I could not have been more pleased to see Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper at the Calgary Stampede this past summer wearing a black cowboy hat and a silver belt buckle expansive enough to serve as the platter for a Thanksgiving turkey. After all, every writer, every person, knows there is power in symbols. Good guys wear the white cowboy hats and the bad guys wear the black ones—it’s a Hollywood tradition and a storytelling shortcut—and so it takes a confident leader, utterly sure of himself and his values, to place such a metaphor on his head and take to the stage. The moment was captured in a terrific photograph and the men with him—or, more precisely, the men behind him as if they’ve got his back—are dressed in similar cowboy duds but with white hats, save for the lone First Nations man in his ceremonial headdress. Yet despite their slight variations in fashion, these men are united: they’re all gazing upwards, as if into the beautiful and prosperous future that lies ahead of all Canadians.
“The Calgary Stampede has become a real Canadian icon,” Prime Minister Harper said. “It’s one of the things that is known about this country, about Canada, the world over…. It’s something that has preserved our values, our ranching values, and hard work, enterprise, self-reliance—the things on which this city has been built.”
Calgary is a home of hard work, enterprise, and self-reliance; it’s a town in and of the West, where real men—hardworking oilmen—have tamed the land and coaxed its vital black juices out of the ground to power the engines of progress. Calgary is found in the heart of Canada’s oil country—and Canada is an oil country, have no doubt about it. It has the one of the world’s largest reserves of oil, with the vast majority found in the oil sands roughly 500 kilometers north of Calgary. For this geographic reason, it’s no coincidence the city is home to oil and energy distribution firms like Enbridge Inc., operator of Canada’s largest transporter of crude oil with $19.4 billion in revenues and $1 billion in profits in 2011.
With corporate successes like Enbridge and a world-famous Stampede, it’s no wonder Prime Minister Harper also proclaimed that Calgary is “the greatest city in the greatest country of the world.” While non-Calgarians may have disagreed with the first part of that sentence, we Canadians might have felt a little swell of pride in the second part; but then again, I may be overstating our national pride. We are well-known—properly stereotyped, in fact—for our humble natures and I’m sure that more than a few of us (myself included) mumbled, “Greatest country in the world? Well, I don’t know about that….”
But that’s one of the problems with Canadians. With me. We need more confidence, more pride, more spine. We need to stop wearing white hats and muttering “Aw, shucks. Just trying to do the right thing.” We need to gain the confidence to slip on black hats and big silver belt buckles and demand our place at center stage. Just like our prime minister.
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Three hundred and fifty-five km north of Calgary is the small town of Bruderheim, Alberta. With about five hundred dwellings and a population of less than 1,200 people, it was previously best known for the Bruderheim meteor of 1960, the largest ever to fall in Canada. But the fortunes of Bruderheim are changing, as the town has been proposed as the starting point of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipelines Project. The beneficent arm of Enbridge, one of the most successful companies in the greatest city in the greatest country in the world, has reached northward to tap this little town on the shoulder. Like the meteor from fifty years before, it is practically another gift from the heavens.
If approved and constructed, the Northern Gateway Pipeline would consist of twin pipes running 1,177 km between Bruderheim and Kitimat, British Columbia, which is located at the eastern end of the Douglas Channel, a major inlet from the Pacific Ocean. The eastbound pipeline, twenty inches in diameter, would deliver natural gas condensate to Bruderheim, with a capacity of 193,000 barrels per day. The thirty-six-inch westbound pipeline would deliver to Kitimat crude oil and bitumen taken from the Athabasca oil sands near Bruderheim, with a capacity of 525,000 barrels of oil per day. The crude oil and bitumen would then be loaded onto oil tankers for export to China and other Asian markets.
This pipeline would run through some of Canada’s most beautiful countryside and over 773 streams and rivers; of these waterways, 83 are deemed by Enbridge itself to be “high sensitivity crossings.” These pipes will slightly disrupt the natural beauty, of course, but this is not merely an aesthetic issue: it has been known to happen that pipelines fracture and release their contents into the environment, and this is the fear of environmentalist activists such as David Suzuki. While crude oil is bad enough, Suzuki says that bitumen “is riskier than regular oil or gas. It’s heavier and sinks in water, making cleanup difficult with longer-lasting negative environmental impacts.”
Dr. Suzuki’s words are scary, no doubt, and elicit in the reader an immediate fear of worst-case scenarios. But this is exactly the problem with environmentalists: they always assume the worst is going to happen. For environmentalists it is never a matter of “if” there is an oil spill, it’s always a matter of “when.”
That’s one of the problems with Canadians. We need more confidence, more pride, more spine. We need to stop wearing white hats and muttering “Aw, shucks. Just trying to do the right thing.” We need to gain the confidence to slip on black hats and big silver belt buckles and demand our place at center stage. Just like our prime minister.
Now, it is true that Enbridge has had some past difficulties in moving oil safely from Point A to Point B. This past summer the company was dealt a severe public relations blow when the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States released a report about Enbridge’s responsibility for a “tragic and needless” 2010 oil spill into the Michigan wetlands and the Kalamazoo River. The discharge saw more than 840,000 gallons of crude oil released from corrosion fatigue cracks in a faulty pipeline and has resulted in damages in excess of $767 million, so far. The oil cleanup remains ongoing, more than two years later, and the spill has affected the health of hundreds of people and thousands of animals.
The NTSB report states it took Enbridge workers at the Edmonton pipeline control centre more than seventeen hours to realize that the loss of pressure in the pipelines was caused by a fracture that was releasing the oil. Apparently the staff in Edmonton so drastically misinterpreted the alarms that they started up the pipeline flow again—twice—resulting in eighty-one percent of the total spill. About this, NTSB chairman Debbie Hersman has stated, “When we were examining Enbridge’s poor handling to their response to this rupture you can’t help but think about the Keystone Cops.”
The spill at Kalamazoo was only one of “91 reportable spills, leaks, and releases” for Enbridge in 2010, which resulted in 1,438,836 gallons of hydrocarbons released into the environment. This amount is reported in the company’s own 2011 Enbridge Corporate Social Responsibility Report, in which the company also states its objective of “zero releases.” Despite striving for this noble goal, they have not quite made it: the report shows that for the five-year period of 2006-2010, Enbridge averaged 83.8 spills per year with an average annual release of 546,394.8 gallons of hydrocarbons.
[pagebreak]These numbers are statistical gold for environmentalists, who use them to frighten Average Joes and Averages Janes like you and me, but that’s because environmentalists don’t understand that minor operational difficulties such as oil spills are: (a) simply opportunities to learn how to transport hydrocarbons better, and (b) no indication at all that such events are likely to happen again.
In response to the Kalamazoo incident, Stephen Wuori, the president of the Enbridge’s Liquid Pipeline division, released a statement clearly outlining that Enbridge has added new and better training for employees and “numerous enhancements to the processes and procedures” in its control centre. Enbridge also said it “will not compare past events with possible speculative future events, projects or economic situations that cannot be known.”
Good for Mr. Wuori and the whole Enbridge team! It brings me great joy finally to read something positive on the issue of oil spills, because it’s so predictable to read the usual editorial blather about the how the pipe is half empty instead of half full. Unfortunately, any reporting on the positive lessons Enbridge was learning from past missteps like the Kalamazoo incident was quickly overshadowed when the liberal media decided to focus upon a new Enbridge oil spill in Wisconsin on July 27, 2012. While this spill was a barely-noticeable 50,000 gallons of oil, the media did Enbridge no favors by pointing out this was a relatively new line installed in 1998. The spill’s timing didn’t help either, as it happened almost two years to the day after the Kalamazoo mishap.
Enbridge just can’t catch a break. Sensationalistic stories like these seem to flow into my newsfeed like the oil that’s supposed to flow through the company’s pipelines.
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Canada has a problem of national identity.
There are the things the world thinks we are: hockey-playing, igloo-dwelling, ever-so-polite peaceniks. And then there is how we Canadians so often think about ourselves: “Not Americans.” We travel the world with our red maple leaf flags stitched to our backpacks, proclaiming to anyone who’ll listen that we have universal health care and gay marriage and gun control laws that work (mostly). But there is a real problem with this, because “Not American” is not a national identity. It makes us seem like America’s little brother and, like so many little brothers, we’re hiding in the shadows while at the same time hoping someday we’ll be known for who we really are. But why do we do that? We’re on top, we’re bigger, we’re more rugged, and we have more natural resources. And so I say: it’s time for us to assert ourselves, and by doing so define ourselves. It’s time to strut what we’ve got onto the world stage and get what we can for it.
That we escaped the worst of the global financial meltdown was clearly good for Canada. And yet I am not pleased with the reason why we came through safely: because we lacked the fortitude to take the kind of risks that allow for global greatness. We sat on the sidelines while we watched the more adventurous boys play hardball. Even Iceland, with its population of 320,000, had the gumption to bankrupt their entire country. But that’s to be expected, I suppose. They’re Vikings.
Other Canadians may politely disagree with this idea. I understand that because, without doubt, sometimes our natural timidity benefits us. One example is that for the most part our economy did not get folded into the recent global financial meltdown. We did not experience a sub-prime mortgage crisis like the United States; we did not fall into a recession like Spain; and we did not bury ourselves in overwhelming debt like Greece. Clearly this was good for Canada, and yet I am not pleased with the reason why we came through safely: because we lacked the fortitude to take the kind of risks that allow for global greatness. We sat on the sidelines while we watched the more adventurous boys play hardball. Even Iceland, with its population of 320,000, had the gumption to bankrupt their entire country. But that’s to be expected, I suppose. They’re Vikings.
I have confidence that Stephen Harper, my black-hatted prime minister, will lead us into national adulthood even if the citizens have to go along kicking and screaming. Prime Minister Harper is strong enough, ballsy enough, and leader enough to ignore the timorous and immature masses who don’t know what’s good for them. He knows what is right and he will do what is right, and he’s going to take this country—the greatest country!—into that glorious future he saw from the Stampede stage. It’s like when Kennedy proclaimed that America would put a man on the moon within a decade, or when Churchill intoned that the British would never surrender. Sometimes a leader has to drag his country forward by sheer force of will, whether the citizens feel ready for it or not.
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The Joint Review Panel (JRP)—mandated by the Minister of the Environment and the National Energy Board—has questioned Enbridge on how it will pay for the costs if there is ever a massive spill from the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline. Enbridge, good corporate citizen that it is and despite knowing it’s impossible to predict if they’ll ever spill oil again, has responded with a plan. They promise they will secure insurance to assist in any clean-up costs and, in the event the insurance doesn’t cover it all, they will “make good” for any outstanding amount. If necessary, Enbridge pledges, it will use its cash reserves, it will borrow, or—hell, why not?—it will even sell off company assets.
Enbridge takes its responsibility seriously because they realize the company’s honour is at stake, and I don’t know what more the citizens of Alberta and British Columbia could possibly expect. No matter what unforeseen and unpredictable emergency might arise, Enbridge swears there will be money to deal with it. Case closed. But still there are pessimists like former Insurance Group of B.C. Chief Executive Robyn Allan, who told the JPR that “the purpose of the structure Enbridge has chosen—a limited partnership—is to limit the exposure investors have for liabilities of the company, not to ‘make good’ on (a) catastrophic spill event.” She also suggested that Enbridge should purchase a dedicated insurance policy that would cover a billion dollars in claims. And if that weren’t enough, she also seems quite worried about ways to make Enbridge pay if the limited partnership structure renders Enbridge unable, or unwilling, to cover the costs of a massive spill.
In my opinion, it’s simply a shame that Ms. Allan’s heart is so hardened. What kind of a sinister world does she live in, so filled with doubt and mistrust, that she cannot accept Enbridge’s heartfelt assurances? Ms. Allan’s attitude is in sharp contrast to that of Prime Minister Harper and, therefore, makes his attitude look all the more appealing. The prime minister is a good friend to the Canadian businesses that keep our economy running as it should, and when industry makes promises the prime minister is quick to believe the best rather than the worst. In short: he’s strong, supportive, and optimistic, just as a great leader should be. Despite all the fear-mongering in the air, Mr. Harper seems to realize that the minimal environmental risks associated with an Enbridge pipeline are worth taking. More important, however, is that his government is willing to back up this positive capitalist idealism with solid action.
[pagebreak]In December 2011, Canada took the long overdue and necessary step of removing itself from the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations initiative aimed at fighting climate change. Environment Minister Peter Kent made the announcement and reasons for the withdrawal included: (a) that Canada is only responsible for a small percentage of the world’s carbon emissions while much larger polluters such as China and India were not bound by the Protocol, and (b) the government fear that Canada would be charged billions of dollars in penalties for not meeting reduced emissions goals. This is a reasonable stance given the economic issues at stake but, as always, some people simply can’t handle the truth. For example, NDP Environment critic Megan Leslie has said that “our government is abdicating its international obligations. It’s like we’re the kid who’s failing the class so we have to drop it before that happens.”
From this statement, I can only assume that Ms. Leslie disapproves of students keeping their grade-point-averages high—and I must say that I’m glad I’m not her child, because some classes really are tough and deserve to be abandoned. Another cynic is Green Party MP Elizabeth May, who said this of Canada’s participation in the negotiation of Kyoto’s second version: “I can’t imagine how anyone would want us in the room.” But my question to Ms. May is: why would we even want to be in a room that we have already left once?
Withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol is only one in the many proactive steps the Canadian government is taking to strengthen our economy. Another was the passage of the omnibus budget Bill C-38 in June 2012, which implemented far-ranging revisions to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Changes included weakening the Canadian Fisheries Act by easing requirements on industry to protect fishing habitats, shortening the list of protected species, cutting jobs for government scientists and scrapping research projects, and cutting all funding for the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science. This is a powerful indication of the lengths our government is willing to go to minimize the regulatory red tape that has been wrapped around the necks of so many Canadian industries for far too long, practically strangling them. And the recent passage of Bill C-45 has only strengthened the government’s resolve on this worthy cause: changes made to the Navigable Waters Protection Act removed federal protection for thousands of lakes and streams.
Another example of the federal government’s removal of unwanted impediments to economic progress can be found in it’s announcement that it will be ceasing all funding to the Experimental Lakes Project (ELA) in March 2013. This Northern Ontario facility does whole-ecosystem freshwater research on environmental problems, which in the past has lead to the banning of phosphates in detergents and legislation against acid rain. Simply put, the ELA allows for the kind of long-term research that cannot be achieved in a lab. Scientists have not taken well to the upcoming closure of the ELA, nor to the other recent actions of the Canadian government, but this is to be expected because when people lose their jobs: they’ll cry foul to anyone who will listen.
These unhappy scientists claim they’re worried not only about Canada’s scientific reputation, but also that these changes in policy are primarily motivated to benefit industry—specifically, the oil industry—through the exclusion of scientific inquiry. Professor John Smol, a freshwater lake biologist at Queen’s University in Ontario, has said: “People working at ELA are constantly finding reasons why you can’t just put a pipeline here, or an industry there, because there are going to be environmental costs.” And according to Andrew Weaver, climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia: “What’s happening here is that the government has an ideological agenda to develop the Canadian economy based on the extraction of oil out of the Alberta tar sands as quickly as possible and sell it as fast as it can, come hell and high water, and eliminate any barriers that stand in their way.”
I understand these scientists are worried about losing their high-paid jobs and cushy lives, and I feel for them. They have mortgages to pay and kids to feed, just like normal people, but this doesn’t change the fact they’re missing the larger issue: that the leaders in Canadian government and the oil industry are working to benefit the downtrodden many rather than just the privileged few. Enbridge, for example, is selflessly working towards a better future for all of us: among the pipeline’s many benefits are $1.2 billion in tax revenue for the BC government over 30 years and half a billion dollars in tax revenue for the Alberta government over 30 years. In all, Enbridge estimates there will be $2.6 billion in total tax revenue for local, provincial and federal governments; this money, the company points out, “can be directed towards education, health, infrastructure and other community needs.”
So it’s simple, really. Canada is ridiculously nature-rich and it’s time to convert some of that natural capital into monetary reality, for the benefit of all Canadians. Industry understands this and so does Prime Minister Harper.
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Once you rightly accept that we need to get that oil out of the ground, a new question arises. What do we do with it?
The Northern Gateway pipeline will deliver oil from the Alberta oil sands to the British Columbia coast so it can be loaded onto tankers and sold abroad. But Canadians need oil—so why are we selling our oil to other countries when we import more than 50 percent of the oil that we use? It’s a question many are asking, including Tom Mulcair, the Leader of the Official Opposition in Canada and the New Democratic Party. He has publicly stated his support for “adding the value in Canada, developing, upgrading, processing, refining our own natural resources here.”
This idea of keeping Canadian oil in Canada is an intriguing one, and it is one Enbridge rhetorically asks (and answers) itself on its Northern Gateway website. “Q: Why can’t the oil from Alberta be refined locally and used in Canada? A: Northern Gateway will have the capacity to transport various types of crude oil including upgraded products. Our role is transporting petroleum products on behalf of our customers, who determine where the product will be refined.”
To some readers, it may seem that Enbridge has not really answered the question—but they have. Their concern is not the end-use of the oil but rather its delivery. In another section of the same website, the company states: “People who follow Enbridge know that the company’s bread and butter is moving energy products.” So no matter what you think of the company and its practices, it is simply doing what it says it does. Expecting Enbridge not to move oil because it might be bad for the environment is like expecting McDonald’s not to sell fast food because it might be bad for your health. You might not like what the company does but you can’t be surprised by it. (Granted, there is a slight problem with this analogy, in that McDonald’s has never constructed an 1,177 km hamburger delivery system across the Rocky Mountains.) And in the end Enbridge is not beholden to answer the questions and needs of Canadian citizens, but only its shareholders.
Prime Minister Harper’s responsibility, however, is another matter. He does need to answer to Canadians and so he must approach the debate from a more nuanced position. Unlike Enbridge the prime minister cannot simply sidestep this question: “Since Canadians continue to need oil and since we have it in abundance, from where should we get our oil? From our own country, or from places with significant human-right issues like Saudi Arabia?”
The Harper stance on this issue is a beautiful and crafty one: it is true that Canadians continue to need oil and it is true that we have oil in abundance in the tar sands, therefore let’s sell our oil to China.
I love this answer because it refuses to fall into the trap inherent in the question itself, the common debating strategy of “bifurcation.” Bifurcation simplifies things by dividing something (in this case, the argument under discussion) into two parts. “The present situation means that A or B is true,” the debater insists. “If A is true, then ‘solution 1’ is how we must proceed. But if B is true, then ‘solution 2’ is how we must proceed.” Phrased thus, the question seems to have only two answers—and one of them is reasonably expected to be correct. In this way you can force your debating partner to choose one option or the other, and you can shape the argument by moving it towards the resolution you desire.
[pagebreak]But things are never as clear-cut as A or B, and the answer of C—for “let’s sell our oil to China”—reveals this. The bifurcated question doesn’t allow that there are other countries than Saudi Arabia from which we buy oil, though there are; it doesn’t consider the environmental issues (and therefore moral issues) of refining oil from the oil sands at all; and it doesn’t allow that alternative energy sources might be contemplated for Canada’s energy needs.
To be clear: I have great sympathy for people who put forward the argument that Canada should be focusing its industrial efforts toward the development of clean energy sources, because at least this position presents a possible solution rather than the pessimistic squawkings (“Oil spill! Oil spill!”) of the environmentalists or the boo-hoo-hooing (“I lost my job for telling the truth!”) of the scientists. But ultimately I can’t side with the alternative energy camp—because they are nothing but a bunch of dreamers. Now, there’s nothing wrong with dreaming and clean energy is a lovely dream to be sure. Yes, it would be terrific if Canadians took the lead as responsible citizens of the planet and, yes, it might even be a good industrial strategy to be at the forefront of a developing technology sector that will one day prove indispensable and hugely profitable. But the truth of the matter is that there’s money to be made in selling oil now, so we should get it out of the ground as quickly as we can. Someday there might be a clean and renewable alternative energy source developed in some other country (one that is not lucky enough to have a ground filled with oil), so we’re racing the clock here. Oil sales wait for no man, and that’s why it is good and necessary to have a man of action like Mr. Harper leading our country. He’s not a fanciful dreamer; he’s a cowboy blessed with common sense.
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While much of the discussion is about the pipeline itself, it’s important to remember that the pipes only get the oil to the British Columbia coast and, once there, the product needs to begin the rest of its journey—which, of course, allows the environmentalists the opportunity to peddle more fear. They ask: what happens when the oil is loaded onto the tankers and piloted thought the Douglas Channel and into the Hecate Strait? What happens if—what happens when—a tanker spills this oil? Exxon Valdez! The entire ecosystem will be poisoned!
With all the talk of economics and industry, it is easy to forget that the Great Bear Rainforest and its coastline are not simply part of a political debate but also the home to a rich diversity of wildlife: whales, countless species of fish and shellfish, seals, sea lions, marine birds, wolves, bald eagles, and the blond Kermode bear (the so-called “Spirit Bear”) whose population is estimated to be approximately five hundred. So on the surface, concerns about tanker spills seem reasonable, especially since there were five major large-vessel accidents between 1999 and 2008 along the same tanker routes that Enbridge intends to use. Further, Environment Canada calls the Hecate Strait “the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world” with winds gusting up to 185 km/hr and waves that are regularly more than six meters high.
Expecting Enbridge not to move oil because it might be bad for the environment is like expecting McDonald’s not to sell fast food because it might be bad for your health. You might not like what the company does but you can’t be surprised by it. (Granted, there is a slight problem with this analogy, in that McDonald’s has never constructed an 1,177 km hamburger delivery system across the Rocky Mountains.)
But the company knows all this—”At Enbridge, we take our responsibility to the environment seriously, and recognize that the way we treat the planet is our natural legacy”—and, accordingly, there is a comprehensive plan for managing risks. For their marine operations, Enbridge insists it is committed to employing the “highest worldwide safety and navigational standards.” All vessels entering Kitimat Marine Terminal will be modern and double-hulled, the company promises, and there will be escort tugs that guide filled tankers out of port. To educate the public about its efforts, Enbridge has produced promotional videos that emphasize just how far port safety has come over the years, pointing out that “Sweden’s Preem oil terminal in the narrow Brofjorden Fjord boasts an enviable safety record—in over 30 years of operation, the port has not experienced a single significant environmental incident. Their perfect safety record is a testament to extraordinary safety procedures—procedures Enbridge plans to implement at the Kitimat port—safe ships, safe technology and safe navigational procedures.”
Some might argue it’s a bit disingenuous for Enbridge to point to another company, halfway around the world, for its example of safety standards in marine operations. Some might say it’s like a Canadian hamburger restaurant claiming their hamburgers are safe because a similar shop in Finland hasn’t had an e-coli outbreak since 1983. But that’s missing the point. The point is that it’s pessimistic to think that safety isn’t possible, when other companies are achieving safe results so far. Certainly there’s no harm in showing that “similar facilities operate safely off the coasts of Norway and Scotland in very similar geographical conditions.”
Still, it cannot be denied there is a small chance of an accident in which oil could be released into the ocean. Should this happen, Enbridge is perfectly clear they would pay “in the case [that] the responsible party is the marine terminal owner/operator.” They are also clear that if a ship spills the oil, then “the ship owner would be responsible.” And this is how it should be: the responsible party pays. It is good news indeed that a clear chain of responsibility has been established—except in the case that oil is spilled while being loaded onto the ship and the companies argue about who is at fault. And it is reassuring to know that if a Chinese tanker spills vast quantities of oil into Canadian waters and the British Columbia coastal region, this Chinese company (and their insurance) will cover the damages and make sure everything is put right. If we can’t trust other countries to treat Canada’s natural environment with respect, who can we trust? And in any case, it’s not like oil spills create damage that money can’t fix.
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In the end, what matters is this: the development of the Northern Gateway pipeline will create billions in profit and provide untold barrels of oil for industry. That the dollars are for a multinational corporation and that the oil is for Asian markets does not matter, because the benefits will trickle down to all Canadians. Tax revenue! New jobs! Enbridge states there will be “about 1,150 long-term job opportunities throughout the Canadian economy” but I think the company is being modest. I think those numbers are a worst-case scenario, because just imagine the Canadian lawyers who have already been given work drafting limited partnerships and other forms of legal protection for Enbridge, and just think about the public relations workers who have already been delivering the message that the Northern Gateway is “more than a pipeline. It’s a path to our future.” Another source of potential future employment for Canadians, providing good wages for rewarding work, will be for those workers hired to clean up any spills that may happen. (Not that they will.) And this is a job with staying power, because it takes a long time to toothbrush the oil off a seagull in front of the cameras.
But I wouldn’t worry too much about what might go wrong with the Northern Gateway pipeline, because all this environmental malarkey about impending oil spills is greatly exaggerated. Enbridge reminds us they are “recognized as an industry leader in pipeline safety and integrity” and they will be “installing safety control valves on either side of major water crossings to ensure the pipeline can be quickly shut down” as well as “monitoring the system 24/7 and responding immediately to any changes in pressure.” They won’t take seventeen hours to shut down the line and they won’t restart the broken pipeline twice; they’ve learned their lessons from the Kalamazoo River, back in the old days of 2010. And the marine practices they intend to use will be as good as those of that other company in Sweden. Plus, don’t forget that past performance cannot be used to predict future performance, since the two things are entirely unrelated. Except when Enbridge does want you to judge them on their past. “Judge us by what we’ve done—year in, year out—through our 60 year history. Safety is our highest priority. No accident is ever acceptable. Our objective is to avoid spills.”
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A deadline has been set, and that deadline is December 31, 2013.
This is when the review panel must decide the future of the Northern Gateway pipeline. There will be no further extensions to the decision, says the federal government, and the pipeline cannot be rejected solely for reasons of environmental safety. (And why would you want to do that, anyway?) Andrew MacDougall, the director of communication for the Prime Minister’s Office, has written: “The government position is clear: It is in Canada’s national interest to diversify markets for our exports, including the products of our natural resource sector.” The government has done the work, they’ve set the stage, and they’ve let their position be known.
So one might think this all looks extremely promising, but this is where our story takes a sad turn. Despite the many benefits of the pipeline, there is the strong possibility that it will not be approved as public opinion has been gathering against it. A recent province-wide online survey indicated that 60% of British Columbians opposed the Northern Gateway project with only 20% in favour; another survey showed that the issue of pipelines and tankers is the second most important political issue on British Columbian minds, ahead of health care and only .8 of one percent behind the economy. It appears the citizens of B.C. are paying attention to the unfair concerns of the World Wildlife Fund Canada, Ecojustice, Greenpeace, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Western Wilderness Committee, Wildsight, and the Sierra Club BC. But this is the sad state of the world in which we live: good-hearted but gullible people are swayed by the radical agendas of eco-organizations intent on hampering our economy, rather than accepting the simple truth that the federal government knows what’s best for us.
[pagebreak]The numbers get even worse. ThreeHundredEight.com’s voting projections for the upcoming British Columbia provincial election scheduled for May 14, 2013—months ahead of the decision date for the Northern Gateway approval or denial—indicate that “if an election were held today <Dec. 3, 2012>, the New Democrats would capture an estimated 49 percent of the vote” versus 30 per cent for the Liberal Party that is currently in power. With this 19 percent lead in the polls, the New Democrats would have “more than enough to ensure a majority government” and B.C NDP leader Adrian Dix has made it abundantly clear that his party strongly opposes the pipeline and will do all it can to prevent its approval.
But a company doesn’t become a major player in the oil industry by playing it safe—so when Enbridge is put on the defensive, it simply digs in. Showing the kind of rough-and-tumble optimism needed to get things done, Enbridge is moving forward with the Northern Gateway project as if the opposition to the plan is of little consequence. The company has recently hired dozens of new employees and contracted six engineering firms to determine the precise route that the pipeline will travel. Some might call this false optimism, but I call it the confidence of winners.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Harper has been facing some public-opinion difficulties of his own lately, in the form of the Idle No More movement. The irony in this, if there is any, is that #idlenomore was born from opposition to Bill C-45, the very bill intended to ease restrictions on environmental protections and get Canada moving on the resource sales it so desperately needs. Introduction of Bill C-45 was a kind of tipping point for the First Nations people, in part due to changes to the Indian Act regarding the leasing of reserve lands and the decision-making process of band territories. But of no less importance were the changes to the former Navigable Waters Protection Act, now called the Navigation Protection Act. The CBC describes what these changes mean: “Proposals for big pipelines and interprovincial power line projects will no longer have to prove they won’t damage or destroy navigable waterways in Canada….” These changes benefit projects exactly like the Northern Gateway pipeline, and therefore they are something to be celebrated. Even better, they work in concert with new regulations in the March 2012 federal budget which shortened the period required for environmental impact assessments for major resource projects from six years to no longer than twenty-four months. Such changes may not be entirely beneficial for our environment, or so the environmentalist lobby would lead you to believe, but has a Spirit Bear ever given you a job? That’s a question to ask. And another question to ask is how discontented can the First Nations people really be? Because when I look at that photograph from the Stampede, I am utterly charmed by the jovial smile of that First Nations gentleman. He doesn’t look unhappy at all.
Of course, photographs can be deceiving and I must admit that this photo, as much as I like it, is not perfect. For example, because of the prime minister’s glasses and his distance from the photographer, one cannot see—one cannot truly comprehend and feel—the icy determination that is contained in the eyes of the man. He’s got that choirboy face, but oh those eyes! One could swoon and submit to eyes like these; it’s as if the prime minister could look into the very soul of Canada and bend it to his will. And, begrudgingly, I have to admit that the friendly-smiling First Nations man also bothers me a bit, too. Sure, he’s in the background—and some bleeding hearts would say that “in the background” is where First Nations people in Canada are used to standing in relation to the government, in any case—but no more so than the Caucasians. But still, perhaps his presence on the stage is not entirely representative of the relationship between the First Nations people and our resource-focused prime minister.
Much of the land through which the Northern Gateway pipeline must pass is through territory claimed by First Nations groups but despite Enbridge having negotiated for years with various First Nations tribes, and despite the offer of a 10 percent stake in the $5.5 billion project, many First Nations people don’t seem to want the pipeline.
On December 13, 2012—the day before the passing of Bill C-45—the Save the Fraser Declaration was signed by 130 First Nations groups in opposition to the construction of new pipelines in British Columbia, with Chief Jackie Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation and Yinka Dene Alliance saying “I’ve been given a mandate by my community to use all means necessary to stop this project.” This sentiment was seconded by Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, who stated that the organization would provide unconditional support to opponents of Northern Gateway: “We are instructed through our chiefs and their communities to offer political support and legal support, and if necessary, to link arms on the front line.” So unlike the First Nations man in the photo who seems to have the prime minister’s back, if these B.C. leaders were to find themselves standing behind the prime minister it would probably be so they could keep their eyes on him.
This makes me sad, all this unnecessary suspicion, because what did cowboys ever do to cause Indians to mistrust them? Mr. Harper and the fine Enbridge folk are unfailingly hardworking men of honour, deeply in tune with the land, and one should not listen when people suggest otherwise—even people like former federal environment minister David Anderson. “Enbridge clearly has a cowboy culture quite inappropriate for building a pipeline in one of the most sensitive parts of the world,” Mr. Anderson has said, and he is adamant that Enbridge is the “last company in North America” that should be doing the job. But that’s a ridiculous claim. This “cowboy culture” is exactly what makes Enbridge perfect for the job and a perfect fit with the current Canadian government. There should be no mistrust: not from Anderson, not from environmentalists, not from scientists, not from First Nations people, not from the people of B.C., and not from Canadian citizens who, after all, elected the Conservative Party to protect our country’s interests and to expand our economy at all costs.
Instead, we should give credit where credit is due. We should applaud Prime Minister Harper as both a rugged individualist and as the author of Canada’s bold new direction. We should be overjoyed that we, as a country, are growing up and using what we’ve got to get what we can. We’re finally going to stop being the “little brother,” and become strong and independent like our sibling to the south. We’re going to suck that money right out of ground and push it down that pipeline (at least, if all goes according to plan) right through the Great Bear Rainforest. There’s going to be jobs for everyone and lots of cash and no environmental accidents, and it’s going to be wonderful because Prime Minister Harper is this country’s leader, a great and loyal friend to industry, in a cowboy hat, in the heart of his nation’s oil country, talking about living in the greatest country in the world. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that if the Northern Pipeline goes through, Mr. Harper will greet the news by standing under a giant banner that proclaims: “Mission Accomplished.” And if the Northern Gateway Pipeline does not come to approval, that would be terribly sad but I have confidence it won’t stop our industrious Mr. Harper. Even if this battle is lost, the legislation is being put into place to ensure that he won’t lose the next one.
So I could not have been more pleased to see Prime Minister Harper on the Stampede stage wearing the black hat of unpopular but necessary decisions. It shows he’s willing to roll up his sleeves just like a real cowboy intent on maximizing the land’s potential and taking all that one can out of it. And when you work the land like this, wrestling from its earthy goodness all the treasures that lay within, you can’t help but get a little dirty. That’s the way life is, and therefore the colour of Mr. Harper’s makes perfect sense. Because in the end, a black hat is simply a white hat stained with oil. And if we Canadians play our cards right—and it’s so simple, because all we have to do is silently follow his lead—soon we will all be able to afford black hats that are just as stylish as Mr. Harper’s.
