oil-patch Christianity and politics on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, from Alberta to Texas, have long been informed and fortified by a reading of Scripture that stresses the God-given blessings of petroleum,” he explained.

Dochuk explained that while Smith’s reading of the Gospel of the Talents is one shared by many evangelical Christians, it is not the only interpretation. In fact, he explained, “the power of this story has been harnessed differently across time, including by eco-friendly religious citizens in our own day.”

Viewed from another perspective, he argued, the biblical passage that Smith referenced could also be seen as a call to “embrace action in answer to environmental crises and earth’s custodial needs.”

Smith Grilled on Climate

During the panel with her cabinet ministers, event organizers asked Smith a pre-selected audience question, saying, “you’re going to love this.” The question was: “When will your government reject the notion of climate change?”

Smith responded that “I’m trying not to be too hard-line one way or the other,” arguing that entrepreneurs and scientists will discover uses for carbon dioxide. She then touted carbon capture technology, stating that the federal government is trying to rush this kind of “innovation,” and the priority should be to increase fossil fuel production while dealing with emissions.

There is currently no private proponent for the west coast pipeline Smith wants to build, while negotiations between Alberta and the federal government have blown past the initial deadline of April 1. Alberta originally agreed to increase the province’s carbon price to $130 a tonne, but is now pushing back against a five-year timeline, while industry is calling for an end to industrial carbon pricing altogether.

Smith suggested that oil expansion would be easier if Carney and the Liberals hadn’t won last year’s federal election.

“We did not, unfortunately, get a Conservative government federally,” she said.