Compromise, leadership needed to resolve pipeline dispute

There are ways to move situation forward, say Thomas Gunton and Mike Harcourt.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discovered on his recent visit to B.C., Canada is in the midst of a heated pipeline battle that will be costly to all Canadians. Threats of retaliation, court cases and the inevitable protests and blockades will leave us all worse off.

As we learned from B.C.’s war in the woods, resolving these types of conflicts requires strong leadership to seek compromise solutions.

Unfortunately, we are moving in the opposite direction. During his recent visit to B.C., Trudeau escalated the conflict by siding fully with the proponents of Trans Mountain, while showing little understanding of its critics.

He justified his position by stating that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion had been through a rigorous review and wouldn’t pose a risk to B.C.’s coast. He further stated that the project is necessary to meet Canada’s greenhouse-gas reduction targets and to ensure that Alberta receives world prices for its oil exports.

Opponents of Trans Mountain strongly disagree. They point out that the federal government’s own evaluation of the NEB process identified six critical questions that need to be answered before making a decision. Trudeau ignored the findings of his own report and his previous criticisms of the process, and approved the project without answering any of these questions.

Opponents also point out that Trans Mountain poses a significant risk to B.C., with a 77-percent probability of a spill in port and a 57-per cent median likelihood of a tanker spill. Given that we’re unable to clean up a spill, the damage to B.C.’s coast would be severe.

This is why the PM imposed a tanker ban for B.C.’s North Coast. Critics are left to wonder why he thinks the South Coast isn’t worthy of similar protection.

Opponents also question the logic that Trans Mountain is necessary to reduce GHG emissions and point out that Canada still hasn’t published a plan showing how it can meet its international climate-change commitments with the anticipated expansion of oil production.

While opponents have a strong basis for disagreeing with Trudeau on Trans Mountain, they should acknowledge that he raises some valid points. It’s in Canada’s national interest to ensure that Alberta oil is shipped to markets that pay world prices. To do so requires some new pipelines to accommodate the increase in oil production from projects currently under construction.

And even though we need to do more to reduce GHG emissions, Canada and Alberta deserve significant credit for their actions to date.

Like most conflicts, there is validity in both sides of the pipeline debate. The challenge is to find a compromise that meets the interests of Alberta to get its oil to world markets while protecting the environment and B.C.’s coast.

Fortunately, there are some options worth considering. Two pipeline projects — Keystone XL and Enbridge Line 3 — will add 1.3 million barrels per day of new capacity — more than enough to handle the half-million barrels per day of increased production from projects currently under construction.

Like Trans Mountain, these pipelines connect to world prices through the Gulf of Mexico. The advantage they have over Trans Mountain is that they achieve similar economic benefits with much lower environmental risk because they don’t require tanker traffic along vulnerable coastlines or construction in a city.

Other options are reconfiguring Trans Mountain with a scaled-down version, using its current pipeline serving refineries in Washington state, bypassing Vancouver and avoiding the use of tankers, or using new technologies such as converting bitumen into solid pellets that eliminate the risk of spills altogether.

While naysayers from both sides of the conflict will criticize these options, they clearly come much closer to meeting the interests of both sides of the debate than the path we are on.

The role of strong leadership is to bring parties together to seek compromises and avoid costly conflict. We learned that this is possible when we solved B.C.’s war in the woods.

Achieving balance between the environment, the economy and Canada’s national interest requires a new approach.