It was all about averting our potentially “lost legacy,’’ jobs, national energy security and social programs.
We were embarking, it seemed, on the 21st century journey to the Last Spike.
About 30 minutes earlier, Joe Bradley from the heretofore unheard of community of Mayflower, Ark., told the CBC radio program, The Current, of encountering about half a metre of Canadian oil sands crude running down the street in front of his house in his well-manicured community.
“I grabbed my daughter and got in the car and ran as fast as we could,’’ Bradley said.
His house value is gone, he has concerns about the health of his eight-year-old daughter and he isn’t going back.
There could scarcely be a more graphic illustration in one morning of the economy versus the environment in this country’s ongoing pipeline debate.
Oliver did, indeed, have good news, with the TransCanada decision to ask for firm shipping commitments for an ambitious Alberta-to-New Brunswick pipeline, a move that has pan-political support in this country, including, it would seem, Quebec Premier Pauline Marois.
The west-east route, if finalized, would end the east coast’s dependence on imported oil, would indeed create jobs and provide a boon to financially strapped New Brunswick.
But Oliver’s good news announcement was hijacked by questions about ExxonMobil’s unexpected Easter gift for the good burghers of Mayflower.
It was, Oliver said, “A very old, more than 60-year-old U.S. pipeline’’ that ruptured in Mayflower. “It happened to be carrying Canadian crude.’’
About 15 per cent of all oil flowing underground in the U.S. comes from Canada, he said, but it is no more corrosive than other oil beneath the surface. It was just the 15 per cent factor, he said.
Then he repeated his favourite statistic, that pipelines on this continent are 99.99945 per safe.
But he was tripped up by the old .00055 argument.
This is, as Oliver says, a “pivotal” year with the need for the west-east flow, and pending U.S. approval of the Keystone XL and the regulatory approval of the Northern Gateway on the west coast.
To use an opening day baseball analogy, Oliver is one-for-one with two at-bats to go. But he takes his next at-bats on pure faith.
He argues that Keystone will be state-of-the-art, with the type of steel and the welding technology that far outstrips existing pipeline infrastructure.
He uses the same enhanced safety argument to explain why a major tanker oil spill could not happen off the British Columbia coast.
Others argue that today’s regulatory processes stymie progress.
“Would we be able to build Canada’s transcontinental railroad if it had to go through today’s process?’’ asks Rick Anderson, a Conservative political strategist. “Does anybody today regret that we built it?’’
That’s a valid point, but, of course, we also used to put asbestos in our homes.
Times change, and sometimes we get smarter.
Oliver is doubtless correct when he points to the difference between the XL and a 60-year-old pipeline, but it’s a little bit like having air passengers witness a crash, then be asked to board the next flight with the assurance that they are boarding a newer plane that could never crash because of new technology in airplane construction.
You would at least think twice before boarding. Your confidence would be badly shaken.
This is the legacy Oliver and the Conservative government are stuck with — Mayflower, Little Buffalo, Alta., the Enbridge leak near Kalamazoo, Mich., and the “Keystone Kops” characterization of the clean-up effort.
They, and previous governments, allowed an industry to blithely forge ahead, slow to respond to safety concerns or pushback from environmentalists and First Nations. The Harper government then stashed its own environmental safeguards in the attic or tossed them in the trash.
There have been suggestions Harper may already have been given a tacit thumbs-up on Keystone from Washington and it is hard to believe that Barack Obama has not decided — it is much more likely the discussion is how to couch any announcement pro or con so as to try to blunt the fury it will spark from either side of the divide.
If the decision has not been made, tying Keystone opposition to the Arkansas spill is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
Or, in this case, sadly, retrieving dead ducks from an oil spill.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Tim Harper
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