Trudeau in lose-lose position on pipelines: UBC prof
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has put himself in a position where he can’t avoid a “massive” setback to his political standing in at least one of three provinces: B.C., Alberta and Quebec, according to a University of B.C. professor presenting a paper on the matter in Calgary Thursday.
“He’s boxed himself in politically and now he can’t avoid expending massive political capital by offending one or more important political allies,” George Hoberg said in an interview.
Hoberg, in a paper devoted to Kinder Morgan’s $6.8-billion expansion of its pipeline from northern Alberta to Burnaby, said Trudeau’s new parallel review process for major projects gives the government an excuse to reverse the National Energy Board’s conditional approval.
The NEB recommended approval last month of the Texas company’s proposal, which will triple the pipeline’s capacity to 890,000 barrels a day, subject to 157 conditions. The government has said it will make a decision by December.
Meanwhile, the government has launched a new review process that includes a three-person panel to consult the public over the summer. Ottawa has also conducted a broader technical analysis of climate change issues and says it will conduct additional consultations with First Nations.
This review, which according to Hoberg falls short of what the Liberals promised during the 2015 election campaign, “might provide him the rationale to depart from the NEB recommendation,” according to the paper.
But that “won’t make the core political choice any easier.”
The new Liberal government, while flying high in popularity polls, can’t avoid alienating at least one part of the country as it weighs the political costs and risks of helping Alberta move its bitumen to overseas markets.
TransCanada’s Keystone XL project to the U.S. has been given a thumbs down by the Obama administration, while Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat “is widely thought to be dead as a result of First Nations opposition,” Hoberg writes.
That leaves Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain project and TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline to Quebec and New Brunswick.
“If Trudeau turns west, he will alienate many B.C. voters critical to his majority status,” Hoberg argues in the paper, which cites a poll suggesting Quebeckers are even more hostile to pipelines than British Columbians.
“If he turns east and alienates Quebec voters, the electoral damage would be even higher. If he rejects them both, he breaks the commitment he made to Alberta to atone for the energy policy sins of his father.”
The paper includes an analysis of media coverage of the four projects. It concludes that during 2012-2015, the predominant issue mentioned in relation to the Kinder Morgan project was the oil spill risk. For Northern Gateway, the most frequent issue cited was aboriginal opposition, while for Energy East and Keystone XL, job creation dominated.
Public concern about spills in relation to Kinder Morgan was likely linked to the expected seven-fold increase, from five to 34 a month, in the number of tankers arriving at the Westridge Terminal in Burnaby, according to Hoberg.
The data shows that public focus on spills, referenced in close to 50 per cent of news items in 2012 and at around 40 per cent in 2013, declined to below 30 per cent — slightly below climate and First Nations — by 2015.
This reflects the environmental movements’ focus on pipeline and tanker accidents leading into the 2013 B.C. election and their shift to climate issues during the 2015 federal campaign, Hoberg speculated.