The politics of pipelines

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/08/2012 (5124 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

To anyone trying to make sense of all the political fluster and buster surrounding the Enbridge pipeline constructions and expansions, it pretty much comes down to this: election season, cash and political posturing.

Politics and electoral posturing are playing an increasingly large role in Canada’s oil industry. Politicians who are concerned about their political fortunes are using popular opposition to the oil industry and both real and perceived environmental deficiencies to shore up the flagging support.

Earlier this month, B.C.’s Liberal Premier Christy Clark attempted to revamp her political fortunes with a high-profile campaign to exact more revenue for the east coast province by promising to block the construction of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway oil pipeline project unless five key conditions were met.

As the Globe and Mail reported, Ms. Clark’s conditions for supporting the project include approval by a join review panel, a world-leading response to either land or water spills and appropriate deals and engagement for affected First Nation communities.

The key condition, however, concerns what she says is an imbalance in fiscal benefits. B.C. would receive only eight per cent, or $6.7 billion, of $81 billion of expected government revenues over 30 years, with the lion’s share staying in Alberta. Meanwhile, British Columbia would face most of the risk in the event of spill without a satisfactory financial return.

Polls have shown B.C. residents to be fairly consistent in their anti-big oil stance: the majority of British Columbians don’t want new oil pipelines expanding the oil sands to fuel new tanker ports on their coastline. Yet a recent poll suggests Clark’s ploy to blackmail Alberta hasn’t lifted her support — the Toronto-based Forum Research poll suggests the NDP would take 79 of 85 seats in the B.C. legislature, reducing the now-majority Liberals to four.

Even if Premier Clark’s gamble pays off, and she wins re-election, she lacks the legal jurisdiction to block the pipeline, should the federal government approve the proposal. As University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan recently wrote, Parliament could enact its constitutional powers to declare the construction of Northern Gateway to be for the general advantage of Canada and therefore under federal jurisdiction.

“Parliament could invoke the declaratory power over all the local roads, bridges, storage facilities, hydro connections and any other physical installations necessary to construct and maintain a pipeline,” he wrote.

If Stephen Harper chooses to invoke this power — it’s likely, given his government’s stated priority to develop Canada’s natural resources — he will be chancing a minor political backlash and put 21 federal Conservative seats in B.C. at risk in the next federal election.

Similar election fears prompted political action in the United States earlier this year. Noting that the winds of public opinion were blowing against the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would have transported millions of barrels of tar sand — read “dirty” — oil from Canada into the U.S., President Barack Obama halted the project for one year — until after his re-election campaign is over.

The delay in the Keystone XL was what prompted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to begin promoting Canadian oil to China, and attempt to ramp up support for pipeline projects like Northern Gateway, which would capitalize on foreign markets outside of North America.

Harper’s views on environmental protection were easily summed up this spring when his government dramatically shrunk the federal oversight of proposed natural resource developments. Environmental reviews for many projects are now a provincial jurisdiction, though federal responsibility apparently remains for projects with a national scope.

That Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore — the senior federal minister from B.C. — has publicly attacked Enbridge’s environmental record is a rare split among the monolithic public face of the Conservative government. Yet as we have noted previously on this page, there are valid concerns over Enbridge’s environmental record, no matter how many times the company argues otherwise.

In our opinion, it’s only a matter of time before the Northern Gateway pipeline is built. Harper has more than enough political capital to spend in Western Canada. And there’s simply too much cash and prestige for Alberta at stake for him not to force it through.

It’s unfortunate, though, that all the sabre rattling over the expansion of the oil industry is more about the rise and fall of political fortunes and squabbles over revenue splitting than any actual environmental concerns.