When in doubt, spend our money.
The cynic in me is deeply troubled we have come to the point where a nationally approved energy project must be nationally indemnified. But so it is – so it must be – with the Kinder Morgan Canada Trans Mountain pipeline-twinning project.
Whysoever?
To keep the country from falling apart, probably not. To keep the federal credibility on delivering what it promises, possibly. To keep the country’s tenuous climate action plan in one piece, seemingly. To prevent provinces from unduly scuttling initiatives within federal jurisdiction, definitely.
Last week’s reassurance – to stretch the term – that the Trudeau government will compensate Kinder Morgan for the Horgan government tactics was the only obvious path forward.
Sure, it is no way to fortify a federation. Sure, there is only one taxpayer. Sure, the courts may have the last word. Sure, the international markets might be overstated. Sure, the national interest must prevail at times over those of the province. There is nothing new in these arguments.
But the stark truth is that the project will die without the uncertain blank cheque from the Trudeau government, and the Trudeau government will die without the uncertain project.
To reiterate the reeling irony of it all: the son of a prime minister who antagonized Alberta with the National Energy Program, who prompted them a generation ago to tell the eastern bastards to freeze in the dark, now must appease Alberta to save the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Remember now: to be on this clean journey, we must first extract oil and sell it to those who would burn it. To get that far, though, he has to get an improbable pipeline for difficult-to-extract oil to a difficult-to-please market that, one generation after his father reached out to Mao, we still find baffling. But on we go, several punches and some bloody noses into the schoolyard squabble at the NDP Secondary School, one premier against another premier, with the federal party leader suddenly upon the scene, a principal taking sides.
Speaking of the leader, there he was last week, Jagmeet Singh, sensing the easiest possible byelection route to the House of Commons in the riding of resigned Burnaby MP Kennedy Stewart, eager to keep the flame burning for the left-of-centre at the municipal level by running for the Vancouver mayoralty. Where Singh had been a reluctant and remote voice, he now must champion the anti-pipeline cause as not only a true believer but a likely local politician with a backyard issue he has to handle carefully in his parrying across the aisle. What plays well for the denizens of Burnaby does not for the folks in Burlington within bicycling distance of steel mills. But that’s a story for another day.
The story for today is that Kinder Morgan is back to where it was before the BC NDP government arrived, with the same risk and doubt of the courts and of economics but the newly created Bank of Justin and Bill to deal with the provincial intransigence.
As my deadline approached, and as the end-of-month Kinder Morgan decision deadline approached, the company was busy looking the gift horse in the mouth, which I have to say was rather off-putting. At the very least an acknowledgment of Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s pledge of such privilege would have been gracious, but its statement was a bit of a scowl. As a taxpayer, I felt indirectly more than a little unappreciated. For all it spends on lobbying, it could have spent some on better public relations advice.
The federal and Alberta governments seem prepared – in their admitted skin-saving self-interests – to do what’s feasible to make the project feasible. And yes, these are anxious times for a $7.4 billion pipe dream, and fine, you’re still some distance apart from Ottawa on the particulars of your deal.
But, c’mon, our national leader is putting his government on the line, hurting it more than helping it in this province, and trying to satisfy a province that will not in any sense reward him. Really, Kinder Morgan? This is how you greet the best news in some time? •
Kirk LaPointe is editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver Media Group and vice-president of Glacier Media.
