The place Alberta really needs to take sales pitch is Montreal
Energy East debate threatens to turn into cross-country yelling match
Alberta’s premier visited the wrong province this week. Or maybe she didn’t visit enough provinces.
Rachel Notley went to Toronto to make a speech Thursday and met Friday with Ontario’s premier.
She should have gone to Quebec to meet with Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and personally presented him with a copy of Alberta’s new climate change strategy.
Maybe then he wouldn’t have announced his opposition to the proposed Energy East pipeline project that would pump Alberta’s oilsands bitumen to the East Coast for shipment overseas.
Maybe he would have been impressed by Notley’s plan to reduce Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out coalfired electricity plants, putting a cap on oilsands emissions and introducing a carbon tax.
Maybe he would buy into Notley’s argument that by cleaning up Alberta’s environmental record, she deserves the approval of fellow Canadians to get more pipelines built to get more of her province’s energy products to market. Then again, maybe not. When Coderre made his announcement Thursday on behalf of 82 communities in the Montreal area, he said the pipeline “still represents significant environmental threats and too few economic benefits for greater Montreal.”
The issue for Coderre isn’t that Alberta is cleaning up its environmental image, but that an accidental spill from the Energy East pipeline would despoil Quebec’s environment.
That he didn’t even mention Notley’s new climate change strategy clearly irked the Alberta government. It reacted quickly, but oh so politely.
“The people of Alberta are now doing our share to combat climate change,” said Economic Development Minister Deron Bilous, who pointed to the importance of Alberta’s oil industry to Canada’s economy, not just Alberta’s. He labelled Coderre’s opposition “ungenerous and short-sighted.”
The good news for Alberta is Coderre doesn’t get to decide the fate of Energy East. That’s a federal responsibility via the National Energy Board and the federal cabinet.
Nevertheless, Coderre’s comments stirred up a hornet’s nest of anger from the West, including Wildrose Leader Brian Jean, who called the mayor a hypocrite for complaining about a possible pipeline spill, after Montreal deliberately dumped billions of litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River last November.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall suggested Montreal might want to “politely” return billions of dollars in equalization payments “supported by the West.”
Things deteriorated from there.
Coderre refused to yield and returned fire, pointing out that there are four million people in the Montreal area while Wall represents just 1.1 million people. Coderre then took a cheap shot at Jean: “You have to allow me a moment to laugh at a guy like Brian Jean when he says he relies on science. These are probably the same people who think the Flintstones is a documentary.”
The discussion over the Energy East pipeline threatens to become just what Notley is trying to avoid: an emotional yelling match between the East and the West. Coderre is not adding to a rational debate.
But do Jean and Wall really think their rhetoric is going to win over Coderre? Or are they simply playing to frustrated constituents in Alberta and Saskatchewan for political points, especially when Wall is heading to an election this spring?
However, saner heads prevailed.
Notley held a joint news conference Friday with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who praised Alberta’s climate change strategy, saying, “it makes it much easier now to talk about how we can work together.”
Then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau waded into the discussion from Switzerland: “I’m very much in the camp of both premiers Wynne and Notley, who demonstrated that Canada can and should work together on eco-issues for all of us.”
That was music to Notley’s ears. That’s the kind of conversation she’s desperately trying to generate, one that just might help get the $15-billion Energy East project approved.
It’s a conversation based on the province’s climate change strategy.
It’s a conversation she needs to take to Montreal.
The good news for Alberta is (Montreal Mayor) Denis Coderre doesn’t get to decide the fate of Energy East.