ALBERTA OIL FACING ‘CRISIS’: PM
Protesters want action
“Code 1000, Code 1000,” crackled over the police radio Thursday morning.
Postmedia’s photo editor, Al Charest, thought there had been a plane crash or some other tragedy. Technically, Code 1000 in police speak means “civil disaster.”
There was no disaster.
In fact, police were expecting three different groups to protest outside of the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Calgary where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was going to speak.
A huge police presence — including officers on horseback — blocked off Centre Street to accommodate an estimated crowd of more than 2,000 mostly pro-energy protesters chanting “build the pipe” and “kill the bill” outside of where Trudeau was spouting little more than platitudes to a nearly silent crowd of 600 inside the hotel.
Clearly, the inside folk weren’t buying what the PM was selling.
Trudeau got limp applause as he took the stage at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce event and an even less enthusiastic response when he finished.
He was not once interrupted by spontaneous applause, though it’s clear Calgarians were nearly desperate to hear a new announcement from the federal Liberal government that would have elicited that response.
“Maybe he’ll announce that they’re killing Bill C-69 today,” said a hopeful protester, carrying a CanadaAction.ca sign appropriately calling on Trudeau to “Kill Bill C-69.”
Bill C-69 is the impact assessment act that the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association has said, if passed, would kill the chances of any new pipelines being built in this country.
Katrina Ali, a joint venture and marketing administrator at a downtown oil firm, carried a sign that read: “Apply the same standards to foreign oil.”
Touché! The high environmental and regulatory oversight faced by Alberta producers is not similarly expected from the Saudis or any other country that supplies oil to eastern and Central Canada.
“I am here because I feel the prime minister has taken a very passive stance to our energy industry,” said Ali, who was standing on Centre Street.
“What we do here in Alberta doesn’t just benefit Alberta, it helps the entire country. He (Trudeau) should make that clear to the entire country, but I think he likes to have different messages for different audiences.”
Russ Huck, a petroleum engineer with Bellatrix Exploration, was holding a sign that rhetorically asked: “Where was Bombardier’s emissions review?” Exactly.
He’s referring to TransCanada cancelling the Energy East pipeline last year after Trudeau’s government moved the goalposts on the project, requiring that the emissions caused by end users of the oil — such as planes, trains and automobiles — be calculated on the pipeline’s balance sheet.
“All we’re really after here is fairness across the country,” said Huck. “The federal government is always coming to the aid of Ontario- and Quebec-based industries like the auto and aviation sector, but they’re constantly adding burdens to Alberta’s oil and gas industry, the most environmentally friendly, socially-conscious oil in the world.”
“Do you think he’s going to make a big announcement?” Huck asked.
No such luck. Trudeau’s visit came one day after federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau delivered the fall economic statement.
In Morneau’s 2,398-word speech in the House of Commons on Wednesday, exactly 26 words referred to the oil price differential gap that Trudeau called a “crisis” Thursday morning during a scrum with reporters in Calgary.
There’s that “different messages for different audiences” tendency mentioned by Ali.
Imagine if Ontario’s auto sector or Quebec’s aerospace industry were in crisis. It would have led and dominated Morneau’s speech.
During Trudeau’s comments he criticized his predecessor, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.
“Over a decade in power, they couldn’t build a single pipeline to new markets,” said Trudeau. “But they did succeed in building up one thing: opposition. Opposition to pipelines and opposition to our vital resource sector.”
Many in the crowd turned to whisper in the ear of the person next to them. It’s likely they were pointing out that it was Trudeau who unilaterally killed Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline last July, after it had withstood rigorous and costly regulatory processes and was passed in the House of Commons. Among those who stood in opposition to that pipeline was Trudeau himself and Alberta’s NDP. It’s utterly galling.
As Tim McMillan, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said during an interview Wednesday, “The cancellation of Northern Gateway was the most damaging thing that’s been done to our economy.”
During the question-andanswer portion of the luncheon, Calgary Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Sandip Lalli asked Trudeau: “Isn’t it funny, though, that Canada is a political risk and you had to buy a pipeline?” she said referring to Ottawa’s purchase of Trans Mountain.
Bill C-69 is going to make Canada even more of a political risk, as that bill would allow the minister of the environment to cancel any large energy project simply because she feels like it.
While the feds took some laudatory steps Wednesday to incentivize capital investment in Canada, for Alberta, it really is a Code 1000.