Kenney must pivot away from oil, coal

Fossil fuels suffered some big hits in Alberta last week.

And yet Premier Jason Kenney still can’t seem to get his head around the idea that the province needs to eventually pivot away from oil, natural gas and coal if it is to have a sustainable economy.

Pivot has become the operable word this year as many businesses have had to rethink how they sell their products and services amidst the restrictions of the pandemic.

But not for Jason Kenney.

He’s stuck like a needle on a vinyl record. And no matter the aggravating sound of fossil fuel investment being scratched over and over again, he simply won’t move on to a more realistic path.

The big hit last week was delivered courtesy of U.S President Joe Biden who revoked the permit for the Keystone pipeline, which would have shipped oil from Alberta’s tarsands to refineries south of the border.

It’s been a contentious on-again, offagain project for years due to opposition from environmentalists, Indigenous communities, climate change activists and the Obama administration.

It also became a conspicuous symbol of what U.S and Canadian activists see as the destructive forces of Alberta’s oilsands operations and their high carbon emissions. Just as he had long promised, Biden delivered the final death blow on his first day in office.

About 1,000 construction workers were laid off and Calgary-Based TC Energy will have to eat a lot of upfront costs.

But the cancellation was especially painful for Kenney, who just last March put $1.5 billion of public money, along with the promise of $6 billion more in loan guarantees, into the pipeline project so it would be completed sooner rather than later.

He must have assumed Donald Trump, a big supporter of the pipeline, would be re-elected. Bad bet.

And yet, instead of accepting that politics can be unpredictable — you win some, you lose some — he made the ludicrous suggestion that Canada put sanctions on U.S trade as a retaliatory measure. And then, of course, he blamed Justin Trudeau for not fighting hard enough for the pipeline.

When the rest of the free world was breathing a sigh of relief after Biden was peacefully inaugurated, Kenney was ranting about “fighting” for Alberta and against the U.S.

Kenney is also facing an insurrection at home over the development of another fossil fuel — coal.

Last May the UCP government quietly revoked a policy put in place by Peter Lougheed in 1976 that protected most of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains from coal mining. The policy covered a wilderness ecosystem that is key to the province’s water supply and protection of endangered species and stretches about 700 kilometres northward from the southwest corner of the province.

It is such a stunningly beautiful part of the world it takes your breath away time after time. Yet the policy was revoked before consultation with anyone except the coal industry and means that open-pit and mountaintop mining for metallurgical coal destined for steel plants in Asia is now permitted in areas where it was once prohibited.

Dozens of coal companies have snapped up new leases. Two already have project proposals on the drawing boards for previously restricted land.

But the opposition from farmers, First Nations, city councils, environmentalists, hikers, and campers has been furious. Celebrity musicians k.d. lang, Paul Brandt, and Corb Lund have joined the campaign. Two well-known ranchers are challenging the government in court. More than 100,000 signatures have been collected on two petitions.

Kenney steadfastly proclaims coal mining is warranted because it will create jobs. But these are jobs that look to the past not to a future that Alberta must pivot to if it is to transition to an economy that isn’t solely focused on extracting fossil fuels.

The fossil fuel era will be with us for years to come. Gasoline powered vehicles, diesel for jets and ships, and natural gas for electricity generation aren’t going to disappear overnight. But their days are numbered. And so may be Jason Kenney’s if he doesn’t stop sounding like a broken record.