Prentice grows into a new role
Former minister emerges as passionate voice
(Prentice) has the privilege of seeing the world from both sides
Jim Prentice has found a new voice.
For anyone following the tone of the former MP’s speeches since he left elected office almost two years ago, they have gradually — assisted by the passage of time — become more critical of the government he was once a part of and more passionate about long-term issues affecting the country. In some ways Prentice, now a
CIBC executive, has become the perfect champion for the energy sector in its quest to diversify markets and attract investment capital. He has the privilege of seeing the world from both sides — the government and corporate — and thus speaks with authority.
The former federal Conservative cabinet minister spoke to a Calgary business crowd on Thursday, at a luncheon sponsored by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.
It was probably the most outspoken Prentice has been on the issue of how the federal government has failed in its approach to dealing with the challenging issues regarding Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline. In Prentice’s words, “… the Crown obligation to engage First Nations in a meaningful way has yet to be taken up.”
Instead, that responsibility has been dumped on the National Energy Board, which, as former Canada West Foundation chief executive Roger Gibbins said during a panel discussion in Vancouver this week, is not the NEB’s mandate.
It’s time for Ottawa to work and negotiate with First Nations to achieve the comprehensive social license to operate that is so badly needed in order for a project such as Northern Gateway to proceed, Prentice said Thursday.
From his perspective, it appeared, were the federal government to be issued a report card on the job it is doing on the ground in Canada to further its agenda of access Asian markets, there would be more than one ‘F’ on the page.
It has been said more than once — and Prentice referred to it again Thursday — that a natural resource bounty does not an energy superpower make. It’s how the resources are developed that determines whether that lofty status is ever reached.
The key issue for Canada — whose economy is heavily dependent on energy exports — is that the primary customer for our oil is a country whose domestic production is increasing and demand is falling. On a long-term basis, even if TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline receives approval after the U.S. presidential election in November, it’s not going to be enough for Canada. It’s important not to be lulled into a false confidence that this will suffice.
“We need to ‘un-gum’ market access with the U.S. and we need to build out market access to the Asia Pacific,” Prentice said.
And that’s what needs to remain at the forefront of all discussions.
“Canada is in the midst of a very important geopolitical chess game on energy and the next move involves the CNOOC-Nexen transaction and is therefore important. However, we should not lose sight of the bigger prize, which is market access. And we need to be cognizant of that in making the decision on CNOOCNexen and not lose our perspective,” Prentice said in an interview with the Herald.
“And that perspective needs to be that diversified market access, market access into Asia, especially China, is of fundamental importance to Canada’s prosperity.”
In other words, we need to think about the bigger picture — and not get stuck looking at the issue of market access on a project-by-project basis, which is where we seem to be these days. If the discussion isn’t about Northern Gateway, it’s about whether CNOOC’s $15.1 billion takeover of Nexen should receive the federal government’s blessing.
And from where Prentice is sitting, not approving the deal would represent a “turning back” on a road that has been travelled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, both of whom, he says, have worked diligently to strike what he called a strategic partnership between the two countries, which is of fundamental importance to Canada’s economic future.
“Turning down the CNOOCNexen transaction would represent a turning back on that road — and I believe it would be seen as such,” said Prentice.
Not approving the transaction would effectively render Canada in the role of “Lucy” from the Peanuts cartoon strip — pulling the football away just as China — Charlie Brown — is ready to kick it.
Despite the somewhat hysterical rhetoric that’s surfacing regarding the CNOOC-Nexen deal, which some may interpret as xenophobia – Prentice was of the view the deal will ultimately be approved for four key reasons:
“We need foreign capital to develop the oilsands, we must develop a strategic partnership with China and obtain market access for our energy, Nexen’s assets are largely outside the country and the quantum of Chinese ownership in the oilsands is less than 10 per cent. The incremental demand for the next 50 years is almost entirely Asian and we have to be able to service that demand if we are to continue to be prosperous.”
The economic historian and Harvard professor, Niall Ferguson, has been more than vocal on the economic table tilting eastward; Canada has the opportunity to be part of the new world economic order, but only if it prudently plays the global energy chess game and carefully considers the consequences of each move.