HOW TO CREATE JOBS, BOOST ECONOMY: RESURRECT ENERGY EAST.

Domestic security and export potential

Here's a brilliant idea to create jobs and economic development that Canada's hapless Liberal government has never thought of: resurrect Energy East, the proposed pipeline linking Western Canadian oil to Quebec and Atlantic Canada that was killed without justification due to the prime minister's unflagging capitulation to environmental crazies and Quebec nationalists.

That is just one of several energy policy initiatives put forth in a Feb. 25 report published by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI).

“The revoking of Keystone XL's permit by U.S. President Joe Biden (on) his first day in office highlights the risk for Canada of depending on a single country for its petroleum product exports,” wrote Miguel Ouellette in his report. “This economic note points out that the construction of new pipelines on Canadian soil would help the country reduce this risk and maximize revenues from oil exports, thus encouraging job creation and improving Canadians' living standards.”

MEI is a non-profit, pro-enterprise think tank that's run by Montreal lawyer Michel Kelly-Gagnon. Its paper, titled Canada Must Reconsider Its Pipeline Strategy, is a breath of fresh air in a national conversation that has been mired since 2015 in prime ministerial incompetence, ethical breaches, vaccine shortages, environmental claptrap and anti-enterprise bias in Ottawa.

Building Energy East — which wouldn't have to start from scratch given that the proposal was to repurpose an existing pipeline that runs from Western Canada to Quebec — would allow us to deal with the loss of Keystone XL and provide the added benefit of displacing around 500,000 barrels of oil a day that are imported into Eastern Canada from the despicable Saudi Arabian regime.

Canada's oil and gas sector is the most important industry in the country. Directly or indirectly, it employs over 830,000 workers and accounts for 10 per cent of GDP. The report points out that it also pays Ottawa an average of $14 billion a year, which is equivalent to half of all provincial deficits during the pandemic, and managed to reduce oilsands emissions by 36 per cent between 2000 and 2018.

The reality is that, whether the environmentalists like it or not, demand for oil will persist for decades to come and Canada's oil and

gas will be needed. New export markets must be developed and pipelines must be built inside Canada to get our commodities to tidewater. The Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion and a liquefied natural gas plant in British Columbia are already under construction for that purpose. The alternative — transporting oil by rail or truck — is more costly and hazardous.

“The point is not to call into question the relevance or the security of transporting fuel by train, ship or truck, but rather to highlight the benefits associated with pipelines and to show that new pipeline projects in no way compromise our safety or the protection of our natural environment,” Ouellette noted.

And there's little doubt that Canada must diversify its customer base for its most important exports. “Putting all of its eggs in the same basket is … a risky strategy for Canada,” Ouellette wrote. “Several world markets will experience substantial growth in oil demand by 2045. Demand will surge by 130 per cent in India, and by more than 40 per cent in a number of other Asian countries. This is a golden opportunity for Canada, not only to increase the value of its exports, but also to change its risky, one-client strategy.”

Expansions of natural gas pipelines, and future projects to transport hydrogen, should also be undertaken, the report suggests. Of immediate concern, however, is the possibility that the Americans may block Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline through Michigan, which is of critical importance to Ontario. That line must be replaced with one that doesn't cross an international border.

MEI's report should be required reading for every elected and unelected official in Canada and shoved down the throats of the Liberal government. This is because, as it concludes, “All Canadian families benefit from a strong and financially stable energy sector, and we owe it to ourselves to maintain it.”

OPPORTUNITY ... TO CHANGE

ITS RISKY, ONE-CLIENT STRATEGY.

FREDERIC HORE / POSTMEDIA NEWS FILES Melissa Lachance of Montreal looks at a map of the proposed Energy East pipeline at a rally in 2015 organized by Greenpeace and other groups opposed to the project. The reality is that, whether the environmentalists like it or not, demand for oil will persist for decades to come and Canada's oil and gas will be needed, Diane Francis writes.