Joe Oliver takes to his pulpit daily, spraying statistics and “fact-based” arguments at his opponents, refusing to be slowed by recent heart surgery, perhaps the loudest and most determined environmental protest ever mounted on both sides of the border or native leaders who promise a long, hot summer followed by potentially years of court challenges.
He is unbowed by his government’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, its international vilification, the oilsands “branding” battle that, by his own admission, his government was losing when Harper tapped him as his natural resources minister.
He soldiers on resolutely in what has arguably become the country’s most important portfolio as his government ties the country’s economic future to the export of its deep oil reserves, but doesn’t even pay lip service to climate change in its budget.
One cannot help but wonder whether fate has placed the Toronto MP in the position of selling the wrong product at the wrong time, pushing an outdated energy source in an era of renewable resources.
A U.S. National Research Council study released last week, as the New York Times pointed out Sunday, said the use of alternative power sources and greater fuel efficiency could cut the amount of oil used in cars and trucks in that country in half by 2030.
The same analysis points out that Canada produces 63 per cent of its electricity from renewable resources.
That doesn’t negate the urgent need for the approval of the final extension of the Keystone XL pipeline, Oliver says, but he adds its own urgency comes from the need to diversify Canadian exports because, by 2035, U.S. oil imports may be negligible.
This is the pivotal year for the Harper government and its pipeline wish list.
The Keystone decision is expected by June. The joint panel decision on the giant Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline plan in British Columbia is due in December.
A west-east pipeline depends on approval by Quebec Premier Pauline Marois.
Not surprisingly, Oliver is bullish on all three options and is also talking up plans for a giant refinery in Kitimat in northern British Columbia proposed by west coast billionaire David Black, a $25-billion proposal that detractors say is merely a distraction to build pipeline support.
By 2015, Oliver thinks he will have gone three-for-three. Others wouldn’t bet a nickel on the proposition, but he believes support for Northern Gateway, particularly among First Nations communities, is under estimated.
“The benefits can be so significant, indeed transformative for aboriginal communities that I am hoping we can find a way to get this done with their active involvement, support, participation and benefit,’’ he says. “There are more groups already onside than is being acknowledged. A lot of them are keeping quiet because they don’t want to stick their heads out in this (political) climate.’’
As he sells the Tao of the pipeline, Oliver often seems overly partisan and combative.
But he says he has reached out to environmental groups, and the only ones he has ever deemed “radical” are those who instinctively oppose all resource development.
“I don’t use the word ‘enemy.’ I don’t have an enemies list. If I get frustrated, it is with people using arguments that are patently untrue and I have to believe they know they are untrue, but if they don’t know they’re untrue, then they’re not very good at what they do.’’
He likes to use what he calls fact-based arguments because when he does, the environmental movement has “its mind blown” because they can’t refute him.
The final portion of the Keystone awaiting Barack Obama’s verdict is a tiny fraction of the length of oil and gas pipelines laid in the U.S. in the previous seven years, he says.
He will tell you coal-fired electricity in the U.S. produces 40 times the emissions of the oilsands and, in Illinois alone, coal-fired emissions are double that of the oilsands.
“If 20,000 people show up to protest Keystone then there should be 800,000 persons showing up to protest coal.’’
Heavy crude extraction in California emits the same greenhouse gas emissions as the oilsands, he says, so protesters should be on Rodeo Drive, not the White House.
But the most stunning claim made by Oliver is the flat-out contention that a major tanker spill cannot happen on Canada’s west coast, something opponents say is flat-out nonsense and will be explored in a later column.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Tim Harper
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