According to the Globe and Mail, Canadian Premiers are about to sign an agreement that would fast track pipeline projects. The 34-page-report describes how to deal with the opposition Energy East, Kinder Morgan, Northern Gateway and Keystone XL faced from environmental groups and First Nations. It suggests that red tape be cut down so decisions can be quicker. If the initial responses from community leaders are an indication, BC says NO to “Canadian Energy Strategy”.
Business as usual not good enough
“I was rather surprised to read the article and I question the urgency and rush. If there is a rush, it is that we diversify our economy instead of doubling down on an industry that is oversupplied globally,” said Green MLA Andrew Weaver.
“A document prepared for a premier’s meeting doesn’t come close to developing a national energy strategy,” says Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan.
[quote]If they want social license to move fossil fuel products, they will have to be much more inclusive and listen to the citizens of their provinces and territories. Business as usual just isn’t good enough.[/quote]
Former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen says, “The draft report appears to be outdated and out of step with both current oil market realities, and the strong opposition by most Canadians to building oil pipelines and expanding oil sands extraction without a view to adding value in Canada. Canadians are also clear about their unwillingness to put up with anything short of meaningful limitations on GHG emissions.”
“If what is being reported in the Globe and Mail is accurate, it is extremely short-sighted. We need a genuine shift in our approach to climate change, not some closed-door deal that is going to help the companies and not help the public,” said Bob Peart, Executive Director of Sierra Club BC.
She added that when constituents raise questions about pipelines or Climate Change, they should be adequately considered.
84 year-old retried librarian Barbara Grant getting arrested at Burnaby Mountain (Burnaby Mountain Updates/facebook)
Bob Peart found the way in which the premiers are trying to cut the voice of the Canadian public out of decision making process disturbing.
“Someone said to me the other day, historically we elected governments to govern and now all they do is rule. There is a difference between ruling and governing. Governments today rule and doesn’t give much room for citizen’s concerns to be put on the table.
“That means you have to yell and scream and build up a public wall of noise. Sometimes they listen to that, but they usually don’t, so you end up having to go to the courts or be like Burnaby Mountain and have people marching,” he said.
Federal election will test pipeline policies
Canada appears to be approaching a crossroads. It is not certain that corporations will continue to exercise the same degree of control as they have in recent years. Peart stressed the need for people to vote in the upcoming election.
“The studies are pretty clear – if voter turn-out is low it favors the right. Generally it is the progressive people who are discouraged and don’t vote,” he added.
“Canadians want and expect to have more say, and I think we will witness that voice during the federal election in October,” said Marc Eliesen.
Premiers could pay political price for pushing pipelines
Flanagan said the “Canadian Energy Strategy” originated with Albertan concerns about access to markets. It is important for premiers negotiating an energy strategy to hear that they “must also consider Canada’s contribution to the fight against Climate Change.” They have to realize “it is not politically advantageous for a premier to sign on to an agreement like this.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: As of late morning on June 15, the Coast Guard had revised the estimate to 500-5,000 litres of diesel spilled
Within hours of Vancouver’s second oil spill of the year, BC Environment Minister Mary Polak was reassuring the public that the province will move ahead on a “world-leading” spill response team.
1,000 litres of diesel
Fishermen’s Wharf in Vancouver – approximate location of diesel spill (Ruth Hartnup/Flickr)
An estimated 1,000 litres of diesel spilled into the area around Fishermen’s Wharf late Sunday night. The spill volume The accident was reported at 10:30 p.m. and, because the federal government closed Kitsilano Coast Guard station, clean-up did not start for another five hours. Polak said she “could not speculate” about the difference still having a base in Vancouver would have made. Luckily it was diesel, which stays on the surface and is easy to clean-up.
“The spill appears to have received an efficient and effective response,” said Pollack.
Yet she acknowledged that the present spill response is “outdated” and economic development “cannot be at the expense of our environment.”
Not ready for a major spill
The Minister added:
[quote]Our experience with smaller spills and near misses shows the province is not prepared for a major spill. Our goal is to have a world-leading spill regime in place and we recognize we are not there yet.[/quote]
She denied that this was in response to the proposed Northern Gateway or Kinder Morgan pipeline projects, saying it was devised after years of conversations with local government, First Nations and industry.
“The vast majority of incidents to which we respond, as a ministry, have nothing to do with the oil and gas industry and everything to do with smaller types of industry, with the support of hazardous materials that support other industries,”said Polak.
The ingredients of BC’s new land-based spill response include:
A provincially certified, industry-funded Preparedness and Response Organization (PRO) to make sure trained people are ready to immediately respond to any spill, with appropriate equipment and in a co-ordinated way
New legislative and regulatory requirements for spill preparedness, response and recovery
Geographically based planning and response that will see active participation by First Nations, first responders and local communities
Steps To Come
The funding and leadership of this project is to come from industry.
If the Kinder Morgan pipeline project goes forward, this program will work in conjunction with their spill response program.
Legislation empowering the government to proceed will probably be forthcoming during the Spring of 2016.
“This won’t happen overnight, but we are targeting 2017 to begin implementing these new requirement,” said Polak.
The 3-member NEB Joint Review Panel for the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline (Damien Gillis)
Do you enjoy being a raw hypocrite?
Well, if you’re a taxpayer in Canada that’s what you are because you support raw hypocrisy every day in the various hearings on environmental matters that take place.
Why don’t we just abolish the National Energy Board and all other boards like it and allow environmental projects to be judged strictly by the industry itself, with the customary pat on the corporate head from the prime minister?
At least this would make honest men and women of us.
[quote]It’s a rigged game … We’re getting the scope that supports Kinder Morgan. It’s a private sector, ‘How do we get to yes?’masquerading as a public interest review. [Emphasis added]
… decisions made by the Board at this hearing are dismissive of Intervenors. They reflect a lack of respect for hearing participants, a deep erosion of the standards and practices of natural justice … and an undemocratic restriction of participation by citizens, communities, professionals and First Nations either by rejecting them outright or failing to provide adequate funding to facilitate meaningful participation.[/quote]
Unnatural justice
Marc Eliesen, one of the most distinguished power experts in Canada, having served as head of BC Hydro, Manitoba Hydro and Ontario Hydro, was an intervenor at NEB hearings into the Kinder Morgan pipeline. He resigned last November in a scathing letter, a small part of which follows:
[quote]The evidence on the record shows that decisions made by the Board at this hearing are dismissive of Intervenors. They reflect a lack of respect for hearing participants, a deep erosion of the standards and practices of natural justice…and an undemocratic restriction of participation by citizens, communities, professionals and First Nations either by rejecting them outright or failing to provide adequate funding to facilitate meaningful participation.
… The National Energy Board is not fulfilling its obligation to review the Trans Mountain Expansion Project objectively. Accordingly it is not only British Columbians, but all Canadians that cannot look to the Board’s conclusions as relevant as to whether or not this project deserves a social license. Continued involvement in the process endorses this sham and is not in the public interest. [Emphasis added] [/quote]
A waste of taxpayers’ money
These hearings, whether on the grand scale of the National Energy Board, or merely a smaller environmental assessment of an IPP, are hugely expensive. Many involve travel across the country, staying in the best hotels, sipping the best, and by the end of the day stacking up a substantial tab for you and me to pay every April 30.
No one, least of all I, would object if this process were actually evaluating these projects and making recommendations based upon full and proper hearings with natural justice for all – the “judges” being totally independent of any of the parties involved and noted for giving unbiased advice to the government.
The reality is the opposite. Almost unknown for turning down anything from industry or ruling in favour of intervenors even on minor matters, the results of their deliberations are easily foretold and, in fact, relied upon by both government and industry.
A foregone conclusion
It was instructive to note that when Premier Clark recently made another of her absurd press announcements on LNG, the federal minister for energy, James Moore, had to correct himself after he had – with fulsome support resembling that of a suitor of the seductively smiling premier – suddenly had a flash of awkward memory as he mumbled, “Oh yes, there is an environmental process to go through yet”.
This should not be overlooked. The applicant companies don’t stop their planning or construction pending the outcome of these hearings – why would they when they’re foregone conclusions? The only thing to worry about are the likes of the courageous citizens of Burnaby and their gutsy mayor, Derek Corrigan.
Our leaders can no longer be trusted
All of the foregoing is tied into the phenomenon of this century, namely that those, in the words of the Anglican church, “set in authority over us”, can no longer be trusted for even so much as a word of truth if the contrary suits them better. I can tell you that, at the risk of appearing a cynic, when I hear a politician or an industrialist make pronouncements on anything whatsoever, I don’t believe a single word and I believe that experience proves my skepticism fully justified.
Why not?
Let’s get back to the beginning.
Why not abolish the whole bloody business? Let’s rid ourselves this wasted outlay of money. It’s rather like the poor citizens of the late Soviet Union having to pay for their court system and it’s a plethora of “show trials”.
Won’t this leave us without any environmental protection?
If so, what’s changed?
Is it a better to have a fake process and an environmental travesty or to have the same result without having to go through the humiliation?
The reality is that we ought to have a proper system. In this country, however, where the far right rules, you would have to be smoking something questionable to think that that would ever happen.
At the end of the day (my favourite cliché I might say), it will be up to the public and environmentalists – which these days are almost one and the same thing – to expose the dangers posed by the undertakings proposed by those who couldn’t care less about the environmental consequences and, in order to put money in their own pockets in great gobs, pretend that they’re only doing it for the greater good of the public and that we should all be eternally grateful.
Tahltan First Nations and supporters peacefully occupying a Fortune Minerals drill (Beyond Boarding)
Recent events in Canada have shown not only that change is possible, but that people won’t stand for having corporate interests put before their own.
When plummeting oil prices late last year threw Alberta into financial crisis, people rightly asked, “Where’s the money?” They could see that an oil producer like Norway was able to weather the price drop thanks to forward planning, higher costs to industry to exploit resources and an oil fund worth close to $1 trillion! Leading up to the election, the government that ran Alberta for 44 years refused to consider raising industry taxes or reviewing royalty rates, instead offering a budget with new taxes, fees and levies for citizens, along with service cuts.
Alberta does the unthinkable
The people of Alberta then did what was once thought impossible: they gave the NDP a strong majority. Almost half the NDP members elected were women, giving Alberta the highest percentage of women ever in a Canadian provincial or federal government.
PEI follows suit
On the other side of the country, voters in Prince Edward Island followed B.C. provincially and Canada federally and elected their first Green Party member, as well as Canada’s second openly gay premier. Remember, homosexuality was illegal in Canada until 1969!
Tahltan beat back coal mines
In my home province, after a long struggle by elders and families of the Tahltan Klabona Keepers, the B.C. government bought 61 coal licences from Fortune Minerals and Posco Canada in the Klappan and Sacred Headwaters, putting a halt to controversial development in an ecologically and culturally significant area that is home to the Tahltan people and forms the headwaters of the Skeena, Stikine and Nass rivers. The Tahltan and the province have agreed to work on a long-term management plan for the area.
Lax Kw’alaams turn down a billion dollars for LNG
On the same night as Alberta’s election, people of the Lax Kw’alaams band of the Tsimshian First Nation met to consider an offer by Malaysian state-owned energy company Petronas of $1 billion over 40 years to build a liquefied natural gas export terminal on Lelu Island near Prince Rupert, at the other end of the Skeena River, an estuary that provides crucial habitat for salmon and other life. The 181 people attending unanimously opposed the offer. Two nights later in Prince Rupert, band members also stood unanimously against the proposal.
The message is clear: integrity, the environment and human health are more important than money. Gerald Amos, a Haisla First Nation member and community relations director for the Headwaters Initiative, said the federal Prince Rupert Port Authority’s decision to locate the facility on Lelu Island also demonstrated a failure to properly consult with First Nations. “By the time they get around to consulting with us, the boat’s already built and they just want to know what colour to paint it,” he said.
Koch acknowledges climate change
On a broader scale, change is occurring around the serious threat of climate change. Even well-known deniers, including U.S. oil billionaire Charles Koch, now admit climate change is real and caused in part by CO2 emissions. But they argue it isn’t and won’t be dangerous, so we shouldn’t worry. Most people are smart enough to see through their constantly changing, anti-science, pro-fossil-fuel propaganda, though, and are demanding government and industry action.
A cleanup crew works on Third Beach following the recent English Bay oil spill
I say three cheers for Premier Christy Clark and Mayor Gregor Robertson of Vancouver.
The verbal assault by the Premier on the federal government was more than justified by recent events and just happens to be a move that is always popular amongst many British Columbians, frankly including me, whenever Ottawa behaves like Ottawa – which is most of the time.
The recent oil spill in English Bay is, as has been said by so many, a wake up call. In fact, however, there are many people like Dr. Eoin Finn, who didn’t need that wake-up call and have said for a long time that sooner or later an accident like this was going to happen. As sure as the penny will turn up heads sometime, there will be next one and it could be infinitely worse.
Federal cuts mean increased risk to coast
Before we get to the future let’s just take a look at the present. The prime minister of the country immediately defends his cuts in funding and acts as if this spill really is of very little consequence. His gauleiter in BC, James Moore, a lump of arrogance in a three-piece suit, actually opined that the response to this spill was just peachy.
The Member of Parliament most concerned about the future of oil spills is the one for my constituency, John Weston since his constituency includes Howe Sound and Squamish. It is through Howe Sound that the powers that be, including the two senior governments and the entire fossil fuel “establishment”, want to run LNG tankers to English Bay for refuelling!
LNG tankers are risky business
Let me pause here to say that opposition to these tankers is not based on some dreams concocted by airy fairy environmentalists, munching nuts and chewing raisins. Thanks to the work of Dr. Finn and Cmdr. Roger Sweeny (RCN Ret.), we know that even the most conservative expert evidence, that of Dr Michael Hightower of New Mexico, and several other experts, is such that Howe Sound is utterly unsuitable for LNG tanker traffic. In fact, the boast of the tanker industry of a safe record with LNG, while fundamentally true, overlooks the fact that this is because tankers don’t go into dangerous places like Howe Sound.
MP Weston wrong to defend tankers, LNG
Getting back to Mr. Weston, this issue should demonstrate, as if a demonstration were necessary, that the political system in this country simply doesn’t work. Here we have the Member of Parliament for an area which is largely up in arms at the thought of an LNG plant in Squamish, not only supporting that plant at every turn – berating at the West Vancouver Council for being opposed – but now struck dumb by an oil spill which demonstrates the huge dangers posed by this LNG plant he so loyally and stubbornly supports.
Surely to God this question must be raised by all reasonable people, no matter how they feel about LNG plants or tankers:
[quote]Why hasn’t John Weston been asking questions in the House about the cleanup capability in BC long before now?
Why isn’t he raising hell about this oil spill?[/quote]
Everyone knows that clean-up capability been under-funded by his government yet not a peep out of the man sent to Ottawa to represent our concerns.
Now that we have this huge wake up call, Mr. Weston is totally unconcerned for one very plain reason – he must be loyal to the government and its policies, however damaging they may be to his constituency. How else can he get that coveted cabinet post?
Surprisingly, Clark deserves some credit
I am certainly no fan of the premier or her government but am compelled to say that she has shown, in the clutch, the kind of leadership British Columbians expect when, as usual, Ottawa indifference is raising havoc in this faraway nuisance it couldn’t care less about.
Anyone who wishes to criticize the premier for her immediate and strong reaction should ask themselves this: If the premier doesn’t stand up for the people of British Columbia who will?
It sure as hell won’t be the likes of the Honourable James Moore or government backbencher John Weston.
Ocean pollution specialist Dr. Peter Ross displays an oily substance from English Bay (Vancouver Aquarium)
The following is an open letter by Ben West of the group Tanker Free BC to Christy Clark.
Dear Premier Clark,
In a 2013 interview with Peter Mansbridge, you discussed Canada’s inability to handle a major coastal oil spill now, let alone in the future should new pipelines be approved. “We are woefully under-resourced,” you said.
In that same year your government rejected the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and tanker project in part because of concerns around oil spills. “British Columbia thoroughly reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the panel and asked substantive questions about the project including its route, spill response capacity and financial structure to handle any incidents,” said then B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake in a May 31 media release. “Our questions were not satisfactorily answered during these hearings.”
On April 9th, 2015 a oil spill took place in the Vancouver Harbour. City of Vancouver staff were not even informed until the next morning and later that day it was revealed that 6 hours went by before booms were put in place. Oil has washed up on the beaches of Stanley Park, Jericho Beach and Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver among other places. No signs were put up on beaches to warn residents and visitors. At this time it is still unknown exactly how much oil was spilled or even by whom. The apparent lack of coordination seems to prove your point from 2013, we clearly are “woefully unprepared”.
To make things worse we now know that the recently closed Kitsilano Coast Guard station could have had booms in the water within six minutes, as opposed to six hours. Next month the Vancouver Coast Guard MCTS centre that regulates shipping movements in Vancouver Harbour is scheduled to close. These are our marine traffic controllers?!?
There are also plans to close the Regional Marine Information Centre (RMIC).The RMIC notifies responders, government agencies such as Transport Canada, Environment Canada, Environmental Response and others so a proper response can be mobilized.
The Harper Conservatives will CLOSE this notification centre on May 6, 2015 as part of the larger cuts to the west coast marine safety network. The Coast Guard will also cease providing anchorage assistance to ships, including tankers when the MCTS centre closes and moved to Victoria next month. This is strongly opposed by BC Coast Pilots and Port Metro Vancouver.
Ottawa hasn’t developed or implemented any replacement system for the dissemination of these pollution reports.
Yet your government continues to allow the Harper Government to call the shots when it comes to decisions about pipelines that would lead to massive increases in tanker and other vessel traffic in BC.
Please make this oil spill incident in our harbour the last straw. Please do as municipal leaders from across the province have requested via a resolution at the Union of BC Municipalities and withdraw BC from the National Energy Boards process regarding the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline project. And please formally withdraw from the “equivalency agreement” with the Federal Government that puts the environmental assessment and public consultation process under their control.
These are clearly not world class safety standards. Please stand up for the BC coast and do not allow the discussion of increased tanker traffic to continue until the current safety issues are addressed.
Part 1 of a 2-part story from innovation expert Will Dubitsky on Canada’s missed opportunity to build a prosperous green economy.
The ardent defenders of our resource economy are in no way limited to the climate skeptics who support TransCanada’s Energy East project, the Keystone XL pipeline and the tripling of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline capacity to Vancouver. There are also much larger and perhaps more influential groups of traditional resource economy supporters – the greenwashers such as Justin Trudeau, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, the majority of mainstream journalists, economists, Bay Streeters and more.
These stakeholders would have us believe that with a little tinkering of the status quo, we can address requirements to reduce greenhouse gases while supporting projects like TransCanada’s Energy East and the other proposed pipeline projects for Canada.
According to this line of thinking, the traditional resource-based economic paradigm is a permanent fixture of global economics. Consequently, if TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline isn’t built, another petroleum source would fill the “void”, leaving the impacts on greenhouse gases at the level of the status quo. In other words, new infrastructure to increase dour dependence on petroleum is fine, even though the International Energy Agency has said we must leave 80% of proven reserves in the ground if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Green economy still ignored by many
It is rather unfortunate that the green economy paradigm – despite the facts on the ground in China, Europe and the US – remains off the radar screen of nearly all economists.
Even the very conservative International Monetary Fund, Goldman Sachs and UBS are way ahead traditional economists on the decline of the resource economy paradigm, respectively exposing: 1) the spellbinding levels of subsidization of the fossil fuel sectors; 2) the high financial risks of unconventional fossil resources, such as the tar sands; 3) the rapidly growing quantity of stranded oil assets due to the combination of high debt loads and reserves that cannot be supported by market prices; and 4) the growing aggressiveness and frequency of government action on climate change around the globe . Together, these factors are fostering the emergence of a global green economy.
Massive opportunity, huge job growth…except in Canada
The green sectors are among the fastest growing and highest job creation sectors of our times. Unfortunately, Canada is missing out on these opportunities while China, the European Union and, to a lesser extent, the US are way ahead of us.
There are 3.5 million people currently working in the green sectors in the European Union (EU), with 1.2 million in renewables. The clean energy sectors in Germany are right up there with the German auto sector in terms of job numbers, and there is a 7,000-position labour shortage in the EU wind energy sector.
Meanwhile, the US had174,000 people working in the solar sector as of November 2014.
All this makes good sense, given the fact that government investments in the green economy create 6 to 8 times more jobs than the same level of investment in the extractive resource economy.
Quebec missing the boat
Though Quebec is participating in a carbon (cap and trade) market with California, current Couillard Quebec government actions are founded on a resource economy with negligible interest shown in high job creation green sectors. This is counterproductive not only for the environment but for the province’s economic development as well.
To begin, Quebec could better grow its economy and reduce its dependence on wealthier provinces by concurrently: 1) rejecting the few hundred jobs associated with Energy East; 2) reducing its dependence on petroleum from outside Quebec and thereby reducing local emissions; 3) focusing on the high job creation green sectors, including the development of Quebec’s emerging electric vehicle sector.
Quebec’s emerging EV success story
The transportation sector represents 42% of Québec’s emissions, so it’s a good place to start for tackling emissions. The good news is that not only does the province enjoy a clean energy surplus – mainly hydro – but its nascent electric vehicle (ev) sector has given rise to some promising local companies and institutions, including:
EV battery manufacturer Bolloré/Bathium
Electric motor wheel company TM4
A Nova Bus (Volvo) electric bus under development
Two manufacturers of electric vehicle charging stations – GRIDbot and ADDÉnergie
EV research centres such as the Centre National du Transport Avancé and L’Ecole de technologie supérieure
Should Québec and Canada not seize the day, it is China and the US – California in particular — that will continue to be the leaders in, and reap optimal long term benefits from, the electrification of transport.
China’s central government is also considering a $16 Billion program to set up charging stations across the country and it has removed the 10% purchase tax for electric and hybrid vehicles.
California leads way with EVs
In the US, California is leading the way on electric vehicles with a comprehensive plan and legislation agenda that includes financial assistance for low income residents and support for clean energy micro-grids complete with energy storage and electric vehicle charging stations. New homes and parking lots are also being required to have the electrical infrastructure in place for setting up electric vehicle charging stations.
Quebec backslides on green investment, shale oil and gas
Yet the Couillard government, much like policies of Harper and Trudeau, lives in the past tense, supporting TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline proposal while cancelling a $500 million PQ program for the electrification of transport, instead committing $450 million for an unneeded cement plant that will be fueled by petcoke – a high-carbon content fuel derived from the residues of tar sands refineries. Couillard also remains fixated on his predecessors’ Plan Nord – a large scale vision for heavy extractive industries in the province’s north.
In addition to the high level of methane leaks from shale gas wells and risks of soil, water and air pollution, it is becoming clear from the US experience that shale gas and oil lead to boom and bust economics. Yet Couillard appears reluctant to fully cut ties with this form of development and instead seize the enormous benefits available from the green economy.
Watch for the sequel to this story next week – exploring the decline of the fossil fuel era and remarkable rise of the green economy.
Squamish council rejects Fortis BC application for test drilling (Instagram/ Dan Prisk)
In a surprising show of municipal political power – even in a region that has demonstrated strong misgivings regarding proposed LNG development – Squamish council has rejected Fortis BC’s controversial permit application for test drilling in a Wildlife Management Area.
The vote came at Tuesday night’s council meeting, which revisited an earlier discussion regarding Fortis’ planned pipeline expansion to feed the Woodfibre LNG plant near Squamish, proposed by Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto.
Plan gets bogged down in sensitive area
Proposed Woodfibre LNG plant
The application – which sought permits for drilling in a sensitive ecological area – stoked vocal opposition in the community when it was first debated by council 2 weeks ago. With close to 200 citizens packing the council chamber, the local government set its decision aside until this week’s meeting.
The Tuesday vote fell 4-3 against the plan, which would involve test drilling for a pipeline to be routed under the Squamish River, through an estuary and Wildlife Management Area (WMA). Council instructed representatives of gas pipeline operator Fortis to come back to it with a plan that avoids the estuary and WMA and doesn’t involve a compressor station being located in the middle of town. Such a route would likely need to involve building the pipeline around the north end of the community, which Fortis complained would be too costly, lengthy and challenging.
A strongly-worded letter from the Squamish First Nation objecting to the company’s proposal appears to have helped sway council.
Back to the drawing board
Despite the heavy attention the issue received during the recent municipal election – which saw an anti-LNG mayor defeat a sitting mayor who favoured the Woodfibre project – and strong opposition from local grassroots groups, the decision came as a surprise to many in attendance.
Retired KMPG partner and My Sea to Sky member Eoin Finn – a leading public critic of the project – predicts that Fortis will now have to withdraw its proposal from the Environmental Assessment process and start from scratch with a new version, “as Fortis had baked in the rejected routing in their application to the BCEAO.”
Local governments get involved
The move by Squamish council is just the latest example of a growing trend of municipal governments inserting themselves into the energy planning process around BC – from Burnaby and Vancouver’s strong stances on Kinder Morgan, to various councils that have stood against the proposed Enbridge pipeline, and a long list of Sunshine Coast and Howe Sound councils which have voted against the proposed Woodfibre project.
On Monday, as Canadians got back to work following the holidays, the price for crude oil dipped below $50/barrel for the first time since 2009, offering a glimpse of the profound changes in store for the country in 2015. With some $60 Billion in oil/tar sands projects now in peril – harkening back to “dark days” of decades past – this federal election year promises to put the fossil fuel-dominant economic vision of Canada’s political leaders to the test.
Good news, bad news
Burnaby Mountain protests (Dan Pierce)
If 2014 was the year of the pipeline protest, 2015 may advance the cause of environmentalists and First Nations even further, without a single placard being waved or arrest made. In a country where the economy increasingly drives political policy and media commentary, something as simple as the halving of oil prices will likely do more to reshape the future than years of ardent protests. Cynical but true.
Yet these changes are complex and fraught with contradictions. Lower oil prices stall new oil/tar sands projects and pipelines while chilling investment in LNG projects. Yet they also drive consumer demand through lower prices at the pump.
And although this setback for Canada’s fossil fuel sector should be a wake-up call as to the need to diversify our economy and energy options, in some ways it hampers renewable energy development, by eroding recent gains in cost competitiveness for clean technologies. When oil costs over $100/barrel and natural gas is $8/unit, increasingly cost-effective wind and solar look pretty good these days. Cut those fossil fuel prices in half, and not so much.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynn tours an Airbus plant (CNW)
Another important contradiction to note is the benefit to Canada’s economy from a weakened fossil fuel sector. As a new study from RBC reminds us, lower fuel costs to consumers free up cash that can flow into our economy through other avenues. More importantly, lower oil prices mean a lower Canadian dollar and lower energy costs to manufacturers, both greatly benefitting Canadian exports.
In other words, the jobs we lose in Fort McMurray may be replaced – and then some – by a strengthened manufacturing sector in places like Ontario.
What this moment – and potentially extended period – of depressed fossil fuel prices offers Canadians is the opportunity, in a pivotal election year, to rethink our economic future. And this applies at both the federal and provincial level – from BC’s proposed LNG industry, to the Yukon’s debate over fracking, to Alberta’s oil/tar sands, to several pipelines planned to carry dilbit eastward.
To get the conversation started, here are a few big ideas we should be considering in 2015:
Estimates of government subsidies for the oil and gas industry range from a billion and a half dollars a year to as much as 6 billion, depending on how you calculate them and whom you listen to. So to those “free marketeers” who would balk at subsidizing clean tech innovation, just be sure to apply the same standards to the fossil fuel sector, which, we’re frequently threatened, would up and walk away if we didn’t maintain the lowest royalty and tax regimes in the world.
As our contributor Will Dubitsky has documented over the past year, Canada is the exception when it comes to major industrial nations investing in clean tech. While Stephen Harper cut our only federal clean tech innovation funding in 2013-14 (which stood at a paltry $82 million), China invested $68 Billion in clean tech in 2012, with the US not far behind. Both countries, along with Germany, Denmark, Spain, Brazil, and many others, have reaped the rewards with millions of new green jobs. Canada’s tax incentives and subsidies for clean tech lag far behind these other nations.
Steam rising from the Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Station in Iceland (Photo: Gretar Ívarsson / Wikipedia)
Even in Canada, despite a wildly unfair balance of public investment in fossil fuels compared with renewables, the employment balance is shifting. Trying to assess the real job benefits of the oil and gas industry is a tricky business, because so many different numbers and definitions are thrown around (“direct”, “indirect”, “related”, Canada, Alberta, etc.). The Alberta Ministry of Energy, for instance, pegs “oil sands related direct employment in Alberta” at 146,000; whereas a 2011 study by the the Petroleum Resources Council of Canada acknowledged just 20,000 jobs in the Alberta oil sands sector, with 130,000 total oil and gas jobs across Canada.
Renewable energy proponent Clean Energy Canada subscribes to the latter measurements and made headlines with a report last year suggesting we now have more jobs in clean tech than we do in the oil/tar sands. The comments on this Globe and Mail story discussing the report range from skeptical to apoplectic at the audacity of these dimwitted eco-pinkos. But the key take-away is that clean tech jobs are growing in Canada – and rapidly – with very little help; whereas the future of oil sands construction jobs is suddenly looking pretty bleak.
If you believe the derision of oil sands boosters, these green jobs pose no real threat to their sector, so what are we waiting for? What are we not seeing that China, America and Germany are? If jobs are the name of the game, then it’s high time we got behind these sustainable alternatives.
And that doesn’t just mean wind and solar. As we’ve learned from a number of recent reports, Canada – particularly these western provinces doubling down on fossil fuels and big, antiquated dams – are sitting on top of huge geothermal potential. This is a clean, renewable energy source which, unlike wind and solar, is as predictable and consistent as coal or natural gas – without the wild market fluctuations.
While lower oil and gas prices may inhibit investment in clean tech and consumption of renewables, as noted above, that’s precisely what government intervention is for. This is where a government with long-term vision can step in an catalyze private sector investment and job growth for the future, laying the groundwork for an economy that is not strapped to the roller coaster of fossil fuel prices.
2. Take advantage of lower oil prices
As I noted earlier, lower fossil fuel prices can be a very good thing for Canada’s economy. There is strong evidence – from the likes of Industry Canada, no less – that higher oil and related currency prices have cost our nation more jobs than they’ve created.
[quote]…from 2000-2011, the oil and gas sector created about 16,500 jobs, while, at the same time, Canada lost 520,000 manufacturing jobs. Much of the manufacturing losses are tied to the rise of the petro-dollar which tends to rise and fall with the price of petroleum…Even Industry Canada acknowledges the problem. Their report notes that between 2002 -2007, from 33-39 per cent of Canadian manufacturing job losses were due to “resource-driven currency appreciation.”[/quote]
Sure, many Canadians will feel the pinch in their stock portfolios as our overly energy-bound TSX falters, but the opportunity for benefits to Canada’s economy from lower oil prices is significant – reinforced by a recent report from RBC, which notes:
[quote]Our current Canadian forecast assumes that both consumers and exporters will respond to these incentives that will slightly more than offset the expected weakening in oil-sector investment.[/quote]
What this all boils down to is a choice: Either export raw, unrefined bitumen and syncrude – generating few local jobs – or export finished goods, manufactured in Canada. Since the latter brings more jobs and value-add to Canadian resources, shouldn’t that be a no brainer?
3. Pull the plug on pipelines
Keystone has strained Canada-US relations (Adrian Wyld/CP)
Keystone XL, for both political and economic reasons, appears less and less likely by the day. Even an expected bill from a dual-majority Republican congress can and likely will be vetoed by Barack Obama. Clinging to this vision will only further strain diplomatic relations with our southern neighbour. It’s time for Stephen Harper to throw in the towel on Keystone.
As for Enbridge and Kinder Morgan, on top of all the law suits, the widespread public opposition – culminating in highly effective civil disobedience at the end of 2014 – and the well-justified environmental concerns, these plummeting oil prices mean the demand for increased export capacity is simply not there. Many oil/tar sands projects can’t make a buck at $50 oil (which is substantially lower when you factor in the Western Canadian Select discount on bitumen) – evidenced by the cancellation of numerous expansion projects in recent months.
[quote]Canadian oil and gas projects worth a total of $59-billion may be deferred during the next three years as the ‘collapse’ in capital investment in the global oil industry echoes the dark days of 2009 and 1999.[/quote]
The same thing is happening with risky, expensive shale oil from the Bakken in North Dakota, with production and train shipments plummeting in recent months. These unconventional fossil fuels are the first to lose their lustre in low-price periods. Upstart American shale oil producers are a victim of their own success – flooding the market with too much supply. Now, with OPEC unwilling to back off with its cheaper, light crude supply, it is forcing these more costly new sources out of the market.
Meanwhile, controversy is heating up over Enbridge and TransCanada’s eastbound pipeline proposals, which are also subject to the same economic challenges as the BC projects. A slew of mounting headaches for TransCanada’s Energy East project – from endangered belugas to the Quebec government’s long list of tough conditions – prompted Alberta Premier Jim Prentice to travel east in December for a round of palm pressing and damage control.
Added environmental hurdles and calls for increased provincial benefits and reassurances, piled on top of a weakening business case, spell trouble for these projects – once considered a cake walk compared to getting through BC.
Times change, new facts emerge. Canada needs to evolve its thinking accordingly. If Stephen Harper wants to hang onto his majority – even stay in power with a minority government – he should rethink his dogmatic devotion to pipelines unpopular with many voters and for which the economic justification is simply no longer there. The oil/tar sands isn’t the only avenue to create jobs and be strong on the economy.
4. For God sakes, abandon LNG
Christy Clark pitching LNG in 2014 (Damien Gillis)
Christy Clark’s LNG vision is the biggest loser of them all.
With most Asian LNG contracts tied to oil prices, the current climate has scared away even the most intrepid LNG proponents. That includes Malaysia’s Petronas, which cited this reason for further waylaying its final investment decision (again) last year. (Let’s remember too that even if it did go ahead with its pipeline and plant, Petronas has indicated that it would import Malaysian workers to build them – while the BC government signs deals with India and China to supply foreign temporary workers for the LNG industry…so there goes the whole “jobs” argument!)
Petronas’ stalling comes on the heels of many other big players getting cold feet, including Encana, EOG, Apache, and BG Group.
And with good reason. Even after Clark gave away the farm to these companies – slashing down to nothing the export tax at the root of the Liberals’ grand “$100 Billion Prosperity Fund” promises in the last election – this dog still won’t hunt.
Here’s why: With all the added costs to produce and ship LNG to Asian customers, the break-even point is between $10-13/unit of gas. When Asian prices momentarily spiked to $16-18 a few years ago, it seemed like BC exporters could make some real money exporting LNG. But as we and other pundits correctly predicted, this price bubble wouldn’t last. Now, with spot prices hovering at or below $10 – and expected to continue falling throughout 2015 – that Asian price premium is gone, taking BC’s LNG pipe dream with it.
Sure, oil prices may pick up and with them LNG prices, but the lesson here remains: LNG is expensive and volatile – not characteristics that make big energy companies likely to fork out the tens of billions of dollars and half decade in pipeline and plant construction required to get this industry up and running. Which is why the sooner we abandon this delusion and start focusing on real, sustainable economic alternatives for the province, the better off we’ll all be.
“It’s the economy, stupid.” That’s the refrain environmentally-minded folks are browbeaten with, their pipeline and climate change protests patronizingly brushed aside by wise economic pragmatists.
But in 2015, with $50 oil, we should all be on the same page for once.
Ben West addressing a Vancouver crowd about Kinder Morgan in 2012 (Damien Gillis)
There’s big news on the environmental front!
Ben West, the eminent young environmentalist until now with Forest Ethics and, before that, the Wilderness Committee, has joined Rex Weyler fighting tanker traffic on the BC coast through Tanker Free BC. This makes a very potent combination indeed. (Full disclosure: My colleague, Common Sense Canadian publisher Damien Gillis, is a founding board member of TFBC along with Mr. Weyler).
For those who may not know, Rex Weyler was a founder of Greenpeace International and its biographer. He has been active in environmental matters for many years and in 2009 took up the cudgels against tanker traffic on our coast. Tanker Free BC was formed some 5 years ago, specifically to take on the Kinder Morgan issue and the organization laid much of the early groundwork for the campaign to block the project.
Ben is a first class student of the environment and a very able presenter. I have had the privilege of appearing at podiums with both he and Rex.
Huge proposed increase in tanker traffic
The number of tankers required on our coast to transport the oil proposed by Kinder Morgan runs about 400 per year – minimum. This doesn’t count tankers coming from Squamish from a proposed LNG plant.
Despite what the professional mariners tell us, it’s a matter of mathematics. Sooner or later we’ll have a serious accident on our coast. In fact, there’s nothing to say there won’t be more than one.
If this were a relatively minor matter, we could and would have to live with it. But they are transporting bitumen, or dilbit, which is highly toxic and, as the spill on the Kalamazoo River by Enbridge 4 1/2 years ago demonstrated, it is virtually impossible to clean up. This means, to articulate the obvious, that the risk of running tankers on our coast cannot possibly match any advantage it would confer upon the people of British Columbia.
It’s for this reason that opposition to both the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines has been so vigorous. Of course, part of the opposition has come from those who must live with the pipeline in their communities but the issue is the same – be it train, truck or pipeline, they transport a vicious and dangerous poison.
Oil-by-rail threat used to scare pipeline opponents
MP James Moore being interviewed by CBC’s Chris Hall (Photo: James Moore/Twitter)
At the same time as the West/Weyler story we hear from Tory cabinet minister James Moore that pipelines must come, otherwise transportation will be by rail which, by common consent, is far more dangerous than by pipeline.
I must confess here that I’m not certain about the capacity of rail to deliver a comparable quantity of oil – in the case of Kinder Morgan 780,000-1.000,000 barrels a day, and this is of course an important figure to know. If pipelines were simply not to happen, would rail transport be sufficient to fill up 400 or more likely 450 tankers per year?
The answer, according to the limited research facilities available to me, is that this is highly unlikely. Moreover, the safety factors are enormous and make those of pipelines pale into insignificance. This, of course, is the argument that James Moore and the supercilious finance Minister, Joe Oliver, are making – permit pipelines or else…
Weston continues “Environment IS Economy” refrain
Just by way of an aside, a few moments ago when Wendy brought the mail, there was yet again another release by my MP, John Weston, bleating once more “the environment IS the economy”. As I’ve mentioned before, this slogan has about as much meaning as “please adjust your clothing when leaving the lavatory” and gives an idea of typical Tory bafflegab which desperately hopes that their own appalling ignorance is matched by that of the bovine masses.
Rex and Ben face the ill-disguised ultimatum laid down by James Moore that bitumen will come through British Columbia one way or another. The Tories are, of course, in thrall to Alberta voters with an election coming up where every seat is crucial and the safety of unreliable British Columbians not on the radar.
Remember the bitumen
We must remember that the enemy is not the train or the pipeline or indeed the tanker – it is the bitumen from the tar sands. We’re being asked – indeed perhaps ordered – to transport this highly noxious substance through the wilds of our province to populated areas, into tankers and shipped down our coast.
Sham “Process”
The politicians are unconcerned about the feelings of the people of our province. Mr. Moore has, from the beginning, been contemptuous of public opinion and those of us who have fought against the transport of bitumen are portrayed as American-financed neo-hippies. The so-called “process” by which energy decisions are made is as phoney as a three dollar bill as has been amply demonstrated by no less a figure than Mark Eliesen, one of the most prominent energy experts in the country.
Public attention, diverted by the pipeline issue, has not considered that the governments of Canada and British Columbia would cast aside safety issues and threaten the transport of this terrible substance by rail. What this does, of course, is clarify the issue for Ben and Rex and all those who join them in the fight, very much including me. It is the two senior governments who are the enemies – the bitter enemies.
The public of British Columbia must, by civil disobedience if need be, convince the federal and provincial governments that we have sufficient democracy left in this country that the people still count, or we’ll end up with a an oil sands catastrophe on our land and on our coasts, whether we like it or not.
