National Post (National Edition)
Why, and how, oil should be shipped in Canada’s Pacific waters
Parliament’s Upper House is considering the Trudeau government’s controversial tanker ban legislation that is meant to prevent large oil carriers from ever visiting any British Columbia port north of Vancouver Island. A group of senators is touring the west to understand the issue firsthand. The Senate has been described as the chamber of “sober second thought.” It’s needed now more than ever.
It’s a good thing the parliamentarians decided to hit the road because the impact of the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (Bill C-48) will be felt across the country.
Hearings this month in Terrace, Prince Rupert, Edmonton and Regina are providing far more on-the-ground testimony than the senators on the transportation committee could have heard in faraway Parliament Hill.
Bill C-48 has already cost the Canadian economy $270 billion because the previously approved Northern Gateway Pipeline was scrapped as the first step in making good on an unwritten, mid-campaign 2015 election promise by Justin Trudeau. That price represents the impact of writing off 30 years of GDP impact from the project.
In 2019, crude oil is still what pays the lion’s share of rent for Canada, to borrow the phrase of economist Patricia Mohr. Further, hundreds of billions in future investments and revenues are at risk of being switched off with the stroke of a pen if C-48 is passed as written.
Numerous witnesses have shown senators why Canadians are as competent managing marine traffic as anyone in an era when 7,400 oil tankers are afloat worldwide, routinely and safely sailing past the Galápagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, and countless other places of special ecological value. Fisheries, aquaculture, eco-tourism and marine protected areas are thriving elsewhere in Canada that have
oil ports and tanker traffic. Yet nobody is calling for a ban in Placentia Bay or the Bay of Fundy.
Some coastal First Nations strongly support C-48. However, other First Nations on the B.C. coast, especially the Nisga’a and Lax Kw’alaams to the northern part of the proposed ban area, are joined by many Indigenous groups inland in opposing the bill.
The 31 First Nations and Métis represented by the Aboriginal Equity Partners had been counting on $2 billion in benefits from the cancelled Gateway project. They believe that for Indigenous people who currently receive revenues from the federal Indian Resource Council, the opportunities closed off by C-48 equate to a family of six losing $18,000 a year.
Alberta premier Rachel Notley, days from an election, testified that the bill is really an Alberta ban, not a tanker ban, that will curb investment in needed oil sands innovation. Calgary-based energy economist Peter Tertzakian, renowned for his calm and shrewd assessment of market trends, let loose a string of epithets against C-48, calling it arrogant, inconsistent, unsettling, unfair, antagonistic, even threatening to the fabric of Canadian unity.
That’s probably a mild taste of what senators will hear on their Alberta and Saskatchewan stops.
To solve the impasse, one solution being proposed is an amendment that will protect maritime areas while allowing the potential for a tanker corridor. Senators have heard about protective regimes such as the International Maritime Organization’s Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas concept, an Indigenous-led response centre, and the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council formed in the wake of Alaska’s Exxon Valdez spill.
Any tanker corridor would require additional safety measures like rescue tugs and spill recovery equipment that would safeguard all shipping, not just tankers. Non-tanker ships continue to traverse these northern waters without adequate protection in place, even though a vessel may hold up to 40 per cent as much bunker oil (for fuel) as the Exxon Valdez spilled in 1989. That we are in deficit on this front was demonstrated by the slow response to the 2016 sinking of a fuel barge near Bella Bella.
Canadians are entitled to a minimum standard of analytical competence to be brought to bear in decision-making for major matters in relation to land and resource management when it affects national security and national economic interests. It’s not just one piece of legislation, either. The Liberal government is on the defensive about C-69, aimed at land-based resources, which some have dubbed the “pipeline killer” bill.
The best option is to amend C-48, providing for a corridor within which the shipping of oil products of national importance would be allowed under the strictest of safety regulations. If the Trudeau government won’t compromise on moving resources in Canada then the bill’s passage in the Red Chamber should be withheld pending the results of the upcoming federal election.
IN 2019, CRUDE OIL IS STILL WHAT PAYS THE LION’S SHARE OF RENT FOR CANADA, TO BORROW THE PHRASE OF ECONOMIST PATRICIA MOHR.