The fever pitch rhetoric over Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal is drowning out the real questions we should be asking about Canada’s energy future, starting with, “What is our plan for national energy security that will enable Canadian workers and families to gain the biggest long-term benefit from Alberta’s oilsands and other energy sources?”
Instead, the question the proponents of the pipeline seem to be answering is: “How can we get the greatest, quickest, short-term revenue out of the oilsands?”
To that question there’s an obvious answer: “Diversify our export markets to get better prices in China, and don’t quibble about environmental risks.”
Speaking of foreign influence in this decision (as the prime minister has), among the biggest beneficiaries of exporting to China are Chinese customers and the Chinese shareholders of oilsands companies.
That’s why I find it curious that the federal minister of natural resources, Joe Oliver, is, like his boss, accusing opponents of the pipeline of “[using] funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”
Foreign interests are everywhere in this discussion, with vastly more foreign dollars promoting the producer side than the opposition side. On either side, no foreign lobbying money will have any impact if it isn’t spent by Canadians on what matters most to them. Canadian opponents of the pipeline are no more pawns of foreigners than its supporters, so can we please end that inflammatory and irrelevant sideshow and get back to the main event: what is in the best interests of Canadians? For example, why is there no discussion about keeping that oil in Canada to replace imports from all those “unethical” countries? (By the way, what’s “ethical” about taking all these environmental risks to ship oil to China, a country that killed 1.5 million Tibetans not that long ago and continues to ignore what most Canadians consider to be basic human rights?)
In his unprecedented interference in what is supposed to be an impartial hearing, Minister Oliver accuses opponents of the pipeline of wanting “to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth.”
That is not what I’m hearing. What I hear is a complete lack of confidence by the federal government in investing in the sustainable post-carbon energy future that is coming at us at breakneck speed whether we want to believe it or not. Scores of other countries are investing billions in this job-filled future (led by China). Canada, by contrast, seems locked into taking ever-bigger environmental risks to pursue every last almost-uneconomical source of fossil fuel, floating on the fantasy that some carbon sequestration miracle will satisfy future generations that we have taken global warming seriously.
These pipeline hearings may be the moment Canadians say “enough” to the massive risks inherent in these last gasps of fossil fuel expansion and take a stand for investing in an alternative future with none of those dangers. Many countries are already proving there is a prosperous future beyond oil. Canada has to decide when – not if – to join them.
Remembering Milt Wong
Much has already been said about financier, philanthropist, philosopher, activist and entrepreneur Milt Wong, whose recent passing created an almost measurable dip in our city’s social capital, the one asset he cared most about. For me, meeting or greeting Milt Wong or being even a small part of some of his projects was always an uplifting experience. Like few other people, he was always passionate, always curious, always generous, always realistic, always caring, always on a mission, always inclusive, always smiling, and never locked into any box of thinking. Legacies of his contributions will long rebound in our city. We miss you, Milt. •
