National Post (National Edition)
A very refreshing premier
couple of Ontario gas plants a couple of elections ago.
We have long since learned, and from a thousand examples, that the promises of most politicians barely survive the time it takes to make them. Antiques like me remember the bitter mocking Pierre Trudeau once gave Robert Stanfield on the latter’s promise to introduce wage and price controls — “Zap! You’re frozen!,” said the wily Trudeau — only to pirouette mere days after an election to introduce … wage and price controls.
Pledges three, four or 10 decades out are perfect vapourings. To call them useless is to elevate their dignity. To build present-day policy under the umbrella of such projections is to blend fantasy and irresponsibility.
Essentially that’s what we have been watching at the premier’s conference this week in St. John’s. Those premiers who are extremely confident on the events of 2050 — Quebec’s and Ontario’s being the leaders, Rachel Notley of Alberta looking very much like an ally — and who are awash in self-esteem about how their ardent “commitments” to reduce global warming (the ignis fatuus of our day) want the present to act as hostage for their dreams.
One premier, however, who seems seriously stuck in the present, and who is unaccountably concerned with such trivial matters as Canadian jobs and the contribution the energy industry has made to all parts of Canada, who has the outlandish idea that the use of the word “oil” in public is not a pure blasphemy, takes a different view. Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall is utterly untinged with the mysticism of some of his fellow premiers, and astonishingly — it is very “incorrect” to say obvious things — mounts a public defence of the central industry of this entire country.
How outrageous he has been can be gleaned from just a few of his remarks. “There is a growing sense of frustration in the West that our economies have been creating significant opportunities for all Canadians” is one of those statements. It carries the clear implication that since this is so — the Western oil industry has helped all Canadians — it is a little more than curi- ous there is so little encouragement or support for that industry. Indeed, it’s rather the opposite. Any opportunity to hobble it, or to put it in harness to an environmental agenda, is leaped at by some. In this contest 2050 always wins over 2015.
Premier Wall had the nerve to allude to the new and trendy concept of “social licence.” He didn’t add, but he very well could have, that there was no talk of “social licence” when it came to getting jobs in the oil industry, or contracts with companies outside the west, or working with university science and engineering programs, or contributing to the national economy during the most turbulent economic period in a generation. The venue of the conference, Newfoundland, is the grand illustration of all these points. Offshore oil, and western oil, salvaged Newfoundland during its greatest economic and cultural crisis since Confederation.
On the great pipeline debate Wall was ruthless enough to put the matter in very plain terms, which in the context of global warming is a faux pas of unimaginable dimensions. “In terms of a licence to build a pipeline, or in this case, simply convert a pipeline to move western energy across the country, how about $10 billion in equalization?” This was terribly bad manners. To talk about equalization in 2015, and draw a connection with oil coming out of the sea and land today, when the discussion could have been about the world applauding the forward vision of Ontario and how it will have cooled the world circa 2050, was so very déclassé.
Ms. Notley of Alberta, whom one would have thought would be onside with this line of thought, to the contrary, seemed to take some offence. She accused Mr. Wall of “showboating.” Au contraire. The showboating, if any is to be noted, really is in the camp of those who prattle on about their “specific” commitments in a year when all of them will be so long out of office that it will be necessary to look up their names in the mid-century’s version of Wikipedia. “Showboating” might better describe holding Canada’s major job-creating industry hostage to the ideology of an aggressive and debate-intolerant global warming industry. Or, it might really fit another premier, who hosts the Qatar-rich Al Gore — who received $500 million not long ago from that oil-gurgling fiefdom — to offer advice on Ontario’s stumbling, confused and costly green policies. (I’d mention the recent protest visit to Ontario from another Nostradama, Jane Fonda, but there is no need to be sadistic.)
Finally, Mr. Wall might have thrown one more cat in the midst of the self-satisfied pigeons. Why are the producers of energy given all the weight of environmental opposition, and not the users? The users, of course, are everyone — business, industry generally, manufacturing in particular, automobile companies and all who drive, schools, towns, households and even those who manufacture solar panels and the great whirring windmills of our future. Everyone uses energy. The country’s economy is inextricably bound up with energy. Yet those provinces who supply it, and offer jobs and security to the rest of us, are the only ones continually in the dock.
There is something seriously illogical here, and it is pleasing to see one premier with the daring to state how very illogical it all is. If he’s around in 2050, we should make him prime minister.
Why is Brad Wall the only one of the bunch who seems as concerned with
2015 as he is 2050?
But I sympathize with farmers whose routines will be disrupted, those who can’t escape the noise pollution, and residents who will be trapped in their homes by road closures and traffic gridlocks.
(How ironic it is to see uber-environmentalist Neil Young featured in the coming concert, given his commitment, stated in Farm Aid, to “build(ing) a system of agriculture that values family farmers, good food, soil and water, and strong communities.”)
This may seem like a parochial issue, affecting one small district but, given the scope of Republic Live’s ambitions, the illegality of the project and the anti-democratic nature of the process, the Battle of Burl’s Creek should be a cautionary tale for similar paradises all over Canada.
Republic Live spokespeople have boasted that Burl ’s Creek’s planned expansion will make it “Canada’s largest outdoor event venue.” For rock fans — here today, gone tomorrow — thrilling words. For residents, farmers and environmentalists — here today, here tomorrow — chilling words.