A young grad student friend from Vancouver recently sent me an email from Oxford that included this line: “Martin Wolf, the chief economic commentator for the Financial Times, gave a guest lecture at the business school in which he summarized the state of the world as roughly ‘the U.K., Europe and the U.S. are falling apart. If you want a job, go to Canada or Australia.’ Of course, he also went on to describe both countries as ‘resource-rich, English-speaking overseas provinces of China’…’’
This is a key point in understanding the Northern Gateway Pipeline. B.C. is being asked to contribute to our country’s interests by accepting the immense risks inherent in a pipeline that will ship bitumen from Alberta to China and other Asian destinations.
B.C. will get a lot of temporary construction jobs and a promised 560 permanent jobs in return for a massive risk to the 45,000 jobs dependent on a healthy northern coastal environment – including the livelihoods of First Nations along the route. The payback to B.C. is some share of Enbridge’s predicted $2.7 billion in total government revenue. Just like Alberta during the uproar over the federal national energy program in the 1980s, one province is being asked to suck it up for the sake of the nation. But which nation?
Is Canada really going to benefit over the long term by shipping our finite supply of unrefined bitumen to Asia? In the short term, huge financial rewards flow to the oil industry investors, the employees who gain high-paying jobs in Alberta (many from outside Canada due to skills shortages), and the Alberta and federal governments. Getting this massive construction project going quickly will showcase the Conservatives’ economic prowess in the next federal election.
That’s the extent of the national interest – highly beneficial at one level, but not accounting for the impact on Canada’s energy security, downstream despoliation in Alberta, the increasing value of bitumen left in the ground, or the devastating impact from the inevitable spills in terrestrial or coastal B.C. – including Vancouver harbour.
The short-term revenue burst from the Northern Gateway Pipeline also takes no account of the lost opportunity to refine that bitumen in Canada instead of shipping it abroad.
China’s state-owned oil company Sinopec’s deal with Syncrude includes a veto on whether that company should upgrade bitumen here or export it raw. Sinopec is also a major funder of the Enbridge pipeline. Remember it was only four years ago that Stephen Harper’s government vowed to block the export of Canadian bitumen for processing offshore. That was before it dismantled rules preventing the takeover of Canadian petroleum resources by foreign companies, ignoring the wisdom of people like John Bruk, founding president of the Asia Pacific Foundation, that “ownership and control of key commodities is critical to our economic prosperity.”
Quebec and Atlantic Canada are now expected to continue to depend on imported oil from unstable Middle East sources. The competitiveness of Ontario’s manufacturing base – and all the jobs and taxes it generates – are in jeopardy from a higher Canadian petro-dollar. Instead of being used to secure Canada’s energy independence, our bitumen will fuel China’s refineries and its world-leading transition to a green energy future.
Canadians need to stand up for Canada’s long-term economic interests – counting costs as well as benefits. Hear it from Bruk: “If we miss this historical opportunity of upgrading our commodities before exporting them we will … handicap seriously the future of our children and grandchildren. … Selling natural resources while their value is escalating from increasing demand is a sure money-loser.” •
