FROM BOOM-TIME OPTIMISM TO DEMANDS FOR SEPARATION

If Canada doesn’t start supporting our energy sector, the cries will get louder

Never before have I heard so many Albertans bitterly rant against the province’s deal in Canada.

It’s now common for Albertans on social media to raise the issue of separation. There’s no official separatist party, but if other provinces continue to enjoy tens of billions in benefits that annually flow from Alberta’s oil economy, yet refuse to allow necessary pipeline infrastructure, the anger and alarm in Alberta will explode into a populist movement.

If you think the notion of Alberta separation is just heated bluster from oilpatch diehards, here’s what our new Sen. Paula Simons of Edmonton, appointed by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, recently had to say in the Senate about the level of alienation here: “We control our oil, our natural gas and our bitumen, but since we are landlocked, our fellow Canadians are holding us hostage … Energy East, Northern Gateway, Trans Mountain — it seems as though every time we see a way to get our oil to tidewater, we are stymied by a broken regulatory model. Small wonder if Albertans are starting to feel that Confederation itself is broken, at least for them.”

Simons did not go so far as to speak the “S” word. Other Albertans aren’t showing such restraint.

Everywhere he goes in Alberta, and for the first time in his life, influential Sen. Doug Black, 67, says he hears separation talk. “People are basically angry, frightened, disillusioned, but more importantly they have lost confidence in the ability for this country to work for them and their families.”

Separatism was the hot topic on a recent Edmonton talk radio show, where Black was the guest.

“That’s what callers want to talk about,” he says. “How does Alberta separate? When do we separate? I get it everywhere. I think that’s the wrong way to go, but quite clearly it’s time for a business conversation about our relationship with Canada.”

A crucial part of this business conversation is already going on in the Senate. Black, who was elected to the Senate in 2012 after a long career as a Calgary corporate lawyer, is leading the charge to either kill or amend Bill C-69, the new Trudeau-backed plan to assess industrial projects.

The bill, as it’s now written, is rightly seen as legislation that ensures another pipeline will never get built.

There are 390 pages in C-69 but only two references to decision-makers having to consider economic issues, Black said. Through the lengthy process, they must consider the environment, First Nations and even sex and gender, but they are hardly ever mandated to think about jobs, competitiveness, business or prosperity.

Another issue is how politically capricious the new process will be. For our competitors like Australia, Norway and the United States, political approval of industrial projects comes early. Only then does an industrial company have to spend hundreds of millions on the regulatory process to ensure that the process is safe, environmentally sound and economical, Black said.

He has empathy for the resource companies in our system, where politics can kill a project even after it’s been granted regulatory approval.

“If we don’t want pipelines in Canada, if we want to strand the oil, just tell me up front. Don’t make me go through a billion dollars of money … and then at the end of the day say, ‘Oops, changed our mind.’”

There’s also an issue of who gets to speak at pipeline hearings. Right now a person must have some tangible connection to the pipeline to get standing to speak, such as having the pipeline on your land, or near to it if you’re on a First Nation. This would change under C-69, where anyone can speak and clog up the process.

“The way it’s currently structured is anybody and their dog ’s dog ’s dog can and must be heard by the decision-making panel,” Black said.

Another industry-crushing Liberal initiative before the Senate is the move to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as law in Canada. Reconciliation with First Nations is critical but the declaration would give First Nations the right to veto any industrial project, which is a far bigger stick than their current right to consultation.

“I almost don’t have language to describe the potential unintended consequences,” Black said of handing out this veto.

In the end, it’s astonishing how quickly Alberta has gone from the giddy boom time frenzy of 2014 to the gloom and resentment of 2018. But here we are.

Alberta is a mad and alienated place, but the Senate can take reasonable legislative action to help quell this uprising of anger.

OLIVIA CONDON Sen. Doug Black, 67, was a recent guest on a talk radio show where the suggestion of Alberta separating from the rest of Canada was a hot topic, one he says he is hearing more and more frequently. He expresses empathy companies in our resource sector, where politics can kill a project.