TRUDEAU LIBERALS WANT NO PART OF OIL-GAS INDEPENDENCE FOR NATION
Sensible suggestion from Alberta delegates fails to make cut at party’s convention
With the Kinder Morgan pipeline hanging by a thread, the federal Liberals had a chance on the weekend to express support for Alberta and the national economy.
They didn’t.
The party’s annual convention in Halifax voted against a resolution to make “Canadian oil and gas independence” an official policy.
The resolution came from the party’s Alberta section. It was eminently reasonable and responsible. But it wasn’t good enough to become Liberal doctrine.
The winning resolutions focused on a guaranteed minimum income, decriminalization of consensual sex work and the sex trade, pharmacare, a Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights and a good deal more.
But the idea that Canadian oil and natural gas should fill all of Canada’s needs for oil and natural gas?
Not a chance.
That would mean new pipelines to the east, through voterich Ontario and Quebec, and on to the Atlantic.
Liberal territory, every inch of the way.
With an election due next year, that applecart would not be upset.
Party officials point out that the resolution went through several hoops before being included in a list of 30, and then 20 resolutions up for consideration.
It did have some support from members.
But the Alberta plan didn’t make the list of 15 official policies of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s governing party.
Now, governments don’t always pay that much attention to the policies their party members adopt.
But they pay none at all to policies their members do not adopt. Oil and gas independence is a dead idea in Liberal Canada.
I asked for comment on this vote from two Alberta Liberal MPs, Calgary’s Kent Hehr and Amarjeet Sohi of Edmonton, the infrastructure minister.
There was no response Monday.
The Notley government didn’t comment either. You can understand that — with the pipeline at such a crucial stage, there’s no point in annoying the uneasy allies in Ottawa.
United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney, however, was not reticent.
“Not surprised this wasn’t a priority for the Liberals,” Kenney wrote on Twitter. “After all, Justin Trudeau killed Energy East, the pipeline that would’ve brought western Canadian oil to the rest of the country.”
It is now fixed policy that this country will keep buying oil from crooked and environmentally lax regimes, in preference to western Canadian oil. Hundreds of tankers from overseas and the U.S. will continue to ply the Atlantic coast and the St. Lawrence.
Of all the many weird things about Canada, strangest of all is the anti-tanker opposition to pipelines on the West Coast, and the pro-tanker rejection of pipelines in the East.
In rational terms — which is to say, not Canadian terms — it’s hard to see how any government could reject this resolution. It said, in part:
Canada imported roughly 759,000 barrels and 736,000 barrels of oil per day, in 2016 and 2015 respectively, despite Canada having among the largest oil and gas reserves in the world, capable of meeting all Canadian oil and gas needs; Canadian oil and gas independence would allow Canada to ensure that domestic natural resource extraction and usage would be carried out more efficiently, safely, and sustainably than in countries that export oil and gas to Canada.
The resolution itself asked the government to:
Implement a strategy for oil and gas independence, with particular attention to: strong environmental and safety regulations, and oversight of the oil and gas sector; national job creation and economic growth; and, respect for the rights and interests of Indigenous peoples. Consult with all provinces, territories, First Nations, Metis, Inuit, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and all other relevant stakeholders in developing acceptable infrastructure and pipelines necessary for oil and gas independence.
The Liberals’ answer to all that is “No.” Their clear policy is to build no tidewater pipeline but Kinder Morgan. And they wonder why so many people feel they aren’t even serious about that.