Chief Sunshine pens letter to PM opposing co-operation agreement with Alberta

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

(ANNews) – Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation Chief Sheldon Sunshine has written a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney criticizing the federal government’s tentative co-operation agreement with the Alberta government on environmental regulation and the impact assessment process.

Sunshine’s March 10 letter places this pact in the context of Carney’s “appeasement” of Premier Danielle Smith’s “separatist agenda.” 

Under the draft co-operation agreement, there will be a so-called “one project, one review” approach to new infrastructure applications in the province, which will use the province’s environmental assessment and regulatory processes for projects that are “primarily in provincial jurisdiction.” 

For projects that are on federal Crown land or use federal labour, Carney pledged to incorporate “Alberta’s environmental assessment and regulatory process requirements into the federal assessment,” the agreement text reads.

Chief Sunshine told Alberta Native News that the province’s assessment and regulatory processes are “failing not only our people but Albertans.” 

“We see it as Canada aligning itself with Alberta’s agenda,” Sunshine added.

His letter calls the co-operation pact’s truncating of the regulatory process a “dangerous mistake,” arguing that all major infrastructure projects are in federal jurisdiction, since they occur on Treaty land. 

The letter describes the co-operation agreement as a “gut punch.” 

“All we can see is that our rights are going to be circumvented,” Sunshine told this newspaper. “That was one of my worst fears – that they were going to utilize Alberta’s processes.” 

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has come under repeated scrutiny for a pro-industry bent that disregards First Nations’ Treaty rights, in both its impact assessment and regulatory capacities.

In 2020, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that the AER failed to consider the potential impact of Prosper Petroleum’s proposed oil sands project near Moose Lake on members of Fort McKay First Nation’s ability to engage in their traditional practices.

More recently, the AER was criticized for failing to inform Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and Mikisew Cree Nation about the risks of a spill from Imperial Oil’s Kearl tar sands mine until millions of tonnes of toxic water leaked in February 2023, despite the AER having been aware of seepages since 2020.

By reducing the regulatory hurdles for major infrastructure projects, the government is violating the spirit of Treaty 8, as well as the duty to “free, prior and informed consent” enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which became federal law in 2021, Sunshine argues. 

The co-operation agreement is the product of the November 2025 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Carney and Smith. Under the MOU, the federal government agreed to prioritize a new oil sands pipeline to B.C.’s northern coast and a carbon capture megaproject proposed by the Oil Sands Alliance (formerly known as the Pathways Alliance), a coalition of five of the largest players in the tar sands.

Additionally, Carney agreed to backtrack on several of former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s key environmental policies that Smith had opposed, including an oil and gas emissions cap and a mandate for all provinces to have a net-zero electricity grid by 2035. 

In exchange, Smith agreed to negotiate an increase to Alberta’s industrial carbon price, which she froze at $95 a tonne earlier last year, by April.

The goal of speeding up the regulatory process for major projects was the impetus of the Building Canada Act, which exempts infrastructure initiatives that are declared by the federal government to be in the “national interest” from certain laws and regulations, and permits consultation to occur after approval. 

For Sunshine, both levels of government are moving in the wrong direction. 

“While we want to build a better economy [with] better systems, First Nations are always seen as an afterthought. We’re always on the defensive and it shouldn’t be that way,” he explained.

“They don’t understand that. They see us as minorities and an obstacle to go around.”