His Conservative government, stinging from politically-motivated delays in its Keystone XL pipeline south of the border, would make it a “national priority” to ensure Canada has the “capacity to export our energy products beyond the United States, and specifically to Asia,” Harper said.
That January clarion call from the Swiss Alps is melting in the summer heat, wilting from environmental and aboriginal opposition, economic concerns, political sparring in this country and a public relations battle the government is losing.
In short, the Northern Gateway pipeline, Harper’s prized entrée into the Asian market, appears to have a very dim future.
The federal Conservatives know this, but they have not yet seized on a coherent strategy to turn opinion around.
When B.C. Premier Christy Clark threatened to close the door on the pipeline last month, she predictably started a brawl with Alberta Premier Alison Redford and the Alberta-centric Harper government.
Into battle went Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, delivering identically worded arguments, saying Clark’s economic conditions for allowing access to Enbridge, the company behind the project, amounted to “tollgating.”
“We can’t have a Canada where we try to tollgate different goods and services in different parts of the country,” Baird said.
That sparked more fears on the west coast that the Harper government, facing the possibility of even more rigid opposition if the NDP is elected in British Columbia next spring, would just “bully through” with the pipeline.
But this week, James Moore, the heritage minister and senior minister for British Columbia, entered the fray with the most significant intervention yet by the Harper government.
Instead of training his guns on the NDP or environmentalists, Moore put his finger up to the changing winds and went after Enbridge.
When NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said in Vancouver last month that the Enbridge track record meant the Northern Gateway project should be shut down, Moore leapt to the company’s defence and said Mulcair did not understand B.C.
But this week, in an interview with Bill Good on Vancouver’s CKNW radio, Moore had a different message.
“Just because British Columbia is physically the Asia-Pacific doorway, doesn’t mean we’re the doormat for businesses like Enbridge,” Moore said.
He went on to itemize the “great failings” of Enbridge.
“Enbridge has not adequately explained what happened in Kalamazoo and why or what happened in Wisconsin and why,” he said.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Enbridge officials behaved like the “Keystone Kops” during the bungled management of a massive oilsands crude spill in Michigan in 2010.
Enbridge was hit by another spill in Wisconsin last weekend.
Moore said Enbridge promised unprecedented safety for the Gateway project, then turned around and kicked in another $500 million to upgrade safety, raising questions about its initial commitment.
He said the company only bothered a couple of weeks ago to hire a communications officer on the ground in British Columbia, something that puts a “sour taste” in the mouth about its efforts to gain the confidence of voters in the province.
His doubts about the company are shared by many “given the behaviour of Enbridge recently.”
“This project will not survive public scrutiny unless Enbridge takes far more seriously (its) obligations to engage with the public and to answer those very legitimate questions about the way in which they have operated their business in the very recent past,” Moore said.
Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel said Thursday he was “absolutely confident” that his company could meet all the safety standards demanded by Clark and the federal government.
As Moore spoke this week, an Angus Reid poll was backing his views.
It found widespread disapproval of the project — but also found opinion could be swayed if environmental fears could be allayed.
Across British Columbia, Angus Reid found, 35 per cent completely opposed the Northern Gateway but another 24 per cent said they opposed it now, but could change their minds.
It is up to the Harper government to change their minds, since the prime minister has deemed it a “national priority.”
So far, they have demonized environmentalists, New Democrats and the company behind the project.
They’re running out of bogeymen.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Tim Harper
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