Saving Canada and saving the planet? Not necessarily a pipeline, but a pipeline if necessary!
Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared last night to have threaded the needle between Alberta and British Columbia, joining Danielle Smith in Calgary to announce that the Alberta Government is OK with a southern pipeline route that avoids some of the big fights with First Nations and environmentalists that would have been inevitable if the premier’s favoured route to Prince Rupert had been followed.
“We’ve agreed that the best route for a new pipeline is one that already exists,” Mr. Carney said, although there was most certainly some painful arm twisting before that agreement was reached.
Earlier in the day Mr. Carney had a presser in Vancouver with Premier David Eby to announce that British Columbia wouldn’t fight the heavy crude pipeline along the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline route but that the tanker ban off the province’s North Coast would be remain in place. Plus, the PM announced a multi-billion-dollar Canada-B.C. “co-operative prosperity agreement.”
Mr. Eby conceded he doesn’t have the constitutional wherewithal to fight the pipeline, but said the B.C. deal “ensures that the northern tanker ban stays in place, and it ensures that if a pipeline goes ahead, that British Columbians are fairly compensated for the environmental risks we would take on any new pipeline project.”
Thanks to the Carney Government, compensation for B.C. is a change from past pipeline battles during premiers Alison Redford’s and Rachel Notley’s governments in Alberta.
So, nobody’s really happy, but everybody in power is happy enough with Mr. Carney’s joint messages of not necessarily a pipeline but a pipeline if necessary and ditto about a North Coast tanker ban. Nobody knows how this will actually pan out, of course, but it’s good enough for the moment for the parties with their hands on the levers of power.
As for Alberta separatists and West Coast environmentalists, they will be furious and praying to their different gods for the plan to fail.
Nevertheless, this is rather like the way Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King dodged the conscription bullet in 1942 when it threatened to split the country and if Prime Minister Carney is channeling Billy King at this fraught moment of Canadian history, well, he could probably do worse.
There is also plenty of bad news, of course, though not necessarily the same bad news depending on your perspective.
Alberta separatists and their many foreign funded bots were in a frenzy yesterday attacking all parties, but especially Ms. Smith, for doing a deal with the PM that they insisted would never come to fruition.
On the other side of the ledger, the realization is yet to set in with the public that 90 per cent of the cost of this multi-billion-dollar project – we don’t know how many multiples of billions yet – is going to be paid by Alberta and Canadian taxpayers, just as we were promised would never happen.
“It appears that Alberta – you and me and everyone else – will have to pay up if the southern route is to be financed,” said recently retired Mount Royal University political science professor Keith Brownsey. “There goes my pension!”
“It is now clear: there is no business case for a new West Coast pipeline in Canada,” said Pembina Institute (as they say, no relation) Executive Director Chris Severson-Baker in a news release yesterday. “If this was a smart economic venture; if there was any kind of reasonable return on investment to be made, a private company or companies would have put up the cash.”
Obviously, the Alberta Government can’t pretend Trans Mountain Corp., a federal Crown corporation, or the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission are private entities. And as for Pembina Pipeline Corp., described by Ottawa as a “strategic investor,” we can be confident that behind the scenes it’s been protected from any risk as a result of its role as a fig leaf in this political Kabuki theatre.
The Globe and Mail reported that Pembina Pipeline said its involvement was as a signatory to a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the federal and provincial governments and their two Crown entities.
Alberta’s proposal will now be referred to the federal government’s Major Projects Office for a decision on whether it will be named a project of national interest by Oct. 1. But, c’mon, Mr. Carney wouldn’t have flown all the way to Vancouver and Calgary to make announcements if this were not a done deal, or the next thing to it.
The deal supposedly also still hinges on the willingness of major oilsands companies to build the Pathways carbon capture project, which will require the input of even more public cash. Discussions will continue on that front, the politicians say. But, again, after many promises have been broken, what’s one more?
Dr. Brownsey assessed the political fallout as being to Mr. Eby’s benefit. “I think David Eby is the winner in all this. He will collect revenues from increased LNG, the North Coast tanker moratorium stays in place, and if the southern route is built, B.C. will collect some sort of toll.”
Obviously, the significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions from increased production in the oilsands and liquified natural gas pumped from B.C. is going to have an impact on a rapidly heating world.
But clearly the prime minister concluded that if the two most urgent tasks at this moment in history are saving the country and saving the planet, his priority must be saving the country.
Someone else will have to save the planet, and if that turns out to be China, it does not bode well for the future of a pipeline full of diluted bitumen from Alberta.
Yes, Carney was channeling something or someone in his a pipeline if necessary tour yesterday and it seems to be enough so far to keep two provinces with conflicting interests agreeing, at least for now. If he ever gets bored with the challenges of dealing with our intractable Canadian regional differences, perhaps he can try working on peace in the Middle East. I don’t know if he could fix that too, but he might do better than those currently bungling through it.
One good thing is he may have finally shut down Smith’s fantasy of a northern pipeline route that was not at all practical and realistic. Also he seems to have gotten the BC premier to make the best of what is a bad situation. If a pipeline is to be put through regardless, then at least BC has input into a better route and may get some compensation too. It is probably a much better deal than the BC Conservatives ever would have got and shows that he can be practical too.
Environmentalists will grumble and separatists likely too but this will probably satisfy enough people to work politically and go ahead. An important part of this project is to also give Canada access to other markets that are not the US and which may be more lucrative as well.
I don’t know how much public money will be involved, but have a feeling most of it will be Alberta’s, as it is the party most interested in a new project proceeding. The pipeline company has probably been offered some sort of deal too good for it to refuse by Smith, so as to provide the private sector component insisted on by others. Whatever this deal is, it will probably take all of Smith’s clever communications tactics to sell this to concerned taxpayers and citizens.
Heck over its history, Canada and/or its provinces have been involved in building railways, running oil companies, airlines or financial institutions and now pipelines. So this is will likely be just another example of capitalism with Canadian characteristics.
That’s the last thing someone wants to see is another Exxon Valdez type of spill of the coast of British Columbia. Aside from that, we will see how economically feasible this is, because oil prices are going lower again.
Everyone is happy and not happy at the same time. Typical Liberal politics. The art of the deal! Scratch that. The art of the compromise. In this case the Great Compromise.
I am hoping to find out at a later date long after Mark Carney he was conducting regular seances to get counsel from his ancestors. That’s the only advice I trust these days. After all it was MacKenzie King’s mother who came up with the phrase “conscription if necessary but not necessarily conscription.”
Ronmac: Are you sure it wasn’t one of the Pats? DJC
Smith’s version: Libertarianism when necessary but not necessarily libertarianism when authoritarianism is easier.
Massive betrayal by Carney, NDP, aiding & abetting Dani, whose huge failures in business forays & lousy budget record are supposed to bring confidence to a very high risk pipeline project rejected by private corporations. Not even going to “mention” the unproven high-risk CCS venture again taxpayer financed. Worst possible strategies. Freaking disaster waiting to happen.
Maybe I’m just not getting it but this is what I saw.
1) Sign an MOU that *private money* must build the pipeline.
2) Dixie Dani can’t find anyone stupid enough to pay for the pipeline
3) Eby freaks because his constituency never, ever wants to deal with another pipeline spill and BC has legislated *against* tankers in their part of the ocean because oil companies have proven they won’t clean up their own messes adequately and they have a track record of shipping safety violations.
4) Feds create a sovereign wealth fund that isn’t a sovereign wealth fund. It’s an investment fund for regular Canadian taxpayers to fund private projects alongside corporations or government funding.
5) Eby gets strong-armed and claims the pipeline will go south instead of north. South to where? Nobody asks, “Ain’t that still on your coast?”
6) Suddenly there’s going to BE a pipeline regardless of no private financing, no guaranteed financing except off the back of taxpayers, Albertan, Canadian, or both to send oil/gas to Asia without any mention of future ports, harbours, pipelines, shipping containers or cargo ships.
7) And per usual, nobody is asking the treaty holders.
Is that what I saw?
B: It seems to me this is partly what you saw. Re Point 5, Hecate Strait is a wilder and more dangerous body of water than the straits of Juan de Fuca and Georgia. Re Point 6: The pipeline is supposed to terminate at Roberts Bank, next door to the Tsawwassen B.C. Ferries terminal. Re Point 7, the southern route is more settled re First Nations. Many are not treaty holders in B.C., by the way, with land claims still unsettled. Also missing, arguably, is Point 8: Asia and particularly China is working hard to cut dependence on oil from anywhere. Big Oil can see the trend even if Alberta politicians can’t, which is the real reason it’s hard to find private investors, not the BS about Ottawa believed by pretty well everyone in Alberta. DJC
Also Big Oil hates environmental realities and the idea that polluters should pay for polluting.
@DJC
I’d add the chronic instability in Alberta and USA aren’t exactly causing investors to leap joyously.
Add to that that they’re busy sinking every penny into the ponzi AI market before it collapses harder than 1929 and that might explain more of the hesitancy.
Not having settled the land disputes via Supreme court isn’t the same as not having rights to the land, I’d wager. However, it may be less of a problem if destroying the land/fishing/water is considered.
I also agree that Asia wants off oil as an energy source. While oil may still be required for plastics/fabrics/etc they don’t want their energy locked up by USA imperialism and we should be following the same route as fast as we can. Energy source is the difference between being able to manufacture and not.
Lack of control over energy is the reason USA is ugly crying over BYD imports. The complaint that China will spy on is laughable while everyone in the country is walking around with American cell phone trackers/spycams/audio recorders in their pockets. (we should be making our own and I won’t own one until we do or I can figure out how to run linux on one which is apparently, possible but expensive) Throwing their little hissy fit that Canadians can’t cross the border in their BYD cars. Most of the country refuses to cross already.
Not only is Big Oil asleep at the switch, they’re nodding off with the Mango Mussolini’s regime.
Re: point 8 could be more broadly described as “the west” even the most rapidly electrifying county on earth recognizes they’re still going to need a LOT of oil for a good long while. They just announced new plans for a harmonized grade railway from Iran to China, through the ‘stans; Important because they can then fill cars with oil in Iran and drive them directly to China to offload, no need to stop at each subsequent border to swap cars for
The different grades of track.
I think this is a good point also because it’s clear while China is desperate to transition of fossil fuels and recognize the emergency to do so, they also recognize that it will not happen overnight and that transition itself requires a huge amount of energy. I’m not a huge fan of the federal liberals but it seems like they’re making the same bet, albeit a foolish one, or in a foolish manner.
We already bought and built a pipeline to the bc coast. How did that go ? Have we made back the money yet ? Will we ever ? More importantly did it DO ANYTHING to quell the whining of these quisling separatists?
A more appropriate investment would be expanding refinement and storage within Canada, so not only do we have more value added products for the marketplace, we can develop new technologies to transition out of fossil fuels as the rest of the world does also. As recent events have shown, sadly, the world economy has never been as stable as it looks and it sure doesn’t look like it’s a negative to have a bunch of oil to sell when the shtf…. It comes down to who’s going to be in the drivers seat, the people of Canada or American oil companies and their proxies.
@ A Little Bird
I absolutely agree we should be refining our own oil. The fact we don’t is a waste of jobs and economic potential.
Tanker traffic goes through Dixon Entrance, not Hecate Strait as Ms May suggested.
Scotty: Fair enough, although the distinction appears to more a bureaucratic one than a natural one. From the Wikipedia:
Environment Canada comments that Dixon Entrance West “is exposed to the Pacific Ocean, although the eastern half of the marine area is relatively well protected”. It is noted for prevalent fog in the summer and freezing spray in the winter. Learmouth Bank in the middle of the west entrance “enhances whatever seas are present” making conditions challenging for small craft. Tidal currents immediately north of Kiis Gwaay (Graham Island) can reach 2.5 knots creating hazardous conditions for small vessels.[12] These hazards make transiting across the Strait quite dangerous for smaller vessels.
The eastern entrance is well protected and fog is common in the summer. Tidal currents are particularly strong north of Rose Spit, reaching 3.5 knots. Tidal rips and heavy overfalls are hazardous at all times and become very dangerous in strong winds or heavy seas with Environment Canada warning that the resulting steep waves can capsize small vessels east of Rose Spit. During southeast gales seas of 5 to 7 metres are not uncommon, occasionally reaching 9 metres.
Brown Passage, on the east of Dixon Entrance is exposed to westerly waves which will break on ebb tides of 2.5 knots. Ample weather observations in the entrance are necessary to ensure safe navigation and avoidance of hazardous conditions.
There is a moratorium on large oil tankers in a large zone that includes the Canadian exclusive economic zone of the Hecate Strait.
DJC
More like C. D. Howe.
S-B: Him too. DJC
One thing the separatist whiners have right – this pipeline will never be built. Too many strings attached. What I found amusing yesterday was PP holding an earlier news conference to demand the federal government back the northern route and scrap the tanker ban. If PP thinks sailing through Hecate Strait is such a good idea, he should try it. It’s only the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world. And not a place for oil tankers!
“During the exploratory oil drilling carried out by Shell Canada Ltd. in the late 1960s in Hecate Strait, monster waves of 27 to 30 metres were observed. During its own monitoring over a period of three years, DFO recorded 20-metre waves – the height of a seven-storey building – in December, 1982.” https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-hecate-strait-oil-tankers-haida-gwaii/ DJC
Plus they don’t get to destroy the Great Bear Rainforest. Funny, no one mentions it anymore.
Highwood– Not only was PP saying he would get rid of the tanker ban ( he’s still talking like he’s campaigning) …he also outright ‘lied’, repeatedly, saying that the fake environmentalists have no case; but also that if the Americans can ship their oil from Alaska to California going through those waters, why can’t we. Hey
Skippy–THEY DON’T!!
10 second Google search shows what the routes actually are. But you be you Pinocchio; and if your base actually believes that drivel, shame on you for spreading more lies.**
I guess being back in Alberta, he expected people not to notice the buffalo chips.
** for whatever reason that the media keeps glossing over the “misinformation” , it really is time for them to call out the lies he spreads.
@randi-lee
Here’s my question. I’ve followed politics for 60 years and I have *never* seen an opposition leader get this much attention from mainstream media. Ever. Far more than the actual ruling party.
The #1 job would be to get rid of the American control of our media sphere.
Not that I’m that much of a Carney fan–but the bias is so clear you could polish it with Windex.
Agreed. I don’t know how or why, but I guess PP has more time and energy to spend on getting more media attention. Not that he has anything to say worth listening to.
Here’s a little glimpse of a grocery shopping trip from Ocean Falls, B.C., not even on the open ocean. Go to 23:50.
https://youtu.be/pib4zS2Vaeo?si=3PmYDcHaZJZIY_1-
Abs: Once the rainiest city in Canada; still rainy, I’m sure, but a city no more. I’ve actually been there. It was lush and creepy even in its heyday. DJC
@HH
“PP and Dani can take a long walk off a short pier, there”
….too early?
This voter has wondered why two pipes were not installed when the taxpayers were paying for the pipeline install. Wouldn’t that have been a smart idea?
It took Mark Carney to show some intelligence when these Reformers were hellbent on ramming it through to Prince Rupert or Kitimat and to hell with protecting the environment or whales and fishermen’s livelihood.
They had better make certain that Lougheed’s oil royalties rates and corporate tax rates are restored like Notley was going to try to do. It’s the only way Albertans will get out of financial mess we are in
the last 12 months has turned out to be stellar for the the o & g sector.
with free cash flow estimated between 65b – 85b dollars consequential from prices arising from the recent middle eastern war, retention of all direct and indirect subsidies from federal and provincial governments, probable evasion of liabilities for the cost of abandoned wells and the tailing lakes from oilsands operations, and the expanded taxpayer share of cost for the emerging carbon capture boondoggle – things have played out pretty well.
and we haven’t even factored all the potential upside from events still in hopper!
China is rapidly switching to alternative energy and renewable energy sources. So where is the market for this pipeline of heavy oil again? Also note at this time the Chinese economy is in a downturn. Private investors understand this. Hence the lack of interest in the project, Longterm better returns are to be had elsewhere.
Will Danielle Smith seize our Canada Pension Plan contributions now, with the blessing of the federal government? Once she’s done that, will she further impoverish us by raiding the provincial Treasury and our personal bank accounts at ATB Financial?
The obvious answer is that she’ll try. She’s been hinting at these things for a while now.
The bigger question is why Canada would hand this fortune to a partner who is not trustworthy and wants to take us out of Canada. Is she using the old bait and switch to finance separation? Take the money and run?
All this has been done outside the legislature and without a mandate from the people of Alberta. Danielle Smith won’t stop at being the dictator of Alberta.
She can’t claim not to be a separatist while foisting a “not a separatism” referendum upon us. Have you noticed that the rallying cry of separatists these days is, “I’m not a separatist”? It’s on. Is Canada going along with it?
If we’re going back to the first half of the 20th C for rhetorical analogues, “co-operative prosperity agreement” has definite echoes of “co-prosperity sphere”.
SB: Oddly enough, though it’s not strictly analogous … yet … I had that very thought the other day. Better not go there, I thought next, might turn out to be true. This time, though, it’s more likely to be a different power running the co-prosperity sphere, one that has been paying attention to history and is building a much bigger navy. DJC
Watching the news last night, there was a separatist, all dressed in blue, from his head to his toes, saying he was happy about the possibility of a new pipeline, but mad about the tanker ban. Like WTF? Why should he be mad about the tanker ban? It doesn’t have any effect on the proposed pipeline. This guy has obliviously stopped at at the UPC / Separatist kool-aide stand too many times.
Jones: I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “The cruelty is the point.” All Alberta separatists are MAGA, and with the MAGA ideology, if it can be given that distinction, a pipeline has to do more than ship dilbit, it needs to harm the environment, destroy lives and piss off “woke snowflakes.” That’s why they want to end the tanker ban. DJC
“… if there was any kind of reasonable return on investment to be made, a private company or companies would have put up the cash.”
From the oil industry’s point of view, why take on the risk when the government will take on it for you?
Business expenses are so passé.
Why not let taxpayers pay your bills? That way you can maximize dividends to shareholders.
The new “free enterprise”.
So government ponies up taxpayer dollars for pipelines, LNG projects, CCS, SMRs, R&D, and clean-up and reclamation.
Our golden goose.
Perhaps some of the superstar reporters with Corus Entertainment should ask Dingy Smith “exactly where is the Alberta money for this project going to come from?” See if she comes clean and let’s the cat out of the bag with “well we are going to steal the CPP from everyone in Alberta” or spout some other whimsical bullshit. Amazing we can’t fund hospitals and have people dying in waiting rooms, but have endless money for oil & gas.
“But clearly the prime minister concluded that if the two most urgent tasks at this moment in history are saving the country and saving the planet, his priority must be saving the country.”
No evidence that building a pipeline will appease, sideline, or silence Alberta separatists.
The last one (TMX) did not. Pipeline boosters gave Trudeau and Notley no credit whatever.
There is no satisfying Big Oil, the UCP, or Alberta separatists.
The O&G mafia’s appetite for subsidies is bottomless. Industry opposition to regulation, monitoring, climate action, and accurate emissions reporting is absolute.
Smith’s game is to rile up the disinformed masses against Ottawa. Keep the public distracted from the UCP’s destructive, anti-democratic policies. Keep the fires burning!
“Smith said the deal [MOU re energy/climate policies including new pipeline] with Carney alone isn’t and won’t be enough to quell the separatist desire held by party members, noting that energy policy is just one of many issues Alberta has with Ottawa.” (CP, Dec 02, 2025)
-“Danielle Smith’s oil deal with Mark Carney was supposed to quiet Alberta’s separatists. Too bad they didn’t get the message” (Toronto Star, Nov. 28, 2025)
-“Pipeline deal with Ottawa met with boos at Alberta UCP convention” (CP, Nov 28, 2025)
-“Jack Mintz: An oil pipeline won’t end Alberta’s alienation” (FP, Jan 16, 2026)
-“Donna Kennedy-Glans: A pipeline deal won’t be enough to tame Alberta’s separatists” (NP, Nov 26, 2025)
-Dave Cournoyer (Substack): “Won’t a new pipeline make the separatists happy?” (May 16, 2026)
-David Moscrop: “Canada’s Shotgun Federalism” (May 27, 2026)
-Dave Cournoyer: “Danielle Smith dug the separatist hole she’s now stuck in” (May 28, 2026)
AB separatist lawyer Jeffrey Rath in response to the May 15, 2026 announcement: “I can’t believe she calls this “GREAT NEWS”. It’s like @ABDanielleSmith THINKS WE ARE ALL MORONS.”
https://x.com/JeffreyRWRath/status/2055358748647125119
It does not matter what Carney did for the O&G industry or the Premier last week. What is he going to do today?
The UCP’s fortunes depend on perpetual victimhood, terminal outrage, and endless hostility to Ottawa.
Carney’s capitulation to Alberta’s demands only fuels Alberta’s right-wing pathology.
The extortionist tactics and threats will continue. The more powerful the monster grows, the less willing it is to give that power up.
The O&G industry wants Ottawa to repeal all climate policies. Even then, they won’t be happy.
They just keep upping their demands.
Taxpayers will have to pony up for CCS, SMRs, clean-up and reclamation — and even then the O&G industry won’t be happy.
Endless blackmail and extortion.
Welcome to the petro state!
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
A few thoughts I have. As DJC and others have wondered, will there be a market for the dillbit and, if so, for how long? My guess is that there won’t be enough of a market for the time period required to transport and sell the dillbit in order to pay the cost of the pipeline. Also, I’m not keen on the federal government financing another pipeline. The debt from the TMX twinning was merely spun off into another corporation by Crystia Freeland. Presumably, Canadians are paying this debt? The pretend “profits” are presumably being offered as an enticement to whoever the federal government hopes will buy the twinned TMX.
I think that carbon capture and storage is an ineffective strategy, and I think it’s quite expensive.
I often wonder whether, in the long term, the province actually makes any money from o & g, considering the subsidies and the eventual cost of properly “abandoning” (properly shutting down) the wells which likely will be paid by government.
From my conversations with neighbours, it appears that many Albertans have never heard of TMX and don’t know that the federal government bought the project from 2 former Enron employees and that the federal government paid for the twinning with public money.
As Abs has pointed out, I cannot figure out why the federal government would take a chance on financing another expensive pipeline project when politicians here, especially Danielle Smith, are deliberately fanning the flames of separatism. I believe that Danielle Smith’s policies and actions are intended to divide Albertans and to push them towards separation by offering fantasies of low costs and great benefits. The continued misrepresentations on how Canada actually works are incentivizing anger about imaginary financial disadvantages to Alberta.
Nice. So after building TMX Alberta still has the lowest miminum wage, worsening health care and an crisis in education. I guess we should assume things will only get worse if another pipeline is built.
If a number of people want the pipeline, then they should be the ones to pony up for it. I do not want to pay for it, because alternative fuels are gaining traction and demand for oil as a fuel is dropping. We need oil, for plastics, which is un-fortunate, we need refined oils for lubrications, as well as for grease, but for fuel, probably not. China is testing electric planes, downtown Vancouver is mostly electric, or hybrid vehicles. Hydrogen, blue and green, the science is improving the milage. So for oil as a fuel, it’s the beginning of the end. Smith should stop beating a dead horse.
Word in the “news” is that TMX is making a profit!!! Once the debt accrued to build the damn thing was transfered to another crown corporation, TMX can claim it is making money. But, who is paying down the debt in that other crown corporation that holds the $34 Billions of debt used to build that pipeline? And now we get to behold another $35 Billions of debt that “who knows” how it is going to be paid off!! Are we just going to add it to the $1.6 Trillions we already owe to whomever – that will never be paid off!!
It’s another ‘hurry-up-and-wait’ moment for the Canadian “energy superpower.” Thus we await to see if or when there’ll be ‘shovels-in-the-ground’ to bury the proposed TMXX (just guessing the name) pipeline or to bury the TMXX pipeline proposal altogether. Rest assured, though, the oceans of the world will get a little deeper, a little warmer, and a little more acidic in the meantime.
The only sequestration in sight so far is that of Black-Eye-Gas already befogging the notion of a Prince Rupert route. However, that concession to Coastal BC First Nations is as inconvenient to Danielle Smith’s position with respect treaty indigenous nations in her own, sovereign nation of Albetar as Green-House-Gas sequestration is for Big Bitumen.
As for saving Canada, it might have been simpler if the HarperCon majority, first and last, had respected the SCoC’s 2014 ruling that the Crown must have meaningful consultations with First Nations which do not yet have treaties in order to determine who gets what from the disposition of natural resources on acknowledged traditional territories, and had respected environmental assessment rules that had already existed for many years (court injunctions on these bases were easily obtained by opponents ). Perhaps Harper would have forgone the stalking-horse that was the Kitimat terminus of the soon-to-be-terminated Northern Gateway pipeline and come clean with his probable real objective: a Rupert pipeline terminus at the transcontinental railhead on 2nd-largest deepwater harbour in North America which opens directly into Dixon Entrance (not Hecate Strait, as Green leader May suggested would never happen—which of course she is proved correct).
Once Trudeau Fils committed to TMX—of which each Canadian citizen now owns about 3-1/2 inches (pardon my english)—the prospect of a northern route that would compete against the heavily cost-overrun TMX became compatible with a political moratorium on tanker traffic in and out of Canada’s most excellent Pacific port city.
Man!—what a mix-up!! But Canada’s worth saving —which includes a significant part of the planet’s surface. Way to thread ’em, Mark!
TMX 2 – I got to say I told you so to my wife.
And for the record, I worked in resource extraction all my adult life – forestry first, then pipeline software.
TMX 2 is a start. I would argue it’s the wrong direction though. I think Energy East should have been revived first, then we could have looked at TMX 2. In national interest & sovereignty terms, going east flips the script on Enbridge Line 5 (no longer subject to American politics), no more importing Saudi crude for Eastern Canadian needs, and opens up an European export market.
As for the public ownership; it’s not my preference, but it’s not a deal breaker. After all, TMX 1 has a very positive cash flow, it’s the construction debt that will have to be amortized, or passed on eventually to a purchaser.
As for the environmentalists tearing their hair out – deal with it. Gutting your economy moving too fast to phase out oil is far worse, on so many levels. Use the profits from your public owned oil infrastructure to fund things like a massively expanded Greener Home Grant/Loan program. Be creative, use the top down approach sparingly, where it’s really needed, like the northern tanker ban.
For Smith – take the win and be gracious about the the northern tanker ban staying in place – no one wanted an Exxon Valdez redux. For the Alberta separafools – bite me. Then sit down and shut up. Better yet, Coutts is open 24/7. Don’t let the door hit ya where God split ya.
Justin Trudeau’s greatest environmental failing was the top down approach. You restrict a major portion of you economy, of course you’re going to piss off the people whose livelihood you are threatening. Try a bottom up approach and get massive buy in from your populace (look at Germany, etc), and you expand your economy with new sectors. Carney is definitely repudiating some of Trudeau’s approach, but I am yet to see real innovation.
People are missing the point. It’s irrelevant whether there’s an economic case for this pipeline, or whether there’ll ever be a market for the dilbit destined to flow through it once it’s built.
Yet another oil pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific Coast has become table stakes for the unity of the country, as evidenced by Daniellezebub’s “we have to see if Canada can work”, as if whether Canada “works” can be decided solely on whether a possibly/probably unneeded pipeline can be built.
It’s extortion, nothing more, with the unity of the country seemingly at stake. The rest of the country ought to be infuriated. The constitutional wars of the 1980s and 1990s didn’t hold a candle to this.