Pipeline ploy risky for Tories

REGINA — That the Harper government would give the green-light to the Northern Gateway pipeline project this week came as no surprise to Canadians.

After all, the Harperites have been signalling their unconditional support for the $7.9-billion project for years. What’s surprising is the low-key announcement that the controversial project would proceed in a page and a half news release issued without fanfare on Tuesday.

Have the Tories lost their nerve to push through Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s agenda of turning Canada into an energy superpower? Have the Conservatives suddenly got cold feet about putting economic development ahead of environmental protection or social concerns?

What would be the political calculus that would cause the Conservatives to suddenly become circumspect, almost embarrassed, to be associated with a project it once boosted so shamelessly?

The answer, of course, is that Tories need to distance themselves from a controversial project that is clearly divisive and potentially fatal to their dream of getting reelected with an even larger majority in November 2015 election.

Having tipped its hand on Northern Gateway (as late as last week, Finance Minister Joe Oliver said diversifying our energy markets was a “obvious strategic imperative”), the Tories are now backpedalling furiously.

“After reviewing the project, the government accepts the independent panel’s recommendation to impose 209 conditions” on the pipeline project, Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford said in a statement.

This is a far cry from the then-natural resources minister, the same Joe Oliver, who in 2012 blasted environmentalists and other opponents of the project as “radicals” who were trying to “hijack” the National Energy Board hearings on Northern Gateway with funds from “foreign special interest groups.”

Even Harper is downplaying the significance of the government’s decision to give the project the go-ahead. In question period Wednesday, Harper said the government based its decision on the findings of the NEB panel and it’s up to the pipeline “proponent” (Enbridge) to meet the conditions.

“The government is acting on the advice of an independent, scientific panel that thoroughly reviewed these matters ... It is now up to the proponent to assure the regulator, going forward, that it will indeed comply with those conditions,” he told the House of Commons.

Why is Harper desperately trying to put some distance between himself and a project that he and his government have unabashedly boosted for the past three years?

For starters, Harper is attempting to play, albeit belatedly, the role of honest broker and mediator, whose main job is to protect the public interest and the envi- ronment against the designs of private companies driven primarily by the profit motive. It’s not a role Harper is accustomed to playing. Yet it is a role that Canadians expect of their head of government.

Secondly, it would be unseemly for any government to act as both a referee and a cheerleader.

Having doffed its pom poms, we are now supposed to believe that the Harper government will don its judge’s robes and become a disinterested observer of the project. It may stretch credulity, but it has to be done, for appearance’s sake at least.

Most importantly, the Conservatives need to distance themselves from a project that could become political poison on the campaign trail next year.

In some respects, Northern Gateway is a classic wedge issue, as it very neatly divides public opinion into two camps: For and against. The wedge issue strategy would assume that opposition to the project would split between the NDP and Liberals, while pipeline supporters would rally to the Conservative Party of Canada.

But there’s danger in that approach for the Tories. The assumption is voters who support pipeline projects generally support Northern Gateway; similarly, those who are against Northern Gateway are against pipelines in general.

That simplistic view ignores some fundamental differences between this project and other pipeline projects, like TransCanada’s Keystone XL and Energy East or Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain.

Northern Gateway proposes to push about 530,000 barrels a day of Alberta bitumen over the Rocky Mountains and through First Nations lands to the pristine northwestern coast of B.C. where an oil spill could have catastrophic consequences.

The other pipeline projects don’t have those same risks, and that makes all the difference to Canadians.