New pipeline rules for radicals

Last month, we learned from Scotiabank that lack of export pipeline capacity and the resulting discount on Canadian oil will cost the Canadian economy $ 15.6 billion a year, or nearly $ 43 million a day. That l oss affects provincial and federal revenues as much as corporate income. We are all losing.

Also last month came the unveiling of the Trudeau government’s new suite of policies for reviewing and approving major energy infrastructure projects, such as oil and gas pipelines.

So is there anything in the new rules that will address our $ 43- million- a- day leak to our Southern neighbour? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be no. The new process appears to further increase uncertainty for future pipeline proponents and investors.

At the symbolic l evel, the messaging is problematic. When you replace an agency named the National Energy Board ( NEB) with a new agency named the Impact Assessment Agency ( IAA), the message is clear: environmental i mpact is replacing economic benefit as Canada’s primary policy focus when it comes to new energy projects.

The details are equally discouraging. The proposed changes broaden the number of criteria that a new pipeline must meet. These now include not just climate change and enhanced Aboriginal consultation, but also “the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors.” For a pipeline?

Public access to panel hearings is also increased. Gone is the old rule that limited participation to individuals and groups “directly affected” by a proposed pipeline. Now anyone interested must be allowed to participate.

This open-door policy will increase the opportunity for Climate Change activists — many of them heavily funded by American interests — to clog the hearing process with project- killing delays. These groups don’t want better, safer pipelines. They want zero pipelines. And they know that if they cannot kill new pipeline projects directly, they can delay them to death with endless hearings, rule changes, consultations, environmental studies, and court challenges.

They were able to do this under the old rules, as the obituaries f or Northern Gateway and Energy East attest. And they will certainly try to do it again under the new rules.

What explains this disappointing result? At one level, it is another example of the prime minister trying to have it both ways on climate change and energy development. He wants to go into next year’s federal election with the message that he has struck a statesmanlike “balance” between these competing objectives. But implicit in this argument is the assumption — or more accurately, the delusion — that green virtue signals like carbon taxes and expensive renewables are going to buy “social licence” for the development and export of Canada’s valuable oil and gas reserves.

It’s high time to stop indulging that charade. We now have example after example of climate change activists declaring publicly that nothing Canada does to reduce our domestic CO2 emissions will change their resolute opposition to new export pipelines.

This was shockingly clear in an interview that CBC’s Power and Politics did with the American anti- oil activist Bill McKibbon the evening that Nebraska approved a routing for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. McKibbon is the founder of 350. org, one of largest and best funded climate change interest groups in the U.S.

Every Canadian should see this interview for themselves (at ), but here is a summary of the key exchanges:

Interviewer: What common ground might you be able to find with the Alberta government?

McKibbon: At this point, a common ground can’t be found. … The only thing we can do is keep as much carbon in the ground as possible … Canada, a rich country, needs to keep that carbon safely underground…

Interviewer: So you don’t give this government any credit (for its climate change policies)?

McKibbon: Oh, I think they are doing a good job on the demand side … but there aren’t enough Canadians for that to be a very big deal. The big deal is the huge pool of carbon that sits underneath Alberta, and that will dwarf whatever it is that Canada does with its own domestic emissions.

It’s not just the McKibbons of the world that are stating the obvious fact that, at two per cent of global emissions, what Canada does to reduce our domestic emissions is irrelevant to what happens globally. We are too small to matter. Our own home-grown McKibbon — David Suzuki — bluntly said the same thing recently. Delivering a speech at a Calgary’s teachers convention, Suzuki declared: “I’m sorry Alberta, but we have to keep that fuel in the ground … The tar sands have to be shut down … No more infrastructure getting that stuff out — that means rails, pipelines, shipping. There’s no point in investing in infrastructure when they’re all going to be shut down.”

So much for social licence. As for the new Impact Assessment Agency, it’s not likely to be very busy anyhow. Unless it is substantially amended to correct the problems identified above, it seems doubtful that any investors will be proposing a new pipeline in Canada. And don’t act surprised when you learn that TransCanada — Canada’s oldest and largest pipeline company — is already investigating moving its head office to Houston.

And as for the $ 43 million a day that we are losing, there’s no end in sight. Some have compared our current dilemma to the National Energy Program, but at least then, Central Canadians benefitted from the loss suffered by Western Canadians. This time, the Trudeau Liberals are giving $15.6 billion a year to American consumers just to win the next election. No one in Canada benefits from NEP 2. We are all losing.