Time to reject fossilized thinking on pipelines

For quite some time, we’ve been subject to a highly distorted debate over Canada’s energy future, as few politicians are willing to question the orthodoxy that pipelines are somehow a vital end in themselves (rather than needing to be evaluated and approved or rejected on their merits).

Now, new research is confirming what always seemed the most likely conclusion about the proposed pipelines that have sucked so much oxygen out of the room.

In a study for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, J. David Hughes examined a few key facets of the energy sector’s future, and found there’s little reason to see pipeline construction as having much of a long-term impact (at least not without inflicting major costs elsewhere).

Hughes first reviewed the greenhouse gas emissions that would result merely from planned expansion in the fossil fuel sector and compared that harm to the emission targets in place across the country. And the result is an inexorable clash in outcomes.

To facilitate enough additional oil and gas production to make new pipelines viable, we’d have to either abandon our commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or shut down the majority of Canada’s remaining economy by 2030.

Hughes also questioned the claim that there’s a substantial difference in price to be realized by changing how fossil fuels are shipped. And there, any projected gains from new pipelines are minimal: a gap between Canadian and global prices that developed briefly in 2011 has largely been closed due to America’s increase in domestic oil production.

On that point, Hughes’ analysis has found strong support from within the federal government itself. And it’s here that our public debate seems to have become most unmoored from the facts.

This week, The Canadian Press reported on the release of an internal analysis for the federal finance ministry showing that any price advantage arising out of new pipelines has virtually disappeared. And even more significantly for the purpose of our public policy priorities today, the memo also concludes that Canada already has sufficient transport capacity to move all the oil and gas we’ll produce until at least 2025.

That raises the question: why would our politicians waste time obsessing over potential infrastructure whose raison d’être is in serious doubt?

Remember that the federal Conservatives gutted environmental legislation and unconstitutionally forced through project approvals in a failed attempt to leave a more oil-dependent economy as their legacy. And rather than pushing back against that misplaced set of priorities, Alberta’s NDP government and the federal Liberals have concluded that getting literally any pipeline built will serve as a useful political cudgel against their predecessors.

So our governing class is dominated by the barely questioned public position that pipeline construction is an intrinsic good to be pursued at all costs — even as a decade of obsession has come to nothing and economic and environmental realities are raising important questions as to whether any new approvals would accomplish anything useful.

Lest there be any doubt, it’s equally problematic to attempt to brand all pipelines as undesirable. To the extent a particular new pipeline would serve a useful purpose in the context of responsible climate policy and actual demand for oil products, there’s nothing to be gained by stopping that project alone, rather than ensuring that the broader issues are properly taken into account before approvals are granted.

But many of our political leaders should be facing tough questions about why they’ve wasted so much time cheerleading for a single type of project that appears both impractical and unnecessary — rather than working on building a sustainable economy.