Canadian business lobby pressures B.C. to approve Northern Gateway, Kinder Morgan pipelines
OTTAWA — The B.C. government will be called on Tuesday to look out for the national interest and help Canada seize an “historic opportunity” to open up Asian markets to Alberta’s vast oilsands riches.
The appeal will come from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which is releasing here its list of top-10 hurdles that must be leaped over to make Canada’s economy more competitive.
“Our first thought should be, as Canadians, what is in the interest of Canada and how do we work together to advance it?” Perrin Beatty, a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister under Brian Mulroney, told The Vancouver Sun Monday.
“Because all of us benefit if Canada is stronger. We’re all weaker if Canada is weaker.”
The lack of infrastructure to get Canada’s energy resources to global markets, and especially Asia, was listed as second only to the skills shortage “crisis” that continues to plague Canadian business owners.
Safety and environmental concerns must be addressed before pipelines are built, Beatty said, but Victoria must find a way to resolve its concerns with pipeline proponents and the federal and Alberta governments.
B.C. Liberal Premier Christy Clark has listed a number of demands that must be met before her government will endorse oilsands pipelines, while poll-leading New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix is firmly opposed to Enbridge’s $6.5-billion Northern Gateway proposal to Kitimat as B.C. prepares for a May election.
Clark has said her conditions, which include a demand for greater financial benefits as well as tougher standards for safety and environmental protection, also apply to Kinder Morgan’s proposed expansion of its pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby.
The Chamber of Commerce is citing a CIBC study noting that Canada’s economy lost an average of more than $50 million a day in 2012 because the overwhelming majority of the West’s landlocked crude goes to U.S. markets, where there is surging domestic supply.
Canada would get a much higher price, the argument goes, if crude could be shipped directly to Asian markets were there is greater competition and buyers are presumably prepared to pay a higher price.
That money Canada is losing, Beatty argued, could play a huge role in funding social programs and creating jobs across the country.
While he didn’t mention Clark by name in the interview or in a draft of his speech provided to The Sun, Beatty spoke directly to the B.C. premier’s appeal for a greater share of the profits from two proposed pipeline megaprojects to the B.C. coast.
He noted that resources fall under the constitutional authority of provincial governments.
“And British Columbia is a resource-rich province itself, and I think would want to see the proceeds from its own resources stay in B.C. to the greatest extent possible. That’s entirely reasonable,” he said.
“And I think they’d also expect that cargo passing through Port Metro Vancouver would be able to cross over the Prairies to Ontario and the rest of the country without being tithed as it went across the country.
“If we start balkanizing the country and building walls between the provinces, and taking a ‘beggar thy neighbour’ approach, all of us will be poorer.”
The other eight “barriers to competitiveness” are: inadequate workforce productivity, public infrastructure planning, tax complexity, poor innovation performance, a weak foreign trade strategy, internal barriers to trade, uncompetitive tourism strategies, and lack of access in Canada to investment capital.
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