Energy plan prompts sabre rattling at summit
Wall was irritated and combative; Notley, smiling and upbeat
He should have arrived with a cutlass in hand and maybe a parrot on his shoulder. Flying the Jolly Roger would have been a nice touch, too. At least then Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall would have looked the part — the pirate who sailed into the annual Council of the Federation meeting Thursday and fired a broadside at Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. And she shot right back. Wall was irritated and combative; Notley, smiling and upbeat. The political skirmish, taking place at the Sheraton Hotel is over the Canadian Energy Strategy — a work- in- progress plan by premiers to fast- track the construction of energy pipelines while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Actually, Notley inadvertently sparked the conflict with Wall even before the premiers got together.
On Tuesday, after a preconference breakfast meeting with Quebec Premier Phillippe Couillard, Notley told reporters that to get approval for future oilsands pipelines — such as the proposed Energy East project to ship Alberta bitumen to New Brunswick — she has “an obligation to show that we’re taking real action on climate change concerns.”
An angry Wall took that to mean Alberta was willing to give Quebec — and any other province, for that matter — a de facto veto on energy pipelines that cross their jurisdiction. “That part I objected to, I still object to it,” said Wall, premier of an energy- rich province himself. “To intimate that ‘ you can have our approval, but what we’d like to see, though, is you change your carbon price maybe or change your policies in general,’ ... that’s not on.”
Wall said the final word on pipelines rests with the National Energy Board and the federal government, not the provinces.
He then used the media to hector other premiers, reminding them that over the years billions of dollars have flowed, via federal equalization payments, from energy- producing provinces to have- not provinces. Notley dismissed Wall’s assertion that Alberta was offering other provinces a veto over pipeline construction as “simply ridiculous.”
With a smile on her face, she then needled Wall by suggesting he was “showboating” and added, “You don’t get things done by picking fights with people gratuitously. You do get things done by having good conversations.”
Left unsaid is the fact Wall is facing an election battle in April — against the NDP.
His fight with Notley would seem to be a warm- up to his own fight back home.
Notley, for her part, says she wants to take a friendlier tack to help get more pipelines built: “What I am doing is engaging in a constructive, responsive, collaborative discussion with my colleagues across the country, which acknowledges the political realities and frankly, the opinions of not only Canadians in other provinces, but also Albertans.”
One of those realities is that even though the federal government has the final say on the construction of crosscountry pipelines, premiers can erect never- ending barriers — as B. C. Premier Christy Clark has demonstrated.
Another reality is that Quebec and Ontario have joined together to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They’re not going to look kindly on the Energy East pipeline if they think it’s going to undo the work they’ve already started.
“We think climate change cannot be disassociated from an energy strategy, certainly not in 2015,” said Couillard after Thursday’s session.
Couillard said rather than thinking the economic argument justifies the environmental impact of a pipeline, it should be the other way around.
Premiers see the Canadian Energy Strategy as so important that after spending much of Thursday afternoon discussing the issue, they’re going to go at it again Friday morning. Conference chair Newfoundland Premier Paul Davis said he’s optimistic the premiers can work out an agreement. They just have to find a way to prevent Wall from scuppering their ship.