Tagged: Tar Sands

Pipeline approval processes in the time of cholera

Macdonald-Laurier Institute (that neutral, non-partisan thinktank hur hur) – Director Brian Lee Crowley has an op-ed. It’s useful.

Like it or not, Canada’s economic strength has always been closely tied to natural resources.

True. Although I do seem to recall much talk from all sides of the aisle about how Canada should move away from all that and become a more “mature” economy. But whatever. We have been and mostly still are a nature of hewers of wood and drawers of water and crackers of rocks and stuff. In that regard…

Take the tribunal holding hearings on the Northern Gateway. It is premised on the idea that Canadians favour the development of their resources, but want that development to proceed in accordance with high standards of safety, environmental protection and social responsibility…

I think that’s a fair characterization. There really are only two outcomes to the tribunal process – approval or disapproval. It’s not a policy body. This, however, is not fair:

Increasingly, however, a vocal minority sees these regulatory proceedings, not as opportunities to ensure fact-based decision-taking as we develop our resources, but as a place to argue that such development ought not to be allowed at all…

First we have Crowley asserting that opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline is not based on facts but is some sort of moral and/or political stand. Only. Not to mention characterizing all opposition as being cut from the same cloth. And in his defence if you ignore scientific arguments put forth by some of Gateway’s opponents such as…

Part of the pipeline’s final route into Kitimat would pass through an area with clay soil that has been known to trigger major landslides. In 1962, a slide took out 600 metres of the highway to Kitimat and left bulldozer-swallowing fissures, some four metres wide and 10 metres deep. Earthquakes occasionally trigger submarine landslides that set off local tsunamis.

…and…

The marine environment at the surface can be equally brutal. Some tankers would traverse Hecate Strait, which Environment Canada ranks as the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world. Waves in South Hecate Strait have reached 26 metres – the height of a seven-storey building.

…he’s right. (Or that Enbridge’s safety record leaves a lot to be desired). But that’s not really the central point I want to make. Crowley believes the proper arena for these “philosophical” discussions is the political.

Alas, pipeline development doesn’t follow the rhythms and timetables of elections. We are also dealing with different levels of government each of whom may have been elected with different mandates – or in Christy Clark’s case, no mandate at all. Not to mention that even if a government was elected in B.C. with a mandate to oppose the pipeline…it couldn’t veto it. That’s right…B.C. only has “intervener” status. And by “intervene” I mean they can show up at the meeting and voice their opinion.

But it’s Crowley’s characterization of opposition as a “vocal minority” that is at issue. Remember this is happening the context of: a Federal government whom 60% of the electorate voted against; as mentioned a provincial government in B.C. that currently has no independent mandate; and where polls of popular opinion have long shown B.C. residents oppose tanker traffic – which will be required to make the project work – off their coasts by large majorities.

So Crowley is kinda right about a vocal minority interfering in the approval process – he’s just got it ass-backwards.

Compare and contrast: Northern Gateway and the BC Liberals edition

Position up to Wednesday:

The Enbridge proposal is far from that. So I recognize that it is a benefit to Canada, there’s no question about it. Being able to get triple the price for Canadian oil would be a big benefit for Canada overall. But the project is one where we have to examine both the costs and benefits. And I don’t think we have a good bead on what the benefits or the costs could potentially be. That’s why it’s in the environmental approval process. This is the first of its kind, so I think we have to get a good look at it, and once we have the facts before us, we can have a debate about whether it should go ahead.

Position on Wednesday:

“Well, I think they’ve got a point,” Mr. Falcon told reporters. “I think we have to be very worried about the fact that foreign money is going into lobbying efforts against British Columbia and Canada’s economic interests.”

Thursday: Former Enbridge lobbyist becomes Chief of Staff.

The ethics of Ezra Levant’s Ethical Oil in 2 tweets

Here is Sun News Network’s Ezra “Mr Day, can Logan come out and play?” Levant chastising children’s singer Raffi “Don’t mention that Beluga” Cavoukian that there is a moral choice to be made over where one chooses to purchase oil from. Levant – coiner of the term “Ethical Oil” – feels that oil produced in Canada’s Tar Sands (Canada being a country with a strong human rights record) is morally superior to oil produced in countries such as Libya, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia, countries whose human rights records are very much less [cough] than sterling.

Me being me I decide to set aside whether there are other considerations – such as massive environmental damage – that might also play a part when determining the morality of Canada’s oil and to take Levant’s stance on it’s own terms. So, sez me, “If you truly believe Saudi oil is unethical, why aren’t you advocating for a ban on Saudi imports?” And Twitter being Twitter I get a response back:

Ah, you see! It would be nice, but if we don’t buy Saudi oil then someone else will so we might as well buy it. If we are to believe the United States and Canada bans oil imports from Iran for moral, rather than political, reasons then Levant’s “ethical argument” falls apart internally. We are buying Saudi oil because China and India would just buy it anyway but we won’t buy Iran’s oil…even though China and India are buying it anyway.

Er….huh? If Levant was truly concerned about morality he would argue for the purchase of Canada’s oil exclusively.

You could waste a lot of time arguing over what country is more “moral” – absolutist Saudi Arabia with it’s beheadings and stonings or limited democracy Iran with it’s stonings. Suffice it to say both countries have problematic human rights records and lengthy sections on both Amnesty International’s and Human Rights Watch’s websites that it’s a toss up. The only difference between the two is Saudi Arabia is the West’s ally while Iran is not.

Which makes the ethics of Ezra Levant’s Ethical Oil extremely…relative.

It’s almost as if it’s not really a question of morality than one of marketing…to a domestic Canadian audience that a sizable portion of which does take other considerations – such as massive environmental damage – to determine the cost, moral and otherwise, of Tar Sand oil.

Now this has been pointed out by others before, but it’s funny to see Ezra Levant’s argument collapse upon itself in 2 tweets.

Compare and contrast – Tarsands edition

Do di do…oooo…what do we have here:

A blueprint for a national energy strategy that emerged from a meeting of Canada’s energy ministers was good news for Alberta’s oil and gas industry. Among the key points that will resonate are regulatory reform aimed at cutting red tape, and the need to diversify Canada’s markets beyond the U.S.

Huzzah! I hate red tape!

Implicit in the latter is support for Enbridge’s proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline, which would transport 525,000 barrels of bitumen a day from the oilsands to Kitimat on the B.C. coast.

I see. Sounds good. What could possibly go wrong! Do di do….ooo..what’s this?

Pembina Pipeline Corp. is reporting a leak in its oil pipeline in the Swan Hills area, about 100 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Cleanup crews are at the site. No details are available, but there has been a media report that about 1,000 barrels have been spilled.

R’uh oh! Still…pretty rare, eh? Not something we’ll have to concern ourselves…ummm…what’s this?

The federal government will slash funding to the environmental agency that evaluates potentially harmful policies and projects before they get the green light….And if the trend in declining funds and employees continues, Canada could experience a series of environmental disasters, as government loses access to valuable information about proposed resource projects

Oh my! Why would you slash oversight right when you’re about to engage in a massive expansion?

The conference sold sponsorships to major energy companies and lobby groups, including the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Oil Sands Developers Group, Nexen, TransCanada Pipelines, Cenovus Energy, Devon, Enbridge, Encana, Shell, the Canadian Electricity Association, the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.

It was a major gaffe in optics, with sponsors’ names prominent at the news conference podiums Oliver and Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert used. This isn’t NASCAR, it’s a meeting of government ministers. The sponsorship issue only gave fodder to critics’ accusations that government is in industry’s pockets.

Paging Vivian Krause…paging Vivian Krause….there are foreigners and large corporations interfering in the Canadian political process! And by “interfering in” I mean “buying”.

I’m sure she’ll write some fair and possibly balanced questions about all this very soon.

Update: Victoria Times-Colonist op-ed “The unseemly premiers”

A conspiracy of incoherence

There is something that does not make sense to me about the Vivian Krause penned/City Caucus cited “U.S. money to Canadian environmental groups (to Vancouver political parties)” story that I would like to get off my chest. And that is the insinuated-though-required-to-make-it-work conspiracy that underpins it. It’s never stated directly, but the gist – as I understand it – is the real purpose of American money to Canadian green groups is to advance the U.S. national interest at the expense of Canada’s. In the comments of his own story, the Georgia Straight’s Charlie Smith says it out loud:

Question: Which foreign country benefits from thwarting tar-sands oil exports to Asia through Kitimat or through Vancouver?

Answer: The United States, which draws about 18 percent of its imported oil from Canada. Canada is the largest foreign supplier of oil to the United States.

Question: Where is the money coming from to help thwart tar-sands oil exports to Asia?

Answer: The United States.

The classic “who benefits” angle. But there’s something missing, and that’s the actual “who benefits” part. In this scenario we have private U.S. based capital partially funding groups in Canada. Who benefits? I suppose there’s a case to be made that by blocking Asian access to Tar Sand oil the United States as a whole indirectly benefits from denying potential rivals access to Canadian oil. But who directly benefits? Private Canadian, U.S. (it’s a stretch because they are more correctly transnational) capital does. But it’s not the same private U.S. capital that funds Canadian environmental groups. What is being insinuated is a scenario that sees private capital funding efforts for the material benefit of other, distinct private money.

So, who benefits? Companies with stakes in the Tar Sands, the Exxons and Sunocos, benefit. Sort of. They would equally benefit selling their Tar Sand oil to China too. Oil is a global commodity…it makes no difference who the buyer is.

Vivian Krause has dubbed 5 U.S. foundations “The Big 5″ who give away $1.2 billion. She states “If these foundations decide to undermine a foreign industry, they probably can.” It’a s ludicrous statement. First it presupposes the entire $1.2 per annum is being or would ever be dedicated to undermining a foreign industry (it’s not), and that that foreign industry does not have financial assets exponentially larger to hypothetically combat it (it does), but to characterize the Tar Sands as an exclusively Canadian effort for the exclusive benefit of Canadians is to wilfully ignore reality. Notice all the foreign-based companies on that list?

Let’s keep playing “Who benefits”? Krause has not to date established how, exactly, Gordon & Betty Moore, William & Flora Hewlett, and David & Lucile Packard benefit. Are they agents of the U.S. government, channelling government monies to secure America’s oil supply? Uh…prove it, please. Are they simply patriots, a side effect of their efforts being the profit of other private American companies? Very selfless, that. But both of these are underminded by the fact this same philanthropist money also funds domestic U.S. environmental groups in anti-Tar Sand campaigns. If they goal is to secure America’s oil supply, they’re doing it very, very wrong.

True, the Rockefeller Fund – whose assets are based in large part on Exxon stock – potentially benefits from a rise in oil prices even though the Fund and the company are independent of each other by design. To reiterate, Exxon benefits regardless of who buys the oil. In essence, the argument would have to be the Rockefellers are funding efforts…against themselves…but not really. Krause futher states: Corporate Ethics received US$950,000 from The Rockefeller Brothers Fund “to stem demand for tar sands derived fuels in the United States.” Never mind oil from Nigeria or the Middle East, Rockefeller Brothers has honed in on Alberta.

Er, yes, and never mind that tar sands oil extraction is a very different, very much more damaging, animal than conventional oil extraction which is, you know, the entire basis for objecting to tar sands oil. Exxon, parent company of Imperial Oil, operates in the Tar Sands.

The Pew Charitable Trust is based partially on the trusts established by Sun Oil’s Joseph N Pew’s for his children in 1948. Sun Oil was also the first company to build in the Tar Sands. They too must be fighting against themselves, I suppose.

In his comment Charlie Smith recommends reading Michael Klare’s Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. So…I picked it up. I completely agree with the premise. But it doesn’t mention environmental groups being used as pawns in the struggle to secure nations’ oil supplies. Maybe there will be something in the next WikiLeaks release…

Finally, in regards to oil tanker traffic out of Vancouver, any action by the City of Vancouver to ban oil tankers in the Port would be symbolic, as this is the Federal government’s jurisdiction. If U.S. money is bankrolling Gregor Robertson with the expectation of this, someone has made a serious miscalculation. And to add to yesterday’s point:

24.113: Each year, based on current levels of tanker traffic, Canada can expect over 100 small spills (less than a tonne), about 10 moderate spills (about 100 tonnes), and at least one major spill (100 to 10,000 tonnes). A catastrophic spill (greater than 10,000 tonnes), for which we are totally unprepared, can be expected once every 15 years.

Once again, why would any Canadian independently arrive at the conclusion that concern and action is warranted?

And Dick Cheney is just a humble duck hunter from Wyoming

Oh me, oh my – “North Vancouver mom exposes $US millions for oil sands activism” says CityCaucus!

Is there any point in mentioning Vivian Krause is oh so much more than a North Van mom? Yes? No?

Or that she has a history of employing rhetorical sleight of hand?

Is it worth the effort?

Vivian recently gained a lot of exposure for her piece in the National Post on how millions of dollars of U.S. endowment money is funding opposition to the Alberta oil sands. I’m sure her numbers are correct, but her error is one of omission. As I’m sure you can guess the billions of dollars that come from U.S. oil companies to the Tar Sands are not examined. Or that it’s oil companies that have a documented history of interfering in the political process around the world, including funding opposition to the opposition to the Tar Sands.

But what’s the point? CityCaucus doesn’t care.

I mean, I take this statement from Krause:

“In practice, Tides behaves less like a philanthropy than a money-laundering enterprise, taking money from other foundations and spending it as the donor requires,” writes the U.S. Center for Consumer Freedom. “Called ‘donor-advised’ giving, this pass-through funding vehicle provides public-relations insulation for the money’s original donors.”

Shocking. Except who, exactly, is the “U.S. Center for Consumer Protection”? Is it the same “U.S. Center for Consumer Protection” that was started with seed money from the good folks of the Philip Morris Tobacco Co.? Yes…I think it might just be! Is it the same “U.S. Center for Consumer Protection” that companies like PepsiCo and Kraft refuse to associate with because “they do not agree with some of its arguments or its approach.” Could be. Is it the same “U.S. Center for Consumer Protection” that has difficulty with basic math? All signs point to…yes!

This is the group Vivian Krause finds authoritative, reputable and objective. And that is exactly what CitycCaucus thinks of Vivian Krause.

I could talk about all of this. But it kind of seems futile.