TMX PRESENTS UNLIKELY PATH TO EV FUTURE
Western Divide could just be the loophole Trudeau is looking for, writes David Booth.
The prime minister, if pundits are to be believed, is between a Trans Mountain rock and a hard place. On one hand, he has alienated the West so thoroughly that he won not a single seat in Alberta and Saskatchewan, largely, say the analysts, based on his handling — the less charitable would say his mishandling — of Alberta’s need for a new oil conduit.
And that’s just with the dither and delay he has wrought so far. Imagine what will happen if he completely jettisons the proposed pipeline and all those millions of barrels of tax-generating fossil fuels become landlocked, the reports say. Worse yet, with his two potential suitors — the mostly green NDP and the almost-irish Bloc Quebecois — both lobbying with various degrees of vigour against Trans Mountain, the chattering class is convinced Alberta’s oil is doomed to remain permanently buried. Or is it?
Indeed, if Trudeau proved anything in his first term, it’s that he knows how to wriggle through loopholes that other politicians can’t even see. More surprising, however, is that I think there’s a good chance that the road to the Trans Mountain’s salvation runs right through both erstwhile accomplices’ forceful promotion of electric vehicles.
What if the be-socked one made one contingent on the other? In other words, Alberta can have its pipeline, but only on the condition that Canada adopt a truly aggressive electric-vehicle policy.
As a political manoeuvre, it is brilliantly Machiavellian. Alberta gets its pipeline, but Big Oil signs its own death warrant in the resultant EV mandate. As political intrigue, it would be absolutely captivating: Watching the NDP or Bloc try to justify that which they profess to hate most while Trudeau glides to re-election and at their expense will feed Rex Murphy for the next four years.
As for which suitor is most likely to respond to Trudeau’s implorations, I suspect Jagmeet Singh will get the first date. For one thing, the NDP — theoretically, at least — is supposed to care about jobs, and the oil industry is nothing if not a Godsend to the unemployed and disenfranchised. The NDP’S election promise of up to $15,000 rebates for EV owners is also easily implemented. The prime minister could simply credit his new “partner” with the bump while simultaneously — and Lord, I hope Gerald Butts is reading this — promote it as one of his “revenue neutrals,” the government largesse to enviroweenies offset by the greater revenues from a buoyant Alberta. This is quid pro quo at its best, but the big winner is Trudeau.
As for the NDP’S election promise that subsidization would be contingent on said EV being built in Canada, a simple workaround based on parts content rather than actual assembly would give Singh a publicly palatable talking point. Perhaps more importantly, automakers — save for Toyota, perhaps, which (rightly) believes that a CO2 reduction mandate is better policy than subventing electric vehicles — would be happy as clams. If you can’t make money when your product is getting subsidized by up to $23,000
(for example, in Quebec, where the province throws in an extra $8,000) then perhaps it’s time you got out of the auto business.
An alliance with the Bloc Quebecois would, I suspect, be a little more difficult to consummate. Quebecers’ antipathy toward pipelines is core to the province’s politics and Quebec’s policy on EVS is onerous. Automakers must sell a minimum number of plug-ins based on their sales. The penalty for every EV not sold is about $5,000 per car.
Claiming to force automakers to sell 450,000 EVS per year may be the sound-bite that Trudeau needs. The Bloc could sell Trans Mountain as a pox on Alberta and British Columbia while boasting that a made-in-quebec program is now national policy.
I believe Alberta will get its pipeline, but at what cost? As Virgil might have said: Timeo Trudeau et dona ferentes — beware Liberals bearing gifts.