LEGER: A national energy strategy? Not going to happen
Some advice for Canadians agitating for a national energy strategy: Forget about it. We are not going to agree on how to manage what we laughably conceive to be our shared resource wealth. Same goes for national strategies on health care, education, First Nations or the environment: They’re not happening.
It’s fine for the premiers to strategize among themselves or even to ask Prime Minister Stephen Harper to join in. But people should stop holding their breath for national strategies; they’re turning blue for no good reason. In Canada, it’s not national unless the feds are included, and these feds don’t want to play.
The “national energy strategy” chorus arises as two Western premiers spar over who benefits from the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. The $8-billion line will run from the Alberta oil fields to Kitimat, B.C., whence crude will be shipped to Asia.
From a market standpoint, the pipeline is a slam dunk with the potential to strengthen the entire Alberta economy and generate more than $1 billion a year in provincial taxes. Canadian oil would no longer be shackled to the U.S. market and might command higher prices.
Proponents reason that if Alberta oil succeeds, petro-wealth will translate into jobs and opportunities across Canada. But not everyone sees it that way. There is serious opposition to the pipeline from environmentalists, First Nations and those who believe petroleum is distorting the larger economy.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford, a Senate committee and industry lobby groups want a national strategy to bring energy coherence to the country. Some people interpret that as Alberta getting the cash and everyone else applying for truck-driving jobs in Fort McMurray.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark is in that camp. Trailing in the polls with an election next May, Clark argues that B.C. deserves a cut because it’s taking on part of the environmental risk.
She says B.C. can’t just be the pass-through province while Alberta gets the money and the jobs. Operator Enbridge Inc. estimates Alberta will take in $32 billion over 30 years, the federal government $36 billion and B.C. $6.7 billion. She won’t support a new strategy until B.C.’s pipeline objections are dealt with.
If it were just up to the Harper government, Northern Gateway would already be approved. The government’s omnibus budget bill would make that much easier, with wider ministerial powers to approve pipeline projects.
But that’s not a national energy strategy, which after all is more than just oil and pipelines. Redford says it should incorporate hydro, offshore petroleum and other alternatives.
The fact is this country will not have a national energy strategy and it won’t have any other national strategies either, because Canada in 2012 is programmed for division, not accommodation. There is no support in the Harper government for a national policy on anything that strays into provincial jurisdiction.
Natural resources are provincial and it’s impossible to see how Harper could intrude on that and maintain his ideological purity. There’s no way that Conservative ideology would support any fiddling with revenue sharing in the oil patch, as Premier Clark is suggesting, or with, say, hydro profits in Quebec.
And that comes back to the central problem in this “national strategy” piece. With the possible exception of prisons and police, the Harper government doesn’t see a role for Ottawa in any national strategies requiring co-operation with the provinces.
The premiers, meeting here last week, invited Harper to discuss the economy with them in November. He hasn’t done that since 2009. How he reacts will reveal much about his views on confederal exercises.
Beyond that, the provinces themselves do not have matching challenges or opportunities. The political fortunes of premiers wax and wane according to provincial pressures, not national ones. Their interests don’t line up, as Clark and Redford are proving yet again.
It’s conceivable that a different prime minister might see some merit in using the office to help smooth the interprovincial waters. But Stephen Harper is not going to get involved in that: It might open the door to federal activism and accountability in provincial jurisdictions. And that would never do.
Dan Leger is a freelance journalist in Halifax. Twitter: @dantheeditor
Don't panic yet.
Submitted by traispealot on July 30, 2012 - 8:23am.
Just because a couple girls get into a catfight doesn’t mean that a national energy policy is out the window. For Christy, it's obvious she's just putting on a show in hopes of re-election. And Alison should have been smart enough to keep her yap shut at least until after BC voted.
Harper is doing something toward health care. By cutting back on federal health care funding to the provinces, he's forcing them to come together to work out some way of containing run-a-way health care costs rather than just whining for more every few years. If the provinces do manage to work out the challenges they face in energy, health and what have you, it's gonna fly much better than if the Feds get too involved because the Feds are always going to be the bad guys and no one will ever be happy with any solution they might impose on the provinces.
Don't blame the Feds
Submitted by D.P.B. on July 30, 2012 - 9:33am.
The feds have and want nothing to do with the greed , mistrust and incompetence of the Premiers. They alone are the ones that are creating this atmosphere. Harper is doing well by staying away from this bunch of adolecent crybabies that only have these meetings in order to ask for more handouts and revel in their own self importance.
Pretty good article
Submitted by High Tide on July 30, 2012 - 11:17am.
I would add that the pipeline spat is not a case where the feds should get involved and won't, but rather they don't have to. BC and AB have a history of cooperation with trade and interprovincial labour mobility agreements in place. This is just a bump in the road exacerbated by an upcoming election.