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The Keystone killers are waiting to ambush the Northern Gateway
This week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper went to Beijing to deliver a message to the U.S. , while Alberta Energy Minister Ted Morton came to Toronto to speak to B.C. Mr. Morton faced the tougher sell, which he attempted to soften, but further confused, by throwing “national energy strategy” into the pot.
The Chinese are gung-ho for Canadian oil, as are most Americans. However, Ontario’s Premier Dalton McGuinty has installed an expensive policy based on weaning the province off “dirty” oil to save the planet. As for B.C., it is at least as green but more crucial to the market diversification plans of Edmonton and Ottawa because no Alberta oil can reach China — or any non-U.S. market — that doesn’t pass through the province.
Opposition to a new trans-B.C. pipeline, Northern Gateway, is significantly related to the success of environmental NGOs in mounting a global campaign of demonization and disinformation against the oil sands. That campaign forced President Obama to kill/delay the $7-billion Keystone XL line, sponsored by TransCanada Corp., to ship up to 830,000 barrels of oil — mostly from the oil sands — to the Gulf Coast. This shock decision led the Harper government to increase its emphasis on diversification. The problem is that the Keystone killers are now waiting to ambush Enbridge-sponsored Northern Gateway.
There was a mighty recent kerfuffle over statements by the Prime Minister and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver about the opposition of radical foreign environmentalists to Northern Gateway. To a degree this move backfired because it raised the hackles of many ordinary Canadians. It also enabled environmentalists to point to all the foreign money that was behind the oil sands, as if there were some equivalency between foreign funding to support jobs and foreign funding to kill jobs. Finally, it raised the suspicion that Ottawa might be trying to pressure the National Energy Board, an independent review body.
Mr. Harper will doubtless face some Chinese inscrutability this week. However, as noted, Mr. Morton and the Alberta government have created domestic confusion by promoting a vague energy strategy, a phrase that inevitably stirs memories of the disastrous 1980 National Energy Program. Just a month ago, Prime Minister Harper noted on a radio phone-in show that he had no idea what Alberta Premier Alison Redford meant when she used the phrase. Nevertheless it cropped up again on Tuesday in Alberta’s Speech from the Throne, where it seemed to mean little more than everybody chipping in to support Alberta oil exports.
Insofar as the federal Conservatives have a comprehensive strategy, it consists of an admirable commitment to become more rather than less market-oriented, primarily by slashing red tape and expediting approval processes for projects such as Northern Gateway. However, Mr. Morton this week reportedly suggested that a strategy should deal with such issues as cross-border electricity, uranium and climate change.
For the rest of this column, please go to the National Post/Financial Post website: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/02/07/peter-foster-mixed-messages/