Northern Gateway
Pipeline a beachhead in B.C. tanker port battle.
KITIMAAT VILLAGE, B.C. — In the middle of an interview, Gerald Amos stoops to pick up his three-year-old granddaughter. Continuing, he hands her blueberries on demand.
Visible in the distance is the port of Kitimat and the wouldbe terminus of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry oilsands bitumen from Bruderheim to tankers anchored here.
The scene is a simple example of why the Haisla elder and former chief doesn’t need words to explain his opposition to the project. It is his duty, he said, to protect this land for his granddaughter and for those who will come after her.
“Some people are very poor. All they have is money,” said Amos.
But Enbridge’s proposed pipeline is only the beachhead of what proponents and critics agree will be a watershed battle to open a tanker port that can deliver oil from landlocked Alberta to the Pacific Rim markets. If Northern Gateway fails to win approval, there will be other proposals.
“This is a highly strategic project for Canada, one of the most trade-dependent of the G8 nations, and oil is our most important export,” says John Carruthers, president of Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines.
United States demand is decreasing and their production is increasing, he said.
“It’s very important for Canada to access the Pacific Rim market, effectively doubling the size of our market.”
The British Columbia shore is a mere 8,000 kilometres from the insatiable energy market of China, worth an estimated $270 billion in growth to Canada’s bottom line over 30 years and $2.6 billion in local,
“The Haisla would have to see a 100 per cent guarantee that there would be no spills. We all know that isn’t possible” ELLIS ROSS, CHIEF COUNCILLOR, HAISLA NATION
provincial and federal government tax revenues.
If the project goes through, following a rigorous review process that will continue next year, by 2020 an expected 3.5 million barrels a day will be produced in the Alberta oilsands.
The oil is there. Canada is second only to Saudi Arabia when it comes to proven reserves of crude, with an estimated 175 billion barrels of recoverable oil, 99 per cent of it from the Alberta oilsands. But production has outstripped pipeline capacity and Canadian producers are losing an estimated $30 a barrel because they are forced to sell to refineries in the U.S. Midwest.
The force of the economic argument to build the pipeline aimed at opening Canada up to the Asian market is real. But Nathan Lemphers of the Pembina Institute, a sustainable policy think-tank, believes other factors at play in the debate over Northern Gateway will continue to hold force.
“Many people thought it was inevitable five years ago that a pipeline would be built and yet we’re seeing significant and real opposition from a lot of concerned British Columbians