Strike a safe balance in shipping oil

There is no more vexed question in Canadian politics than what to do about pipelines.

All three party leaders are struggling to maintain a safe balance between getting Alberta’s landlocked oil to market and protecting the environment. Any election candidate who strays from the script risks a withering partisan attack, as Toronto Centre New Democrat Linda McQuaig discovered five days into the campaign.

Party leader Thomas Mulcair quickly stepped in to get things back on an even keel, saying an NDP government would allow pipelines under much stricter conditions. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s position is virtually identical. The Conservatives claim they already subject pipeline proposals to a rigorous environmental review process.

Not only is this stifled debate unhealthy, it is misleading.

What no one is doing is putting the issue in context by examining the alternatives to pipelines, comparing the risks and benefits of moving oil (and its tar-like cousin bitumen) by pipeline, rail or tanker.

It is as if the explosion of a train carrying volatile crude through Lac-Megantic two years ago — killing 47 and leveling part of the town — had no impact on public thinking or political decision-making.

People are worried about pipelines, as the Ontario Energy Board pointed out last week in its report on the $12-billion Energy East pipeline expansion proposed by TransCanada Corp. A major spill could contaminate drinking water, endanger wildlife and destroy aboriginal hunting grounds, says the board, which regulates the province's electricity and natural gas sectors. What the board did not do — and had no mandate to do — was compare those risks to the threat of derailments and fireballs. Such incidents are becoming more frequent and more dangerous as oil shipments increase.

A study released recently by the Fraser Institute offered a wider perspective. It showed that pipelines are 4.5 times safer than trains for transporting oil over long distances. The think tank analyzed federal statistics from 2003 to 2013 and found that derailments and above-ground spills posed a greater hazard to public health and safety than pipeline leaks.

The research was not definitive. It did not measure the magnitude of the damage cause by underground ruptures compared to the harm done by above-ground accidents. Although it acknowledged that 85 per cent of oil in Canada is moved by pipeline, it minimized the imbalance by comparing the number of occurrence (accidents, spills and leaks) per million barrels transported. Its injury rates included only pipeline and rail workers, not victims outside the energy sector.

Despite these shortcomings, the study was a timely reminder that presenting the pipeline question as a simple choice between the economy and environment creates a false dichotomy. Oil producers will use whatever means are available to get combustible fuels to market. They answer to their shareholders, not the people along the path of their transport route.

Canada needs a prime minister who will act in the public interest. That means evaluating all options — not just pipelines — and taking into account not only energy sales and climate change, but also aboriginal rights, public safety and the needs of consumers. It requires tough, responsible trade-offs.

The nation is ill-served by a one-dimensional debate about a complex issue.

(An editorial from the Toronto Star, published Aug. 17.)