PM and Notley’s political love affair a futile pipe dream

The political love affair between Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government and Rachel Notley, the New Democratic premier of Alberta, continues apace.

On Monday, Trudeau invited Notley to address his ministers at a cabinet retreat near Calgary.

She explained why the federal government should authorize more pipelines to bring Alberta oilsands crude to foreign markets.

They in turn gave her a standing ovation.

Later, speaking to reporters, Notley lauded Trudeau’s overall approach to pipelines.

And why not? The two think alike. Both prefer honey to vinegar.

Both reckon they can build political support nationwide for fossil fuel extraction only if they tie it — somehow — to fighting climate change.

Both know that if they want to have any kind of political support in Alberta proper, they must be onside with the province’s powerful petroleum industry.

Trudeau also knows that by cleaving to Notley on climate-change matters, he can avoid being outflanked on the left by Tom Mulcair’s federal NDP.

Nonetheless, in their search for acceptable pipelines, this pair of political fast friends may have embarked on a fruitless quest.

First, the politics of pipeline development have become so complicated that it’s hard to imagine any of the major proposed projects making their way successfully through the inevitable thicket of legal challenges.

Second, with oil prices staying low, the long-term future of Alberta’s high-cost oilsands is up in air.

Existing projects will continue to pump oil. The heavy fixed costs have already been incurred.

But new projects are being cancelled helter-skelter. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers now calculates that by 2030, oilsands production will be 857,000 barrels per day lower than previously predicted.

If this scenario holds or worsens, are new pipelines even needed? The industry group CAPP says yes. Yet its own figures show that existing pipeline capacity will be sufficient until about 2020, when production is expected to begin to level off.

Even if new pipelines are needed, the political and legal difficulties involved remain daunting.

That fact was underlined Tuesday by the National Energy Board’s decision to OK a relatively uncontroversial pipeline project, Enbridge’s 1,660-km Line 3 running from Alberta to Wisconsin.

This project involved replacing an old pipeline that has experienced ruptures with a newer version that could accommodate twice as much oil. The federal cabinet is expected to give its imprimatur in the fall.

Even then, however, the crossborder line faces opposition from environmentalists and Ojibwa communities in the U.S.

As the Star has reported, the expected start of construction has already been pushed ahead two years to 2019.

Does anyone really think that the proposed Energy East pipeline, which would bring crude oil from the Alberta tarsands to New Brunswick and which is being questioned by environmentalists and First Nations communities, would have an easier time?

In their attempts to reconcile oilsands exploitation with climatechange concerns, Trudeau and Notley have made use of the occasional logical contortion.

Both say that the only way Canada can afford to build a green economy free of fossil fuels is by exploiting and expanding fossil fuel production.

Trudeau made that argument in March in Vancouver. Notley made it this week at the federal cabinet retreat.

While both agree that climate change poses an immediate threat to Canada and the world, both also say governments must not move too quickly to meet that threat.

Speaking to students in New York last week, the prime minister warned against those who would halt fossil fuel development immediately, calling it a “simplistic solution” that would make the world “come to a crashing halt.”

He then proudly signed on to to an international climate change treaty that, if implemented, would do exactly that.

Is that a contradiction? In the world of logic, it is. Climate change is either an immediate threat to the planet’s future or it is not.

But as Trudeau and Notley understand so well, logic has little to do with practical politics. Or pipelines. Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.