Alberta | Northwest Coast Energy News

Editorial: Pipeline politics are now hyperlocal. Government and energy companies must deal with it.

There’s a glaring misconception in the move by Stephen Harper’s government in Thursday’s budget to speed up the review of resource projects, including the Northern Gateway Pipeline. The government wants reviews to last between 12 and 24 months and to avoid duplication between the federal and provincial governments. The buzzword is “one project, one review.”

The misconception is that natural resource reviews can go on as they have since the 1980s when the deregulation craze made any kind of resource hearing, especially those before the National Energy Board, into a private club for the oil patch, government and energy lawyers. NEB hearings are plagued by arcane rules of procedure and evidence that were, probably in an “out of mind out of sight” way, created to exclude the public. The public, despite the consultation mandates of the review agencies, didn’t really matter a damn. It is likely with the changes brought in by the Harper government, with its vocal hostility to the environmental, the public will matter even less.

A second misconception promoted by the government, by right-wing think tanks and supported by a lot of the media is that the Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel has been sort of hijacked by the green movement with sole purpose of delay, delay, delay.

The problem is that none of these people, not Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, not the Prime Minister, not the columnists, nor academics for universities or think tanks have attended many (or any) of the hearings or read the transcripts. They don’t look at the lists of intervenors, those who have said they want the opportunity for a 10 minute comment or filed letters of comments.

What has changed in just the last five years or so, just as Northern Gateway was getting underway, was the rise of social media, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. The widespread use of social media means that despite the efforts of Stephen Harper to stifle opposition, pipeline hearings now and in the future will be governed by —let’s call it the “British Columbia Spring.” If the hearings are curtailed by the government, social media isn’t going away and those opposed to the pipeline will simply find ways to escalate their protests.

It’s not green manipulation that is delaying the hearings, it is that pipeline hearings have become “hyperlocal”* as social media makes everyone aware of what’s going on. That means that each neighbourhood, each village, each block, each wharf now know how a pipeline will affect their lives. This applies to the First Nations across the pipeline route and down the coast; anyone who drives BC’s highways and sees avalanche gates and avalanche warnings; commercial salmon, halibut and herring fishers; the ailing forestry industry. It’s not just BC, it’s a farmer in Nebraska, a rancher in Texas, a homeowner in Michigan, a shrimp fisher in Louisiana. Their worries are available on Google, Facebook, Twitter in a way that wasn’t possible just a few years ago, when stories about NEB hearings were buried in small paragraphs on the back pages of the business section of a newspaper.

Although the right-wing media loves to concentrate on a couple of people from Brazil who may or may not have signed up inadvertently, the vast majority of the 4,000 people who are scheduled to speak before the Joint Review Panel are vitally concerned about strictly local issues. Scheduled to speak is now the operative term because it is likely that the Harper government will cut off the opportunity to speak, and that will only further decrease the already shaky credibility of the Joint Review Panel with the people of British Columbia directly affected by the Northern Gateway.

One of the most perceptive academics in the energy field, economist Andrew Leach (albeit based at the University of Alberta) led a discussion on Twitter opening it with this question

Can anyone provide a single piece of evidence that longer environmental processes, beyond a certain point, yield higher quality evaluation?

Again, no evidence of this beyond a certain pt. Long process often cited as evidence of sound analysis, but two are not same.

IMO, there’s no reason that, w proper resources, you could not fully assess impacts & set appropriate conditions for major projects in 2yrs.

Context: NGP JRP decision is expected now at the end of 2013, roughly 4 years after hearing order issued, but <2 yrs after first hearings.

Leach makes two shaky assumptions.

The first assumption is that the hearings can come up with a quality evaluation and sound analysis. But a quality evaluation, sound analysis for whom? For the private club that the NEB has been for the past quarter century? Sound analysis from a government that muzzles its own scientists and cuts funding for proper research and now wants to have the Canada Revenue Agency harass its environmental opponents? As the responses by First Nations and local groups to the filings by Enbridge show, counter analysis often takes years of research and lots of money. Sound analysis if the opponents are given limited opportunity to respond to a proposal?

The second assumption is that the current and future hearings are going to be fair, independent and transparent. In his conference call yesterday with local reporters, Skeena Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen said the Joint Review and future hearings are “rigged,” predicting that “people won’t stand for this” and it “will only hurt the company it’s supposed to protect.”

The panel has already heard a large number of intervenors in various communities across the northwest tell them directly that the process has no credibility. The decision by the Harper government to speed things can only increase the belief that the hearings are unfair, are rigged, that building the pipeline is a foregone conclusion.

Or quality evaluation for the people directly affected?

Testimony before the Joint Review Panel has been about hyperlocal issues, the state of an estuary, the legacy of the poisoning of a stream by now defunct paper mills, one aboriginal family’s traditional trapline, the shellfish beds polluted by the Queen of the North sinking, the danger to culturally modified trees, the fact that the pipeline will bring no more than a handful of jobs to British Columbia, while endangering thousands fishing and tourism jobs. You might want to call that “Not In My Back Yard” but then the Calgary water supply won’t be out of operation for four years as could happen in a worst case scenario for the Kitimat River in case of a pipeline breach along the river or its tributaries.

If the public believes that future hearings are not “quality evaluation” but rigged in favour of the energy industry, then there will be resistance there as well. What kind of resistance the decision will bring remains to be seen. But that resistance, whatever form it takes will likely also be a factor in any future resource hearings.

Then there is the question of jobs. There just aren’t going to be that many jobs in British Columbia from the Northern Gateway pipeline. First Nations communities, in the unlikely event they agreed to a pipeline, will see no long term benefit from temporary construction jobs. How many Canadian jobs will there be, if the rumours that been circulating in Kitimat for months now are true that PetroChina will build the pipeline? ( recently somewhat confirmed by the Financial Post, although also characterized by Enbridge as speculation)

Don Cayo, writing this morning in the Vancouver Sun says

But the biggest deal in the budget by far, at least as far as the West is concerned, has nothing to do with spending. It is the intention to clean up, at long last, the snarl of red tape that has become such an impediment to development in the resource sector….

it’s a spurious argument to try to link the efficiency of the regulatory process and the fairness of it. “Slow” is not a synonym for “good” nor is “faster” another word for “worse.” It does immense harm to the economy and no good to anyone at all, as history proves, to have a Byzantine process that is obscenely expensive for both the public and private sectors.

Nor is the pipeline the only project in need of fair and reasonably fast assessment. The West in general and B.C. in particular are awash in potential projects — mines, energy developments and more — and we’ll all be better off knowing sooner rather than later which ones are appropriate to move forward.

This simply shows that the advocates of the fast track process don’t get it. They are stuck in the small c conservative mantra of cutting “red tape.” There have been no recent changes in the red tape. The National Energy Board procedures, as I said, are already unfriendly to the ordinary public.

What has changed is that with the web, with social media, the people directly affected, who in the past would have been frozen out of the procedures by lack of communication, are now participating to the fullest extent possible, using information gleaned from the web and empowered by social networks. That isn’t going to change.

As much as the Conservative government believes it control the agenda, and the procedures of the resource hearings, it can’t. All it takes for a hearing to be overwhelmed is a lot of concerned residents, acting on their own, not pushed by ENGOs, prodded by a single e-mail, Tweet or Facebook post.

It may be that the energy industry, a decade from now, will regret what they wished for, a fast track process that is actually bogged down in all the kinds of court challenges that lawyers can work up, regional and municipal zoning barriers, sympathetic bureaucratic delays at the provincial level, civil disobedience, including blockades on land and sea bringing Canada a growing international media black eye, beyond the current impression of the bitumen sands as Mordor. As much as Harper may not like it, if an Oscar-winning star is arrested at a pipeline blockade it will be international news.

To use a a current analogy, with the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic approaching, the Steerage passengers are now demanding a place at the First Class table, along with the haughty oil barons, the high priced lawyers and holier than thou consultants. Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty may close some of the gates between Steerage and First Class, but eventually the Third Class passengers will find a way to the upper decks.

(Every time someone from Enbridge at a Kitimat meeting says how safe the oil tankers and their escorts will be, one audience member always brings up the Titanic in a question and answer session)

Notes

1. *What is hyperlocal?

Hyperlocal is usually a term in online journalism, referring to coverage of a specific neighbourhood. In some ways, Northwest Coast Energy News, based in Kitimat is a hyperlocal site. That is why it is easy to recognize the hyperlocal nature of those who testify at the Joint Review Hearings. It can be as hyper hyper local as the pipeline crossing a skiing/hiking trail.

For a longer, somewhat academic definition of hyperlocal, the Wikipedia entry may be valuable.

2. Scope creep and dismissing local concerns

In a paper for the conservative C. D. Howe Institute, Leach’s colleague Joseph Doucet, Interim Dean of the University of Alberta School of Business, UnClogging the Pipes; Pipeline Reviews and Energy Policy, complains about what he calls “scope creep” in NEB hearings and says:

It is not simply not efficient or effective to attempt to solve broad, far-reaching societal challenges such as First Nations land claims or greenhouse gas emissions policy through individual project reviews.

and concludes

Regulatory review should focus on relatively narrow project definitions consistent with the impacts of the project , including its relevant costs and benefits and the scope of the activity of the proponent, Other issues, broader and more general in nature should be dealt with in statue or in policy, not in regulatory review.

There is one thing missing in Doucet’s analysis. The “scope of activity” of people directly affected by a pipeline project. What he calls “scope creep” has occurred due to the rise of public awareness due to the web and social media. In his paper, the lives of the local residents and hyperlocal issues are simply written off.

Doucet ignores that fact this government’s policy, while spinning respect for the environmental issues in single paragraphs, is to bulldoze the pipeline across BC, no matter what the consequences. On one hand, the Harper government pushes the pipeline as a gateway to Asian markets. On the other hand, with the $80 million cut to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, with cuts to Environment Canada and support for independent environmental research, cuts to the Canadian Coast Guard, the policy is clear, the Harper government is ignoring the potential catastrophe from an oil pipeline breach or tanker disaster.

Enbridge Northern Gateway, on the other hand, does have contingency plans for such events, but at meetings in Kitimat, even Enbridge officials have expressed public scepticism about how much government support there could be in the event of a disaster. In fact, if the Harper government had more respect for the environment and actually had plans to counter a potential disaster, there likely would be less opposition to the Northern Gateway.

The only way to have any check and balance on the Harper bulldozer is to have an effective, thoroughly independent and wide ranging inquiry process, not a narrow one aimed at tweaking regulations.

Enbridge calls National Post story on PetroChina building Northern Gateway “speculation”

Updated

Enbridge late Wednesday, March 28, 2012, issued a statement saying that a story in the National Post/Financial Post that PetroChina could bid to build the Northern Gateway pipeline is “speculation.”

In PetroChina bids to help build $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline columnist Claudia Cattaneo reported that:

Chinese investment in Canada’s energy sector could move to a new level if PetroChina wins a bid to build the controversial Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline.

The largest of China’s three state-controlled oil companies has expressed an interest in building the $5.5-billion project across the northern Canadian Rockies and is considering purchasing an equity stake, said Pat Daniel, president and CEO of proponent Enbridge Inc.

“They have made the point to us that they are very qualified in building pipelines, and we will take that into consideration when we are looking for contractors,” Mr. Daniel said in an interview. “It’s an open bid process. They are a very big organization, they build a lot of pipelines, and they would love to be involved from what they have told me.”

Within hours, Enbridge Northern Gateway issued its own statement:

To speculate at this time about who might be contracted to build a project that has yet to receive regulatory approval is premature in the extreme.

Construction of Northern Gateway would be through an open bid process, and to be successful any bid would have to meet Enbridge’s stringent requirements and meet all federal and provincial employment standards. Enbridge is firmly committed to hiring as many local people as possible to build and operate Northern Gateway and is not anticipating bringing in overseas workers to construct or operate the project.

“British Columbians and Albertans deserve to know that providing local employment is a top priority for Enbridge Northern Gateway,” said Janet Holder, Executive Vice-President of Western Access and the senior executive in charge of the pipeline project. “Ensuring a local workforce is skilled and work-ready in order to fully participate in, and benefit from, the economic benefits associated with the project is a priority for Northern Gateway.”

The Financial Post report says the Chinese company stands a good chance of presenting a competitive bid, but it is likely that Chinese construction of a major Canadian energy project would increase anxiety among Canadians already worried about China’s expanding ownership of Canadian resources.

While there is a labour shortage in the energy sector at the moment, the Financial Post says Canada could use could use a hand from an experienced Chinese oil company, but turning over construction to PetroChina could mean fewer construction jobs in B.C., “where Northern Gateway is a hard sell because of perceptions the province would bear all the risk of a spill, while the rewards would go primarily to Alberta’s oil sands sector.”

The Enbridge statement also says:

Northern Gateway will shape its hiring and procurement policies so that contractors and sub-contractors working on the pipeline and the proposed marine terminal maximize local hiring and training opportunities, particularly for Aboriginal people – who are expected to comprise approximately 15% of regional construction employment.

An education and training fund of $1.5 million has recently been developed by Northern Gateway. The fund will support flexible community based training associated with the pipeline construction.

Joint Review Panel issues venues, rules for oral statement phase of Gateway hearings

The Northern Gateway Joint Review panel has announced the venues and the rules for the oral statements phase of the pipeline hearings, tentatively scheduled to begin in November 2012.

Procedural Directive #5 defines what is an oral statement. Those rules appear to be somewhat looser than the continuing controversy over the current “community hearings” where intervenors are permitted to talk about traditional or personal knowledge, but not allowed to make any technical or legal arguments on the pipeline project itself. Panel chair Sheila Leggett has to keep telling the intervenors that those arguments will be heard during the final argument phase, tentatively scheduled for April 2013. The panel has also scheduled a “questioning phase” in September and October 2012, where “where the applicant, intervenors, government participants and the Panel will question those who have presented oral or written evidence. ”

The oral statements must still be based “on personal knowledge.” That means, the panel directive says, unlike presentations by intervenors, visual aids, including electronic presentations such as PowerPoint, will not be permitted.

The communities so far chosen to hear oral statements are

Bella Bella, BC
Hartley Bay, BC
Prince Rupert, BC
Bella Coola, BC
Hazelton, BC
Skidegate, BC
Burns Lake, BC
Kelowna, BC
Smithers, BC
Calgary, AB
Kitamaat Village, BC
Terrace, BC
Comox, BC
Klemtu, BC
Vancouver, BC
Edmonton, AB
Old Massett, BC
Victoria, BC
Fort St. James, BC
Port Hardy, BC
Grande Prairie, AB
Prince George, BC

The JPR defines oral statements this way:

An oral statement is an opportunity for registered participants to provide their personal knowledge, views and concerns regarding the proposed Project to the Panel in their own words during the community hearings. Oral statements are brief and limited to a maximum of 10 minutes. Your oral statement should describe the nature of your interest in the application and provide any relevant information that explains or supports your statement.

People who registered by the Oct. 6. 2011 and who are not intervenors may make an oral statement. They are required to make the statement themselves and cannot be represented. No “walk-ins’ will be permitted.

Like the presentations by intervenors, the witnesses will be under oath. No questions will be permitted except questions of clarification from the panel itself.

Panel-Commission Procedural Direction 5 Community Hearings for Oral Statements (pdf)

“Fake Enbridge” Twitter account joins Gateway pipeline battle

Soon after Enbridge Northern Gateway decided to ramp up its social media campaign, it had a rival, a Twitter account, clearly labelled “satire” called Fake Enbridge, @FakeEnbridge.

Satirical Twitter accounts are becoming more common on the social media service, although many seem to fade away as issues die or the posters lose interest.

The fake account is a bit of a gadfly, poking fun at various players in the Northern Gateway pipeline debate as well as issues such as the Alberta bitumen sands and climate change. There are also digs at figures like Environment Minister Peter Kent, MP Justin Trudeau, Ethical Oil campaigner Ezra Levant, Alberta energy economist Andrew Leach and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.

Some postings include:

@albertachambers Remember to keep completely ignoring climate change when discussing how much Canada ‘benefits’ from oil sands.

@justinpjtrudeau – We dig your combative style! You should think about getting a job with the @ezralevant / @Ethical_Oil crowd.

Stephen Hawking and the pope may know a thing or two, but they are wrong to see climate change as a major problem.

@andrew_leach But ‘jobs’ is such a good selling point for us! Especially with politicians terrified about the bad state of the economy.

Anyone planning to swim across the Skeena River: it’s probably wise to do it before the @NorthernGateway pipeline:

@ezralevant Lots of Canadians seem to support these enviro-orgs. Some weird ‘respect for the planet we depend on’ quirk of personality.

@MarcLeeCCPA: Joe Oliver is actually a double-agent with a secret agenda to increase funding for ENGOs and derail #NGP” Cabinet shuffle?

@mpPeterKent Normally, Enviro Mins do a better job of at least pretending to care about the environment.

@mpPeterKent We’re just curious why the Enviro-Min is so pro-bitumen and anti-sea creatures / stable climate / forests / etc.

@BCFerrys All your experience suggests that the waters off Kitimat are safe places for massive oil-filled ships, right? Hundreds a year?

Prairie municipalities campaign in favour of Northern Gateway pipeline project

It appears that there is a campaign to get rural municipalities on the prairies to campaign with the Joint Review Panel to support the Northern Gateway pipeline.

In the past couple of days, after Terrace voted against the pipeline project , four prairie municipalities have filed letters of comment with the Joint Review Panel supporting both Enbridge and the Northern Gateway pipeline.

The communities are Loreburn, Dundurn and Dufferin, all in Saskatchewan and Lac La Biche county in Alberta.

The longest letter comes from Nona Stronski, administrator of Rural Municipality of Loreburn No. 254, a region, according to the letter that has seen a lot of pipeline construction, saying the benefits of having Enbridge pipelines in our municipality has been beneficial in so many areas.

We presently have four pipeline companies who have pipeline running pretty much
from corner to corner through our municipality. They cross the South Saskatchewan River on our west boundary and continue through to the south east corner. The river crossings are always amazing to watch and participate in. ALL efforts are taken to cross the river in such an environmentally safe manner that it has become a zero concern for our council. Enbridge pipeline first came through our municipality in the early 1950’s and their consciousness of river crossing and laying of the pipe through other high risk areas has always been remarkable.

During construction of new pipe installations we have always found that Enbridge goes over the top with regards to road safety issues and restoring road crossings. As we also have a station in our municipality we seem to always have certain upgrades going on and/or integrity digs occurring.

While we see increased traffic during these times we always find the compensation far exceeds the interruption. The one on one contact during the construction is also very much appreciated. We know what is going on, how it will be happening, when and for how long, long before anything
actually occurs. Any special requests we make are always accommodated.

Periods of construction are also hugely beneficial to all the businesses in the surrounding area. The hotels/motels/campgrounds are full to over flowing. The restaurants and services stations are booming. We have even seen new businesses begun specifically to coincide with these times of construction. It has been a win-win situation for the area.

The pipeline companies in our municipality pay 2/3 of the total tax levy of which Enbridge pays the largest portion. I think that speaks volumes as to what that means to our ratepayers. We have the resources available to be able to provide extra services to our ratepayers that many of the municipalities in our surrounding area without pipelines cannot do. We are in the envious position of being able to offer a mill rate considerably lower, in some case half of what our neighbouring municipalities are able to. It has enabled us to keep our equipment up to date and given us the resources to purchase our own road building equipment which in turn has been an added benefit to our ratepayers.

The partnerships that Enbridge has formed within our municipal boundaries are also over and above “any” of the other companies we deal with. They are always called upon to donate to many community projects and always come through. They have assisted in purchasing fire equipment, upgraded the local arena, donated to the local hospital and first responders, assisted financially in a recycling program, etc. They are very community minded and this goes on in other communities surrounding the pipeline.

From the perspective of our municipality we can not say enough good things about having Enbridge pipeline as a ratepayer and corporate partner. If anyone has any concerns regarding seeing a new pipeline come through their area we can only say positive things from our experiences. If anyone has questions we would be open to sharing our experiences with them and invite them to call the office at any time.

Per Vinding, the mayor of Dundurn, Sk, supports the project saying:

We understand that this project would bring substantial employment opportunities for fellow Canadians and with that many dollars would be raised in labour income.

During this time of unease in world regarding financial stability a project such as this is a welcome relief for many people.

The Town of Dundurn is in full support of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project. We hope that this project will be the beginning of a turnaround for our current economic status in the world.

In a fax to the panel, the rural municipality of Dufferin says :

The Council would like to forward their full support of this project. The economic impact this project will have, not just regionally, but nationally, is substantial. There is a need for respective levels of government to provide for their support and subsequent approval of the Northern Gateway Pipeline Project

Again, the Council fully supports and respectfully requests all levels of government support and allow this project to proceed.

Peter Kirylchuk, mayor of Lac La Biche County writes that the town has already benefited from oil field activity, adding the project will provide economic benefit to the province [Alberta] by leading to further growth and diversification of markets.

RM of Dufferin (pdf)

Town of Dundurn Letter of Comment (pdf)

Rural Municipality of Loreburn (pdf)

Lac La Biche County Letter of Comment (pdf)

Enbridge won’t offer better deal to First Nations, may be considering alternate Gateway routes: Reuters

David Ljungren of Reuters, with the Canadian delegation now in Beijing, reports in Enbridge CEO says company won’t offer natives better terms on pipeline (as published in the Globe and Mail) that:

Enbridge Inc. will not offer better financial terms to aboriginal bands standing in the way of a major oil pipeline from energy-rich Alberta to the Pacific Coast, the firm’s chief executive officer said on Thursday.

Pat Daniel also told Reuters that while he was prepared to look at alternate routes for the Northern Gateway pipeline – which is crucial to Canadian plans to export oil to China – he felt the current routing plan [to Kitimat] was the best.

Editorial: Calgary Herald calls Northern Gateway opponents “eco-pests”

You can expect a newspaper in Alberta to support the oil-patch, that’s a major part of its audience, its advertising market, its mandate. A newspaper supporting local industry is perfectly fine in a free and democratic society.

The question has to be asked: does that support include juvenile name calling, worthy of a spoiled 13-year-old? In an editorial Friday, The Calgary Herald calls the opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline “eco-pests.”

Note I said “spoiled” 13-year-old. There are many 13-year-olds across Canada who are clearly more mature than The Calgary Herald editorial board.

Editorial: Eco-pests force government to streamline hearings

The editorial goes goes over the same old line that environmentalists are “stacking” or “hijacking” the hearings. The Herald, like the rest of the Alberta media, trumpets the expose that two people out of the more than 4,000 who signed up for the hearings are from Brazil.

Those two people from Brazil, who may have signed up inadvertently, are just .005 per cent of the total number who want speak, either as intervenors or present 10-minute comments.

So far no foreign billionaires have appeared before the hearings. Why not? After all, foreign billionaires can afford to hire all the fancy energy lawyers they need from the glass towers in downtown Calgary if they wanted to be real intervenors.

So far everyone who has appeared before what the Joint Review Panel is now calling “Community Hearings” are, to use a shopworn but applicable phrase, “ordinary people,” most of them members of First Nations directly affected by the Northern Gateway pipeline project.

The Herald says:

Regulatory reviews must be efficient and credible, and the government must not sacrifice sound environmental review for the sake of haste. But when the process becomes so cumbersome that Canada becomes uncompetitive, the federal government is rightfully forced to act.

That paragraph is typical of the coverage from The Calgary Herald going back years. Up until recently, every story in The Calgary Herald added a mandatory paragraph about “First Nations and environmentalists” opposing the Northern Gateway pipeline, without ever going into details, without ever bothering to send a reporter across the Rockies into British Columbia. Only now that there is widespread opposition to the pipeline across British Columbia is the Herald paying condescending attention. That sentence “must not sacrifice sound environmental review” is just another meaningless example of an obligatory journalistic catch phrase, added to the editorial in a vain attempt to achieve “balance.”

No wonder the media is losing credibility at warp speed.

Do you realize that while Calgary may be the headquarters of the energy industry in Alberta, Calgary itself is no where near the route of the Northern Gateway pipeline? That means that while Calgary gets let’s say 98 per cent of the benefits from the Northern Gateway pipeline, it takes absolutely none of the risk.

So while the Herald says

Warning that lengthy reviews cause investment dollars to leave Canada, [Natural Resources Minister Joe] Oliver properly enunciated a simple goal: “one project, one review in a clearly defined time period.” Imagine a process where each side presents its facts and a decision is rendered.

One has to wonder if the attitude would be any different if a major pipeline breach would mean that the entire city of Calgary would have to exist on bottled water for two or more years, a scenario for Kitimat if there is bitumen pipeline breach along our water supply, the Kitimat River (entirely possible given all the landslides here). If the Calgary water supply was threatened, how many people in Calgary would sign up to speak to a Joint Review Panel?

One has to wonder how quickly the Herald editorial board and its oil-patch loving columnists would change their minds after say just two or three weeks of lining up for those water bottles?

The problem is much deeper than that. The Calgary Herald editorial is only reflecting an attitude that seems to be widespread in the city. Over the past several weeks, there have been numerous posts on Twitter hashtagged #Kitimat, saying that because Kitimat is not within the actual boundaries of the Great Bear Rainforest, we apparently don’t live in the rainforest. Some tweets suggest that if you actually say that Kitimat is in the middle of a vast coastal rainforest, you are lying, anti-Conservative (highly likely) and (here quoting the Herald, not the tweet) an “eco-pest.”

The political agenda on the Northern Gateway pipeline is being driven by people in Alberta who live far from the pipeline route itself even in Alberta, are at least 2,000 kilometres from Kitimat, have never been to Kitimat, make up their minds by looking at maps (apparently they don’t even bother to look at Google Earth which would show all the forest around Kitimat) and won’t have to lift a finger to clean up after a pipeline breach or tanker disaster. Given attitude of many in Alberta toward taxes, they certainly wouldn’t want to help pay for the clean up either. They’ll leave it to the taxpayers of British Columbia and the people of northwestern British Columbia to deal with the mess, while again, reaping all the benefits from the energy industry.

This attitude ranges from twits on Twitter to the academic community.

About century ago, there was a similar attitude seen in academia, in the newspapers, and with the “man on the street” (since women didn’t count back then). It was the attitude in Europe toward African colonies, that the colonies existed for the sole benefit of the “mother country.”

Alberta, it seems, increasingly sees northern British Columbia as a colony, existing for the sole benefit of that province. It is likely that if some Calgary academic did some research, that academic could find a nineteenth century editorial referring to revolting colonials or rebelling natives as “pests.”

Analysis: Rumour that China, not Canada, will build Gateway adding to pipeline controversy

On the same day:

In Davos, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the World Economic Forum that his government consider it a “national priority” to ensure the country has the “capacity to export our energy products beyond the United States, and specifically to Asia…In this regard, we will soon take action to ensure that major energy and mining projects are not subject to unnecessary regulatory delays — that is, delay merely for the sake of delay.” (See Globe and Mail Harper vows ‘major transformations’ to position Canada for growth)
The New York Times in In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad exposes the horrendous, almost slave like conditions in China’s dark satanic mills that create and polish the shining iPads (that probably millions actually to use to read the Times.)
In The Ottawa Citizen, Terry Glavin writes Questions Canadians should be asking about China. The University of Victoria journalism professor takes a hard look at the growing power around the world of Sinopec, the Chinese state petroleum company, one of the biggest backers of the Northern Gateway pipeline, saying that “Sinopec became co-author of Stephen Harper’s new foreign policy and energy strategy.”
In the Vancouver Sun, Mark Jaccard, of Simon Fraser university, takes a wider view of the Northern Gateway pipeline and its effect on greenhouse gas emissions in Pipeline itself not the only problem we should worry about and also questions the role of China in oil sands and pipeline development.
A quiet rumour has been heard more and more in Kitimat for the past month, that China, not Enbridge, will build the Northern Gateway pipeline, bringing in thousands of Chinese workers, living in work camps for the pipeline construction.

You hear a rumour once, it’s just a rumour, not worth reporting.

You hear it three or more times; a couple times in quiet conversation with different people, then overhear it in a Shoppers Drug Mart lineup, it means that rumour, unlikely, in fact far fetched, as it would be in reality, shows that the pipeline debate is touching a raw nerve in northwestern British Columbia.

On its surface, the rumour could never be correct, Canada would never agree (as this country did when building the railways more than a century ago) to bring in thousands of Chinese workers to build the pipeline across the British Columbia wilderness.

On the other hand, one thing fuelling the rumour is that when China invests in other countries, often there are compounds full of workers and managers from China, who capture the best jobs in a project, leaving the low-level work to local labour. The media has reporting Chinese abuse of workers in Africa for the past few years. The latest in The Guardian on January 2, 2012, reported Workers claim abuse as China adds Zimbabwe to its scramble for Africa

Underlying the rumour is fear, fear of further loss of jobs to China.

In northwestern BC, the saw mills are closing, while raw logs are shipped to China. Each day CN hauls huge coal trains (coal, of course, one of the greatest contributors to greenhouse gases) to the port of Prince Rupert, returning with intermodal trains, averaging 170 cars, with containers full of cheap Chinese made goods destined mostly for the United States.

According to new poll, published in The Calgary Herald, 84 per cent of Albertans want the bitumen upgraded in the province. (Marc Henry The politics of upgrading Alberta bitumen )

At the same time, the Harper government continues to demonize the environmental objections to the Northern Gateway pipeline, which leads at least one columnist on The Calgary Herald, Stephen Ewart, to say Northern Gateway pipeline debate could stand better diplomacy quoting Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver as saying

“You wouldn’t hear from American special interest groups, celebrity environmentalists and champagne socialists that Canada’s oilsands are subject to the toughest environmental monitoring and regulation in the world,” Oliver said.

Ewart, who is pro-pipeline, goes on to say:

Canada needs an export pipeline to a location on the West Coast to sustain the economic impact on the national economy from oilsands development. What isn’t needed is more antagonistic comments from government ministers.

It will likely take a lot more than diplomatic niceties to calm the pipeline controversy.

The one promise from Enbridge, the Alberta bitmen sands and the Harper government that may have some traction in northwestern British Columbia is tens of thousands of temporary construction jobs. It is well known that there will be very few permanent jobs from the Northern Gateway pipeline in this part of Canada.

Now it appears that some people here in the northwest are starting to believe there won’t even be construction jobs along the Northern Gateway pipeline.

The Calgary oil-patch, who today cheered Environment Minister Peter Kent when he said he would fast track the regulatory process for energy development, should take note, the rumour about vast compounds of Chinese workers building a pipeline through the BC bush is not coming from “champagne socialists” but from working people who want solid, good, long-term, well-paying jobs. These are people who also fish, hunt, hike and boat and are worried about the environmental impact of the pipeline and trying to balance jobs and the environment.

The campaign against “foreign” environmentalists, fronted by Ezra Levant and Ethical Oil but likely originating in the inner circles of the Conservative political war room, may be backfiring.

Raise the question of foreign interference and that incites all kinds of political rumours, rumours unintended in the political bubble just inside the Ottawa Queensway.

The China worker rumour appears to have started just a short while after Ethical Oil’s campaign against the foreign environmentalists began to attract widespread media attention.

The China worker rumour doesn’t come from the political commentary set who published columns today, but from the coffee shops, drug store lineups and Legion Halls.

The China worker rumour shows a lack of trust in northwestern BC for Enbridge, for Sinopec, for the province of Alberta, for the Harper government.

As far fetched as the rumour is, the idea that Chinese workers will build the pipeline can only escalate the controversy over the Northern Gateway pipeline.

Editor’s note: A slight change in editorial perspective for Northwest Coast Energy News

When I founded Northwest Coast Energy News last May, I said at that time that I would follow the general policy of many councils, groups and organizations in northwestern British Columbia of a strictly neutral stance on the issue of the Northern Gateway Pipeline.

It has become apparent in the past few weeks that a strictly neutral stance is no longer possible. It is probably clear from anyone reading this site that, based in Kitimat, this site has a northwestern British Columbia perspective. So that is now the official policy of this site.

It seems that all the arguments from most of the media and now even an Ottawa think tank have decided that Alberta’s interest in bitumen pipeline development is equivalent to the national interest. It is not a breach of neutrality to ask whether the interests of one province are more important than those of another.

From the first two weeks of testimony in the Joint Review Hearings it is clear that a large majority of people in this part of the province believe that Ottawa and Alberta will completely override the interests and fears of the people of northwestern BC. Thus there is a need for a site that covers the interests of this region.

There are many people in the northwest who have voiced various degrees of support for the Northern Gateway Pipeline. However, speak to them, as I have, and they all say something like “provided Enbridge fulfills its promises for safety of the pipelines and the tankers.” Here the site’s neutrality will be maintained but in respect for all sides, it will continue to question the motives and promises from the oil-patch.

Are the promises from Enbridge valid and, if the pipeline is actually built, will future management of Enbridge keep those promises? (Given corporate history in the energy field and elsewhere of management ignoring the promises of their predecessors, this is perhaps the biggest question of all.)

There is a constant refrain from the conservative media and the government that “foreigners” have hijacked the hearings.

It’s easy for those who live thousands of kilometres from here, have never been here, who have never bothered study this part of the country or speak to the people, both First Nations and non-First Nations, to demonize northwestern BC. That might be good wedge issue politics, but they forgot that the pipeline has to be built across this land. In the long run, if it is to be built, that would require not just cooperation, but enthusiastic cooperation from everyone. So far, if the Joint Review hearings are any indication, there isn’t even lukewarm cooperation in the offing, rather fierce opposition.

The hearings in Smithers and Burns Lake last week both went into overtime. First Nations leaders at the Burns Lake hearings angrily complained that elders who had come through (and were delayed by) a snow storm were not permitted to speak. The JRP assured them that they would make special arrangements for the elders to speak when the panel returns in the future for the ten minute comments. So much for hijacking the hearings.

Speaking of snow, it’s been snowing non-stop in the northwest for the past four days. It’s still snowing. As witnesses at the Kitamaat Village hearing pointed out, it’s not easy to find a leak in a pipeline under three or more metres of snow. For the past few days, DriveBC has been issuing warnings for the highways in the region, highways that are well-maintained and cleared. The logging roads and access roads, which would be needed to get to a pipeline just for maintenance, much for less for stopping a breach, of course, are covered in the three metres or more of snow that has fallen in the past four days (on top of all the snow that has fallen since November)

For the past several days, (in fact for most of January) marine radio has been sending “hurricane force wind” warnings for the coast, especially in Hecate Strait.

Speaking of hurricane force winds, last week the Costa Concordia, a $450 million cruise ship with all the latest navigation equipment, the same kind promised by Enbridge that the tankers will carry, went off course, hit a rock off a small island and capsized in calm weather under the command of what was likely a rogue captain.

All of this ignored in Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa. The vast majority of people who are intervenors and who have signed up for the 10 minute comments live in the path of the pipeline, yet the commentariat concentrate, conveniently on “green radicals” and “foreigners.” Again good wedge politics, but bad long term policy.

There have been suggestions that by the Macdonald-Laurier think tank in the person of Brian Lee Crowley that the beliefs and values can be solved with the political process.

Even if we ignore that fact that the government of Stephen Harper has, in many cases, open disdain for those who are not conservative, we have to question how much political influence northern BC has, no matter what the government.

The one riding most affected by all this is Skeena-Bulkley Valley, one of the largest ridings by land area, and smallest by population, in Canada. Even those who support the Northern Gateway pipeline, in one way or another, have little faith in Ottawa. Take such ongoing issues such as the export of raw logs or the way much of the recreational halibut season this year was wiped out by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which appears to favour corporate commercial fishers over small recreational operations. The Harper government wants hundreds of super tankers sailing up and down the west coast and coming up Douglas Channel, and yet the same government is cutting Coast Guard and DFO resources to the bone. (The official Canadian Coast Guard response time for an incident in Douglas Channel now is eight hours. That is likely to increase with the cutbacks. The Italian Coast Guard responded to the Costa Concordia sinking in minutes.)

Even when the northwest asks the Harper government to support energy development (in this case LNG) by stationing Canada Border Services at Terrace Kitimat airport so foreign executives won’t have to land at Abbotsford first, costing them time and jet fuel, the government in the person of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews gives the northwest a not so polite brush off.

One piece of advice to Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa. If you really want that pipeline, you’d better stop demonizing the people most affected (some of whom support the pipeline but are tarred with the same brush). That “vociferous minority” is actually a majority here.

The late American congressman Tip O’Neill is often quoted when he said “all politics is local.”

Since Ottawa, at this point, wants Alberta local politics to trump northwestern BC local politics on the pipeline issue, that means we are living in very interesting times.

That is why this site will continue to cover the issues involved as completely as time allows, from the perspective of northwestern British Columbia.

Flanagan suggests that Harper use constitutional override clause to force through Northern Gateway

According to the CBC Inside Politics blog, Tom Flanagan, a former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a professor at the University of Calgary and a frequent guest on CBC’s Power and Politics is advocating the use of constitutional override clause to force the completion of the Northern Gateway pipeline. You can read Max Paris’s complete blog Hard advice on Northern Gateway pipeline here.

Flanagan also suggests using the same power to “settle” aboriginal land claims. On Power and Politics he said:

[T]oughness is needed right now. You’ve got to signal that you’re serious about this. No, no, I support that completely. Other advice I’d be giving if I were asked, I’d be researching the constitutional powers of the federal government…the declaratory power which will allow the federal government to declare something to be a work for the national interest. Also a possibility of a legislative settlement of aboriginal claims.

According to the blog “declaratory power” is in section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution Act of 1867. It reads thus:

Such Works as, although wholly situate within the Province, are before or after their Execution declared by the Parliament of Canada to be for the general Advantage of Canada or for the Advantage of Two or more of the Provinces.

The blog also quotes Bruce Ryder, a constitutional law expert and prof at Osgoode Hall, as saying: “It’s a valid legal power that Parliament possesses. To use it would raise an outcry and be intensely controversial from the point of view of constitutional convention or practices that have evolved to reflect contemporary understandings of federalism that treat the provinces and the federal government as equal.”

Ryder figures Flanagan considers B.C. a bit of a wildcard in this whole Northern Gateway Pipeline business. Using 92(10)(c) is his ham-fisted… but totally legal… way of getting around any potential problems with Victoria. It’s Tom’s version of how to crush political dissent and coerce provinces.

Even the hint of a constitutional override can only increase the skepticism and mistrust of the Joint Review Panel and the process. That skepticism and mistrust has been expressed at every single session over the first two weeks, despite the futile attempts by panel chair Sheila Leggett who tries to tell people to leave the criticism until the final argument sessions.