Gateway route imperfect

The Harper government is about to weigh in with a final “yea” or “nay” on Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

To call this 1,177-kilometre project controversial is like calling a Category 5 hurricane a bit of a breeze. Either answer on this multibillion-dollar twin line from Alberta to the West Coast will inflame detractors.

For a landlocked provinces such as Alberta, there is a real interest in opening up a new route for bitumen and oil products via the Pacific.

As the government of a nation in the midst of an aggressive lobbying campaign to convince its American neighbour to approve TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, it is hard to imagine the optics of rejecting a pipeline project exclusively on Canadian turf.

All signs point to a positive answer from Ottawa. Even in 2012 — well before the Joint Review Panel recommended approving the project, albeit with 209 conditions — Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the Gateway project was of “vital interest” to Canada. As Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau on Wednesday challenged Harper to say “no” to the pipeline, Harper said the decision will be based on the Joint Review Panel’s work.

But outside of the political optics, how should the Conservative government rule on Gateway?

On balance, pipelines are vastly preferable to carrying oil by rail — a transportation mode that is increasing far quicker than many realize as the oil industry expands and pipelines hit capacity. A recent report from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers projects the number of barrels per day that are shipped by rail will more than triple to 700,000 by 2016 from 200,000 in late 2013.

Pipelines, though imperfect, are much safer, with more than 99.99 per cent of products getting to their destination safely. Last July’s train disaster in Lac Megantic, Que., which saw 47 people die from a fiery derailment of cars carrying Bakken oil, brought home the risks associated with moving oil by rail.

Rail networks have built up over decades running through highly urban areas. Even with beefed-up safety rules, this is hardly ideal. Given that rail is not the best option for shipping oil, that narrows down the question about Northern Gateway to the issue of whether this particular pipeline is the right one.

Alberta certainly needs more pipelines out of the province. Finance Minister Doug Horner paints a good picture when he describes existing pipeline infrastructure as a big wine goblet, where Cushing, Okla., is the stem of the glass.

Alberta and neighbouring Saskatchewan pay a price for this limited market access, and Gateway would help ease that crunch, without question.

But other routes, such as the proposed Energy East pipeline that would take western crude to refineries in New Brunswick, an expanded Trans Mountain pipeline that routes oil through Vancouver and even Keystone are preferable to the risks that Northern Gateway poses to B.C.’s coastline.

Of all these pipelines, Gateway is the most problematic. It is too bad the Conservatives could not wait and see what happens with those others before offering its verdict.

The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper’s editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.