No end in sight to decade-long oilsands battle
NO RESOLUTION IN SIGHT TO DECADE-LONG FIGHT OVER THE OILSANDS
THEY WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO GO TO RIYADH AND PROTEST OIL IN SAUDI ARABIA. THEY WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO GO TO HUGO CHAVEZ’S VENEZUELA AND PROTEST. IT WAS A LOGICAL TARGET TO COME AFTER US. — FORMER ALBERTA INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS MINISTER GARY MAR THE TARSANDS WERE SENDING CANADA ON THE WRONG PATH.
Standing two storeys tall, the 180-tonne yellow dump truck parked on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., commanded attention all around Capitol Hill.
With tires four metres high, the Caterpillar 777F hauler — similar to the monster machines used in the oilsands — was the main attraction for Alberta’s exhibit at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in July 2006.
The behemoth machine symbolized the province’s growing energy bounty: a secure supplier of crude to the United States.
But in a global game of show and tell, the move would also backfire.
During that two-week stretch, the truck unexpectedly became a powerful symbol and prime target for a U.S. environmental movement searching for a focal point for its next campaign.
“It was a pivotal moment,” says Susan Casey-Lefkowitz with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington.
“When you bring a tarsands dump truck to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., it was like bringing the tarsands into our backyard. For the environmental groups in D.C., it was a moment of it sort of being, ‘They’ve brought this fight to us.’ ”
Greg Stringham, a vicepresident with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, journeyed to the U.S. capital and saw the giant truck draw crowds.
“I honestly believe that it was the trigger point for people to recognize what was going on up here — and see it as an opportunity to pit opposition against us,” says Stringham, who retired from the industry’s main lobby group this year.
As a result of the 10-year battle waged since then, concerns over energy infrastructure have stalled or torpedoed major pipeline projects at home and in the U.S., while Canada is trying to shed its international reputation as an environmental laggard.
At the same time, ambitious new environmental policies and climate targets are being promised in Alberta and federally to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the oilsands, the country’s fastest growing source of GHGs.
The tarry sands in northern Alberta have also influenced the country’s foreign policy, including relations with the U.S., China and European Union.
From 2006 until the end of 2014, industry invested a staggering $365 billion developing the oilsands.
With money coursing through northern Alberta, oilsands production more than tripled between 2000 and 2014, creating thousands of jobs and paying billions in taxes and royalties to governments.
Production now stands at almost 2.4 million barrels a day and is projected to rise by another 1.3 million barrels by 2030.
Former Alberta energy minister Murray Smith, who came up with the idea of taking the truck to Washington, is adamant the venture paid dividends.
“I wanted the (investors’) money here — and it came.”
However, former diplomat Colin Robertson, in charge of advocacy at the Canadian embassy in Washington at the time, says the extra attention had negative consequences.
“The environmental community was looking around for a target in terms of Big Oil, and we put ourselves into the headlights,” he says.
Seemingly overnight, the oilsands were attracting unflattering headlines and opponents, from former U.S. vice-president Al Gore to such Hollywood heavyweights as director James Cameron.
The European Union and the Obama administration, along with such groups as Greenpeace, began singling out the unconventional oil resource as a “dirty” form of crude, whether the title was accurate or not.
Between 2009 and 2015, cross-border oil trade between Canada and the United States soared by 80 per cent to almost 3.6 million barrels a day, according to consultancy IHS Energy.
It was inevitable groups opposed to fossil fuels would target this country, says former Alberta international relations minister Gary Mar.
“They would not be able to go to Riyadh and protest oil in Saudi Arabia. They would not be able to go to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and protest oil,” he says.
“It was a logical target for them to come after us.”
Chris Severson-Baker of the Pembina Institute, an environmental think-tank, says concerns about the cumulative effect of oilsands expansion were ignored by industry and governments more focused on boosting production.
Events such as the Smithsonian display demonstrated that Alberta and Canada were “tone-deaf to the issue,” Severson-Baker says.
Canada-U.S. relations specialist Chris Sands says the truck rolled into Washington at a “pivot point” in how U.S. decision makers and the public viewed the oilsands.
The post-9/11 push for energy security had shifted toward combating climate change, helping catapult Barack Obama to the White House in the 2008 presidential election.
In Ottawa, Stephen Harper’s Tories had promised as far back as their 2008 election platform to implement a North America-wide capand-trade emissions reduction plan, but never acted on that promise.
In 2007, Alberta tried to address the criticism by announcing a new $15-pertonne carbon levy for large emitters, such as oilsands facilities.
It was largely too little, too late.
South of the border, Gore put the “tarsands” squarely in his crosshairs, telling Rolling Stone magazine that oilsands extraction is “truly nuts.” Other environmental organizations such as Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation joined the fight.
In Canada, Greenpeace opened an office in Edmonton in the summer of 2007 to focus solely on the oilsands.
“The tarsands were sending Canada on the wrong path,” says Mike Hudema with Greenpeace Canada. “We felt the need to intervene to try to get us to change course.”
A decade later, major new oil pipelines like Northern Gateway, Trans Mountain and Energy East are stalled or in doubt.
In Ottawa, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is overhauling the country’s environmental assessment process to restore public confidence in how the National Energy Board (NEB) and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency review projects.
The conflict has also devolved into a prickly nationalunity issue.
Premiers such as Alberta’s Rachel Notley and Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall are calling on the rest of Canada to help get landlocked oil to new markets.
Mayors in Vancouver, Montreal and other communities say they’re not interested.
The federal Liberal government has also pledged a moratorium on tanker traffic on B.C.’s north coast, in large part because of concerns about the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to the West Coast.
Just last week, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the former Conservative government’s 2014 approval of Gateway, ruling the government failed to properly consult First Nations along the pipeline route.
Another pipeline to the West Coast, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion, was conditionally approved in May by the NEB, but the federal cabinet must announce its decision on it by December.
The biggest battle may lie ahead over the $15.7-billion Energy East pipeline.
NEB public hearings will begin in August on TransCanada’s 4,500-kilometre project, which would transport oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Quebec and on to a marine terminal in Saint John, N.B.
The common thread tying opposition to all the projects isn’t simply that they’re pipelines, but that they would transport oilsands bitumen.
While Harper said last year that approval of the Keystone XL pipeline should be a “complete no-brainer,” Obama later characterized the oilsands as “dirtier crude oil.”
(TransCanada, in late June, filed a North American Free Trade Agreement challenge on the project, seeking US$15 billion in damages.)
Last November, federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna got an earful about the oilsands — just days after Trudeau’s Liberals took office — during a trip to Paris for meetings before the United Nations climate conference.
“The first conversations I had were about the oilsands, and they were pretty negative,” McKenna says.
“Then I went back for COP21 (in late November and early December) and the conversation had totally changed.”
What changed in those few short weeks, McKenna says, is that Canada was now talking a new game on energy and the environment.
As well, the new Alberta government introduced in November an ambitious plan to phase in a $30-per-tonne carbon tax beginning next year and cap oilsands emissions at 100 megatonnes per year — about 30 Mt above current levels.
Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips believes the province’s plan has made a difference.
“The government of Alberta used to routinely go to these international climate meetings and be awarded Fossil Fool of the Day. There was no such talk when we were (in Paris).”
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr says that while the world is transitioning to renewable energy, the oilsands and pipelines will continue to play a key role in Canada’s energy mix.
“There is no contradiction between building a wind turbine and building a pipeline — we need them both,” he says.
However, federal data show Canada is drifting further away from its climate targets while the oilsands’ share of national emissions is projected to double by 2030.
The Liberals will announce a new climatechange plan at a first ministers meeting in late fall, which the federal government says will include carbon pricing and new national GHG targets.
Pembina’s Severson-Baker says environmental groups will want to see political promises turn into action.
“It will take a long time for the perceptions of Canada, Alberta and the oilsands to change,” he says.
Oliver is convinced the battle over developing the oilsands and pipelines has reached a tipping point.
The United States, Canada’s primary customer for oilsands crude, has found vast amounts of shale gas and oil, and won’t need to rely on Canadian energy as much in the future.
Trudeau’s “green cred is high” and he should capitalize on it, Oliver says.
“He has to get on his bully pulpit and talk about the importance of this to Canada.”
Key players on both sides of the bitumen divide believe the debate is evolving, but there is no resolution at hand.
“It’s really not compatible to have expansion of the tarsands while you’re at the same time fighting climate change,” says Casey-Lefkowitz. “The bottom line is: we need to be moving off of all fossil fuels.”
Stringham believes governments of all political stripes will have to make difficult decisions on pipelines and other energy issues.
“There’s no way to make absolutely everybody happy on this,” he says.
“What is the best for the country in the long run that minimizes impact and maximizes the benefits for our long-term good?”