Moe should step lightly on pipeline politics

As nimble-footed as Premier Scott Moe may be, hopscotching the political lines of the Trans Mountain pipeline debate requires a kind of balance most don’t possess.

And one now wonders whether the Saskatchewan premier has been tripped up by the notion of passing a law declaring he won’t trade with another province.

Admittedly, Alberta and its NDP government led by Rachel Notley are surely appreciative of Moe supporting the boycott on sending oil to B.C. over that province’s NDP government attempting to block Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline.

As such, that would appear to make this a pretty shrewd political move with little downside — especially given recent polling suggesting even B.C. residents no longer support the position of Premier John Horgan’s government.

Moreover, it is more than spur-of-the-moment politicking driving Moe’s position on Trans Mountain. Notwithstanding how some may portray this, Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government and his predecessor, former premier Brad Wall, do have a well-developed policy position in this area.

Their Trans Mountain stance is perfectly consistent with Wall’s past support for both the Keystone XL and Energy East pipeline. Wall lobbied hard in support of those ... and for good, practical reasons.

Regardless of how some might like to view this as simply a matter of Western conservative politics, pipelines are a big deal in a landlocked province that needs to get commodities to port.

This issue speaks to who we are. The struggle to move product to tidewater is as Saskatchewan as a Rider bunny hug with a Pilsner stain.

Right now, moving Saskatchewan oil means moving it by rail. In turn, that means not only environmental risk of an oil spill here and wherever else oil travels

(see: Lac-Megantic) but also a considerable price this province’s economic sector is already paying.

Moving oil by rail also means fewer rail cars to haul wheat, oilseeds and pulse crops, which tends to have a horrific effect on our agriculture economy. But not having an easier way of getting our petroleum products to tidewater has had a significantly negative impact on our ability to sell oil at Brent world price.

That said, when politicians step over the line from legitimately advocating public policy to playing political games, it can be a quick and negative transition.

For example, Moe embarked on a rocky road in his budget speech reply Thursday when he accused NDP Leader Ryan Meili and the Saskatchewan NDP of not wholeheartedly endorsing the Sask. Party’s oil boycott legislation because it received a $7,500 donation from Horgan’s B.C. NDP.

A political party that received comparatively massive funding from the Calgary-based oil industry — the direct beneficiaries of the Trans Mountain pipeline — really wants to get into a debate over who may have a conflict on this issue when it comes to campaign contributions?

Moe crossed that political line here.

It isn’t the first crossing. That a free-trading conservative-minded government is even breaching its own philosophical principles — not to mention trade agreements like the New West Partnership — by boycotting another province is troubling.

And in the Sask. Party’s political zeal to support the oil industry, it seems to have lost sight of the fact that even the oil industry might not want this fight.

There are those now wondering whether Notley has already stumbled by making life more difficult for the Alberta oil sector with her boycott legislation, given that 80,000 to 100,000 barrels per day flow from Alberta refineries to B.C.

“This is a political problem and it looks as though this is a political tool and we’d leave that judgment to the politicians,” said Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers president Tim McMillan, the former Sask. Party energy minister. “But the free movement of energy is what we support.”

Evidently, it isn’t just Moe hopping back and forth over the line that separates politics from oil policy.

The Saskatchewan premier needs to tread lightly.