Industry goes on offensive
Pipeline group launches ‘Integrity First’
Canada’s pipeline industry continued Thursday to counter a string of public relations disasters by announcing an “Integrity First” strategy to improve pipeline safety and the industry’s “social performance.”
Canadian Energy Pipeline Association president Brenda Kenny told a news conference that the strategy was actually launched four years ago, and a news release was issued as recently as a year ago.
But Kenny told reporters in Ottawa that CEPA is taking a “much more aggressive and organized” approach under the Integrity First banner to convince Canadians pipelines are crucial to Canada’s economy and safer than other forms of energy transportation.
Kenny provided no specific details on new safety measures, although she did say Calgary-based CEPA will launch specific new measures to educate the public.
She acknowledged that some Canadians might view the effort with a cynical eye, given growing controversy over major spills involving Enbridge, proponent of the $6-billion oilsands pipeline to the B.C. coast.
“I’m concerned ... some people will think that, and we can’t change their mind today,” she said.
“We can be above board and straight-shooting and I hope that if there are cynics with this announcement today, they will be proven wrong.
“This is absolutely not a PR (public relations) exercise.”
Enbridge took out ads this week in Canadian newspapers to defend the integrity of its pipeline operations.
The industry’s outreach efforts come weeks after a U.S. regulator compared Enbridge to the “Keystone Kops” due to the company’s bungled handling of a massive 2010 bitumen crude spill in Michigan.
At the time, Kenny called the label “gratuitous,” but last week Heritage Minister James Moore heaped similar scorn on Enbridge over its failure to win British Columbians’ trust on the Northern Gateway project.
Adding to the woes was a U.S. regulator’s decision to set tough terms to ensure safety after a late-July Enbridge pipeline rupture that resulted in about 1,200 barrels of crude leaking onto a Wisconsin field.
Kenny said it’s her job to deal with “gratuitous” shots from politicians, although she wouldn’t say if Moore’s assault on Enbridge was gratuitous.
She said CEPA members have averaged three “significant” spills a year between 2002 and 2011.
“Three incidents are three too many,” she said in a prepared statement handed out to reporters. “CEPA Integrity First will help us to reach zero incidents.”
But she acknowledged that the industry can’t offer guarantees that there won’t be a worst-case scenario.
“Our goal is zero, the same way Air Canada’s goal is zero.”
The campaign’s goal is to point out the crucial importance of pipelines to the Canadian economy.
“We would need five and a half million trucks a year to replace the oil pipeline network in Canada,” she said.
“We need pipelines in Canada unequivocally ... it is far safer and environmentally sound compared to any other option. Until each of us chooses to walk everywhere we go, we will be using pipelines for quite a while.”
Kenny acknowledged that the industry hasn’t done a good enough job of educating the public.