Canadians will eventually reject anti-prosperity mania

The Trudeau Liberals have now signed their death sentence in Alberta for the 2019 federal election.

For months a massive coalition of reasonable Canadians — everyone from NDP Leader Rachel Notley in Alberta to Indigenous businessman Calvin Helin in British Columbia, from thousands of letter writers and protesters to business leaders across Canada — spoke out against bills C-48 and C-69, two crucial Liberal industrial policies.

But the Liberals refused to listen. Instead they took their orders from their party’s most naive and irresponsible wing, led by Catherine McKenna, the federal Environment Minister. The Liberals have now signed off on C-48 and C-69. These new laws will thwart the growth of Canada’s biggest export industry in oil and gas, eliminate well-paying jobs, create animosity between regions, do nothing to combat climate change, and endanger the best hope we have for national reconciliation with Indigenous communities.

Bill C-69 brings in a new industrial assessment process full of red tape and new legal triggers that will kill pipeline projects in court. Bill C-48 forever bans the tanking of Alberta crude oil from the northwest B.C. coast.

Their impact will be to dry up investment in oil and gas, say numerous industrial and political leaders, including Sen. Doug Black of Calgary.

“There is no good news here,” Black says. “There is no country in the world that would work so aggressively to undermine its ability to export products.”

To put McKenna’s policies and their impact on climate change in perspective, let’s apply their impact to two industries tied to greenhouse gas emissions: Ontario’s car manufacturing and Quebec’s aeronautics industry.

If Ontario has to stop expanding its car industry and Quebec its airplane business, would that stop anyone in the world from acquiring more cars and airplanes? Of course it would not. They would simply buy cars from Japan or Germany and airplanes from Brazil or the United States.

Likewise, Canada could shut down its entire oil and gas export industry and it would have zero impact on climate change. Other jurisdictions, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela, with their atrocious human rights and environmental records, would be thrilled to meet the extra demand.

But because car and airplane manufacturing are so important to Ontario and Quebec, Black says federal legislation to end or limit growth in those sectors is inconceivable.

“It would never ever see the light of day because the thought of attacking the auto industry or the aeronautics industry would be unthinkable and, frankly, should be unthinkable, just as attacking the oil and gas industry should be unthinkable in any rational environment.”

The Conservatives proposed a smart compromise on the Bill C-48 tanker ban: that the ban go into effect for most of the northwest coast where First Nations oppose tankers, but that a small tanker corridor be left open on the northern edge, where two First Nations are at least open to considering a new port and tankers. This would leave space for the possibility of building the Eagle Spirit pipeline from the oilsands of Fort McMurray to the B.C. coast. This project has the support of all 35 First Nations along that route, a historic business and reconciliation opportunity.

But the Liberals rejected the corridor compromise.

Numerous changes that would have made Bill C-69 less toxic to oil and gas investment were also rejected.

McKenna, who has never met a cold snap, a flood or a forest fire that didn’t foretell for her the end of times, frequently alleged during House of Commons debates on C-69 that the Conservatives were only doing the bidding of oil lobbyists, conjuring up some all-powerful and secretive “Oilluminati” with nefarious interests.

But whatever Canada’s oil and gas industry was in the past, or remains in McKenna’s dark imaginings, it now works hard to lower carbon emissions and deal fairly with Indigenous groups, while pushing for projects that create tremendous prosperity and lucrative government royalties and taxes.

I can’t imagine Albertans forgiving the Liberal party for at least a generation, even if TMX gets built some day. After all, it shouldn’t take a decade of legal wrangling and billions in government investment to expand an existing pipeline. The TMX process isn’t a success so much as it’s a signal of dysfunction.

As for the rest of Canada, once the full impact of McKenna-mania sinks in, these polices aren’t going to go over well there either.

We’re a measured people, as seen by the tremendous growth in support for pipelines in B.C. We want a country that is both prosperous and protects the environment. McKenna’s policies give us neither.