Helping Bring Alberta Oil to Market

Why we need to bring Alberta Oil to Market

I am 100% in favour of helping Alberta move its oil to market. BC is part of Canada and we cannot simply tell our neighbouring provinces that we object to their resources and so won't help them. At a high level, we must help them because:

1. Canada has people and natural resources, these are our greatest strengths. But we can't realize their value without a market for our resources and jobs for our people.  
   
2. Currently the USA is our greatest market. This is good as long as they remain strong, but if the USA fails, then, because we are tied to them, we will fall with them. They have not failed yet, so we think they never will. This is foolish. The US economy is showing signs of cracking and their debt has exceeded their GNP. Due to the size of their economy we have a number of years yet, but if they do not take steps to correct the problems they have, they will collapse.  In light of this, Canada MUST diversify now. We have time to do it but we don't have time to do nothing.  
   
3. BC is part of Canada. We cannot ignore the needs of the rest of the country without consequences. Even if we do have options to oppose pipelines through our province, what good would an inter-provincial economic conflict do for our nation? Many people think that because they are personally opposed to oil (even though they still use it every day) that they can hold our country hostage to their agenda. Maybe they can to some degree, but the result of that strategy will be to impoverish Canada and in so doing impoverish BC as well. Just as a rising tide will lift all boats, a falling tide will leave us all stranded on the reef.  
   
4. The only way to protect our environment is from a fiscally strong base.  As our economy weakens, our ability to manage our environment weakens. How many third world countries make environmental protection their top priority?  Environmental protection is a luxury of the rich. We need to protect our land and our sea but it must be done hand in hand with our economic growth. A move to limit our ability to grow our economy is ultimately a move to destroy our environmental protection.

How we proceed with environmentally sensitive projects

However, that does not mean that we should be in favour of a pipeline just because it promises prosperity. We must make sure that it is being done sensibly and with environmental protection in mind.  

• A large part of any assessment should be a review of the corporation that is proposing it. A good plan in the hands of a sloppy corporation equals a bad plan.   
  
• Also part of any assessment should be the route. The route should be selected so that the risk is minimized.   
  
• Also we need to evaluate past assessments. We have a moratorium on oil tanker traffic off the central and north coastline. We must evaluate the reasons why that was put in place and how the current plan mitigates those concerns.

I believe we must work with our counterparts to find the right way to move ahead rather than finding reasons to stop. But it must be the right way or else we will be forced to stop until something changes.

This is the fundamental difference between the BC Conservative position and the NDP position. The BC Conservatives are looking for how we can proceed and the NDP are looking for how we can stop.  The BC Liberal’s still have no position. For them the development is ‘take it or leave it’, whichever way the wind is blowing.

What we need to do in the specific instance of the Northern Gateway Pipeline

So, to move ahead, how should we work together to find the correct way to bring Alberta’s oil to market:

1)  We should have been involved in the environmental assessment process instead of deciding to only take intervener status. This was done so as to avoid taking a public stance but it meant that we had NO INPUT into the

• “Successful completion of the environmental review process.”
• putting in place of “World-leading marine oil spill response, prevention and recovery systems for B.C.'s coastline and ocean to manage and mitigate the risks and costs of heavy oil pipelines and shipments”
• putting in place of “World-leading practices for land oil spill prevention, response and recovery systems to manage and mitigate the risks and costs of heavy oil pipelines”
• process whereby “Legal requirements regarding Aboriginal and treaty rights are addressed, and First Nations are provided with the opportunities, information and resources necessary to participate in and benefit from a heavy-oil project”

We could have been involved but we sold out our rights on those 4 areas. 

2) Even as intervener we could have raised the issues. We should have done this before the Dec 22, 2011 deadline or before the Jan 2012 extended deadline.  But again, we sat on the sidelines and said nothing.

3) We should not have made the first 4 demands that are already being addressed in a process that we chose not to participate in. At this point we should go behind closed doors with our concerns on these 4 points and apologize for missing the deadlines and ask to be heard anyway. Let’s quit embarrassing ourselves on the national stage. I believe we could get the rules bent if we tried and still be allowed to be involved in a meaningful way in the ongoing process that to date we have snubbed.

4) Early on, we should have engaged the parties involved, (Enbridge, Alberta, Ottawa) to negotiate benefits for BC like; Sharing the right-of-way; training British Columbians; export taxes; maybe even refining in BC, etc. We should have known what we wanted and collaborated to ensure

• “British Columbia receives a fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits of a proposed heavy oil project that reflects the level, degree and nature of the risk borne by the province, the environment and taxpayers.”

We are off to a very bad start but we can still engage in a collaborative discussion on this one.

5) We should not however, pick a fight with Alberta over royalties to pretend to achieve the 5^th demand!   This position has dubious legal ground to stand on. It appears to have only been done once, in 1969 when Quebec put the screws to Newfoundland and Labrador over their Hydro project. That only worked because Ottawa looked the other way when they could have stopped Quebec.

The BC Liberal position was NOT taken to get BC its fair share. It was done solely to provoke a fight so that the BC premier could be seen as championing the rights of British Columbians. We should stop the games and back out of that as gracefully as possible. Then engage in some real negotiations.