Feds should have invested in refineries

Canadians will soon own an energy company as a crown corporation. Unfortunately, the purpose of the new business is to complete the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Other than the U.S., Canada is one of the largest energy producers without a stateowned energy company. That changed last week.

It is time for our leaders to take a step back and develop energy policy that is to the benefit of Canadians.

The federal government’s taxpayer-funded takeover of the Trans Mountain pipeline is misguided. The pipeline is the preferred solution for foreign owned oil companies operating in Alberta; many have their own refining capability south of the border. Most of the output of the existing Trans Mountain line goes to refineries in the U.S. northwest. If Alberta exports rather than refines, the self-interest of the U.S.-based refineries is protected. Investing in a pipeline will generate little long term employment in either B.C. or Alberta.

Building a refinery in Alberta would create construction and permanent jobs. It would decrease Canada’s dependency on imports from foreign countries. The tax benefits to fund our social programs would be greater. The Albertans would receive greater economic spin-offs. We British Columbians would avoid the environmental risk of transporting diluted bitumen and hopefully lower fuel costs.

The United States administration cannot be trusted. In looming trade wars and the demise of NAFTA, Canadians should be concerned with energy security. B.C. in particular would be affected if fuel imports from Washington were cut off.

Extracting bitumen by mining is ecologically and economically one of the worst ways of oil production. The expansion of tar sands mining by encouraging more bitumen exports is a problem for most progressives.

There should be no expectation that Canadians are going to stop burning fossil fuels anytime soon. The use of fossil fuels to heat homes is a necessity in some parts of our northern climate. I see few alternatives for our current technology of hauling heavy loads by train or highway trucks.

Oil is not going away anytime soon. We should protect the industry’s tar sands investments and Albertan’s jobs, but the sensible path is to avoid any further mining expansion.

A refinery owned by a Crown corporation could offer a consistent fair price to the “oil” producers.

If Alberta was resistant to the vagaries of oil pricing, then companies, government and consumers would benefit with consistent income and stable gasoline pricing.

Justin Trudeau is caught up in his own rhetoric. He has said no country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there. How do we meet our climate change plans by shipping bitumen all over the world?

British Columbians have seen the decline of our forestry industry caused by the exporting of raw logs. Why would Albertan’s want to export raw bitumen and good jobs, when they are capable of processing it at home?

There are currently two refineries under construction in the United States. The estimated cost for each is less than US $4 billion. You and I just paid that amount for the Trans Mountain pipeline. We can add $7 or $8 billion in spending for the proposed pipeline expansion.

Rather than build a risky bitumen pipeline, let us save some money and build a refinery for less than half the proposed spending.

Now is the time to develop a made-inCanada policy. The new Crown corporation should scrap the pipeline expansion, build the refinery, create long term jobs, generate tax revenue and save you and I a bunch of money.

John Dorn is a retired tech entrepreneur living in Summerland.