TOUTING ASIA TRADE
Is Notley doing right thing?
Donald Trump may yet save Alberta. The U.S. president is pushing the province in a direction it has long needed to go — away from the American market.
For Trump this week, it’s goodbye Canadian dairy subsidies.
For the Alberta government, it’s hello China.
Premier Rachel Notley and officials are there now on a 10-day trade mission that also includes Japan. Those countries are already Alberta’s second- and third-biggest trading partners, respectively, after the U.S.
Alberta premiers have long courted the key Asian markets. The opposition parties may be tempted to blast Notley for the $160,000 trip, but if they were in office they’d likely be doing exactly the same thing.
With Trump’s America turning protectionist, it would be absurd to ignore the most promising alternatives. Alberta has counted on America’s economy for far too long. That was always risky; now it’s plain dangerous.
One entirely new feature, thanks to Trump, is that in some key areas Alberta’s policy is more closely aligned with China than with the U.S.
Trump trumpets more coal production, not less. He is stripping out environmental rules and appointing people who don’t believe in or care about climate change, which he has called a Chinese hoax.
The Chinese leaders, no fools, turn this right back on him. They now scold the U.S. for threatening to withdraw from the 2016 Paris Agreement. Once isolated on climate and environmental protection, they’re pushing the Americans into that very corner.
Alberta, of course, is phasing out coal generation of electricity. In January, China cancelled 103 new coal-fired plants that were planned or, in some cases, already under construction.
Thirty other projects had already been stopped in 2016. China is surging so quickly toward renewable energy that some existing coal-fired plants were operating at less than capacity.
Solar panel farms in the Gobi Desert are so vast they can be seen from space. China isn’t just the biggest buyer of panels, but the top manufacturer.
China is also expected to introduce a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions this year. It seems ironic that this was announced last fall at the Obama White House, to great applause.
The NDP’s core climate and economic agenda — using oil and gas, while transitioning to renewable energy — suddenly matches up remarkably well with Chinese goals.
Handled properly, this could help open up China to Alberta’s oil and gas, and to a wide range of renewable energy technologies the government is stimulating at home.
The premier is careful not to offend the Americans when she talks about such things. That would be foolish. Obviously, the U.S. will be our most important trading partner for a long time yet.
But her meaning is clear when she’s asked if America is no longer the natural partner it used to be.
“I don’t want to say more or less,” she said before leaving for China. “But I will say that China is clearly making investments in this area, and is interested in this area, as all countries should be.
“And because they have a gargantuan economy, it makes perfect sense that a country like ours, that has tremendous technological ability and advantages, notwithstanding our size, would work aggressively to be able to partner in as many cases as we can with an economy as big as China’s.
“Canada is becoming a leader in climate change, and what we want to do is partner with other countries that are also interested in reaching that goal.”
Alberta officials are quick to point out that they’ll also be promoting agriculture and food products, as well as oil and gas, and lumber, during several sessions in both countries.
But one major event will be a roundtable on energy and climate change, the key areas now pulling us away from the U.S. and toward China.
One day, we may actually thank Donald Trump.