Energy East would be good
Re: Green Jobs, Not Pipelines, letter to the editor, Jan. 21; Grudge Match, Claudia Cattaneo, Jan 22.
Denis Coderre and the other Montreal- area mayors, along with other politicians across Canada, continue to question the value of Energy East, and new pipelines in general. The answer is obvious to anyone with the intellectual honesty to look at it objectively.
All provinces without an energy industry are “have- not” provinces. Canada gets approximately $10 per barrel less for its oil, due to a lack of export pipelines. Quebec imports hundreds of thousands of barrels a day from the U.S. and Algeria, paying the world price and sending that money out of the country.
Building Energy East means not importing that oil and not sending that money out. It also means purchasing Canadian oil at the world benchmark price, which means much more money for equalization for the exact same barrels of oil currently being shipped via rail. Not to mention that a private Canadian company proposes to spend $15 billion of its own money on building this national infrastructure project, which is close to how much the government plans to spend on infrastructure every year, but without the need to take on more government debt.
Patrick Robinson, Calgary.
If Alberta thinks it will be able to move its oil across Quebec without that province extracting its pound of flesh, it needs to examine Newfoundland’s experience in trying to move electrical energy across that province without penalty. Newfoundland has yet to see a federal government with the political courage to enforce its right to do exactly that.
Alberta, like Newfoundland, can’t match Quebec’s federal seat count and now that the Liberal’s natural governing coalition of Quebec and Ontario have control of Ottawa, the courage to do what’s right for Alberta (or Newfoundland for that matter) is nothing more than a pipe dream. Quebec has always enjoyed a disproportionate influence on the national agenda and now that we have a prime minister who has publicly stated that he feels Quebecers are “better,” I fear nothing will change on the energy file for the foreseeable future.
Barry Imhoff, St. John’s.
Letter-writer Derek Wilson’s commendable commitment to combating global warming is not antithetical to Canada’s need for petroleum pipelines to tidewater ports. The current world economic crisis, which is primarily a result of falling oil prices, is proof that, for the foreseeable future, our prosperity is inextricably linked to the export of natural resources ( despite what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may say). Regrettably, our manufacturing and green energy sectors will for decades depend upon the artificial devaluation of the Canadian dollar, before even beginning to replace resources as the export engine of our economy. And a grossly devalued dollar is deadly to nearly all Canadians.
Canada’s oil exports are not responsible for global petroleum overproduction, or for global warming. Nothing we can do would have a significant impact on global greenhouse gas emissions, which can only be reduced, if at all, by steep reductions on the part of the real culprits — the U. S. and the BRICS countries — which seems highly unlikely. Meanwhile, we should take sensible, workable steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions without crippling our struggling economy.
Alexander McKay, Calgary.