Calling a truce
After a rough week in the energy sector, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley came to Queen’s Park seeking help. Her Ontario counterpart gave her the support she needed to stabilize the embattled Energy East project.
“We appreciate that there is a need for a way to get Canadian oil, which is allowed under Alberta’s new emission cap, to overseas markets,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said. “The people of this province care a great deal about the national economy and the potential jobs this proposed pipeline project could create.”
She did not endorse the proposed 4,600-km pipeline, which crosses six provinces to get Alberta crude to an eastern seaport. Nor did she say anything about the pipeline route now being reviewed by the National Energy Board. (A decision is expected in May.) Wynne merely signalled that her government would not block the pipeline’s passage through Ontario.
Her assurance came against a backdrop of plummeting oil prices; an announcement from Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and regional mayors they oppose Trans Canada’s proposed pipeline; and a speech by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a meeting of global power brokers that upset the oil patch. “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources,” he said. “I want you to know Canadians for their resourcefulness.”
The implicit suggestion that energy exports no longer matter prompted Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi to publicly differ with the prime minister: “Our biggest export is still energy and I do not see a path where that does not continue to be the case.”
By the time Notley arrived in Toronto, what she needed most was an ally with the political heft to call a truce in the incipient east-west battle. The Alberta premier welcomed Wynne’s carefully worded statement. “Our two provinces are pursuing the same goals,” she said. “We are working sustainable prosperity and real action on climate change.”
Last week’s flare-up was a foretaste of what lies ahead. If the project gets the go-ahead from the NEB, people in communities along the proposed route, local politicians and anti-pipeline activists will turn to the court of public opinion to put pressure on policymakers, including Wynne, to say no to Energy East.
The route can be changed; extra safeguards can be added. With Wynne’s help, Notley managed to buy a bit of time.
Alberta premier has bought some time in battle over pipeline