George Hoberg, environmental and natural resource policy professor at the University of British Columbia, said that the current conflict between his home province and the Alberta and federal governments is a “sign of bigger conflicts to come,” unless the provincial, territorial and federal governments have a serious discussion about climate policy, oil sands development, and energy diversification.
“As long as Alberta and the Harper government refuse to discuss serious climate policy, we’ll be stuck,” Prof. Hoberg told The Hill Times. “We have a situation where the values of the country vary significantly by geographical location, so that you have Alberta, which is very pro-fossil fuel development, and other provinces that are more reluctant about that. That’s why we’re stuck.”
Twelve of the 13 provincial and territorial premiers pledged to revive a five-year-old action plan towards a national energy strategy at the Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax last month, but B.C. is boycotting the initiative and the federal government is staying tight-lipped on the fray, which is the latest threat to the Northern Gateway pipeline project.
The informal “national energy strategy,” which Ms. Redford has urged since taking office last October, is based on an action plan originally drafted by the Council of the Federation in 2007. Under that seven-point plan, Canada’s premiers committed to improving energy efficiency and conservation, accelerating clean-tech deployment, developing clean energy for the future, modernizing energy transmission infrastructure, streamlining the regulatory process, developing human resources in the energy sector, and securing formal participation of the provinces and territories in international energy negotiations.
Ms. Redford, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, and Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale will lead the working group to develop the strategy with provincial and territorial energy ministers, but the official statement from the annual summer conference noted a significant exception—“B.C. will not participate in this process at this time.”
Ms. Clark, whose Liberal Party trails the B.C. New Democrats by more than 20 percentage points, according to July polling by Angus Reid Public Opinion, issued five demands for her province’s approval of Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project.
Among her stipulations, Premier Clark is asking that the federal government ensure “world leading” marine protection and oil spill clean-up systems are put in place, and that Alberta and the federal government give her province its “fair share” of the economic benefits from the project.
Ms. Clark declined to sign on to any intergovernmental energy plan until her demands are met.
“[T]he thing about the national energy strategy that worries me and I think worries British Columbians is when you look at some of the details of it, it looks like it could be a stocking horse for this Enbridge pipeline to find its way through British Columbia,” Ms. Clark told CBC’s The House at the conclusion of the summit. “[M]y job is to protect the environment and the economy of my province, and I’m not going to sign on to a document that might be a way for a... heavy oil pipeline to find its way through our province by stealth.”
The nearly 1,200 km-long pipeline would have the capacity to deliver 525,000 barrels of oil daily to port facilities in Kitimat, B.C., where oil tankers would load up on Alberta crude for delivery to foreign markets. The federal government has deemed the project to be in the “national interest.”
According to a report published by the Canadian Energy Research Institute last week, the Northern Gateway project, if approved, would lead to nearly $599.7-billion in federal tax revenues over the next 25 years, $551.6-billion in revenues for the Alberta government, and $9.8-billion in revenues for B.C. through increased oilsands output. Under Alberta’s current royalties structure, the province would take in an additional $61.2-billion between now and 2035.
“British Columbia is the gateway to Asia, and we will be happy to re-join the discussions when we are satisfied our requirements will be addressed,” Ms. Clark stated following the annual summer meeting of Canada’s first ministers.
But for a project that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) government has so staunchly defended and promoted, federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.) was cautious in making pronouncements on the latest obstacle to Northern Gateway and a national energy strategy when he spoke with The Hill Times last week.
“It’s not entirely clear what the different provinces have in mind when they talk about a strategy,” Mr. Oliver observed. “What I think we need is a collaborative approach, a Canadian energy partnership which is respectful of the jurisdiction of the provinces and which sees us move forward for the benefit of Canadians across the country.”
The federal government has been careful to distance itself from talk of a national energy strategy since Ms. Redford began to raise the issue last fall. Last year’s annual meeting of federal, provincial, and territorial mines and energy ministers in Kananaskis, Alta., concluded with a stated commitment to a “Pan-Canadian approach” to developing the country’s natural resources based on economic development, energy efficiency, and innovation.
Mr. Oliver will meet with the provincial ministers charged with developing the strategy outlined at the Council of the Federation this fall when the 2012 Energy and Mines Ministers’ Conference convenes in Charlottetown, P.E.I., Sept. 9 to 11.
However, he declined to comment on whether or not the feds were working towards a national energy strategy with the provinces.
“I think the point is that we shouldn’t get bogged down in discussions of nomenclature,” Mr. Oliver replied when asked whether or not the federal government was pursuing a national energy strategy.
Prof. Hoberg said that the only strategy at work in federal energy policy is the development and export of oil sands crude.
“The current trajectory of discussions can’t be called a national energy strategy—it seems to be about getting oilsands to markets,” Prof. Hoberg said. “Maybe that’s a Canadian energy strategy, but it’s not much of a national energy strategy in terms of ranking objectives and alternatives and thinking about what kind of future is good for the Canadian economy or the Canadian people.”
Prof. Hoberg dismissed the pact that was signed on to by 12 of the 13 first ministers at the Council of the Federation conference as lacking “anything of substance,” and attributed the federal government’s avoidance of “national energy strategy” discussions to the National Energy Program of Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government in the early 1980s.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Chris Plecash
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