Kenney’s failed pipeline gamble undermines Alberta’s future
Irresponsible use of taxpayers' money digs province into an even-deeper hole
In 1979, I wrote my first newspaper column on the need for Alberta to begin research into the development of renewable energy. My column was based on a couple of reports produced by the Environment Council of Alberta on the viability of solar, wind and biomass energy. Of course, at that time those sources were not viable, although the ECA saw prospects for wind energy in the not-too-distant future.
The energy minister of the day brushed aside the reports, saying that the government would look silly if it developed renewable energy which undermined the markets for its vast petroleum resources. The minister, Mervin Leitch, expressed an attitude which continues to this day.
Since then, I have returned to the topic several times, always urging the province to look to the future of the provincial economy and to the effect greenhouse gases are having on the environment. I am not so naïve as to believe the Alberta government would base its economic and environmental strategies based on my newspaper articles.
However, it has become increasingly amazing that successive Tory governments are blind to the changes taking place in the global petroleum market, the environment and public attitudes. Never has there been a Plan B to diversify the economy beyond fossil fuels. Instead, the government has bulldogged ahead, placing all its eggs in the baskets of oilsands development and pipelines. As oil prices plummeted and world governments more and more have seen an urgency to combat climate change, Alberta has kept its blinders on.
The current government headed by Premier Jason Kenney has been the most bullheaded of all. In the eyes of Kenney, the rest of the world has got it all wrong and needs to be convinced that Alberta oil and gas is the wave of the present and the future. All the environmentalists and green economists are mistaken and are being funded by nefarious foreign interests to undermine poor, innocent Alberta.
So, Kenney made it his first order of business as premier to establish a war room to expose the foreign funding of environmental groups and sell the world, especially the American government, on the necessity of buying Alberta oil. From the beginning the war room has been a Keystone Cops operation, most recently issuing a report spinning out tired arguments that climate change is a hoax.
More dangerously, Kenney invested $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money in another keystone operation, the notoriously unpopular Keystone XL Pipeline. That money will now have to come out of the pockets of the province’s taxpayers, those of today and those of future generations. To no one’s surprise, except perhaps the premier’s, one of Joe Biden’s first acts as president of the United States was to revoke the permit that allowed construction of Keystone XL.
Up the creek
Up the creek without a paddle, Kenney has urged the federal government to impose significant trade and economic sanctions on the U.S. If Ottawa doesn’t comply with Kenney’s demand, he will once again try to blame the fiasco on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Kenney will seek to avoid responsibility for his own reckless gamble.
The premier’s investment of taxpayers’ dollars and guaranteeing of $6 billion of loans in this doomed project was grossly irresponsible. In justice, Kenney and his allies should personally foot the bill for his lost gamble with taxpayers’ money. Of course, that won’t happen. The idea of responsible government doesn’t go that far.
So, the Alberta economy, which is already in rough shape from years of low oil prices, job losses and the covid-19 pandemic, will take another huge blow. It won’t be Justin Trudeau’s fault, but the fault of successive Alberta governments which have ignored the growing shift to renewable energy, ever intent on propping up an industry which is now headed for the ashcan.
New paths
Pope Francis, in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’, criticized those with economic or political power who are more concerned with masking the problem of climate change and ignoring its symptoms. “We lack leadership capable of striking out on new paths and meeting the needs of the present with concern for all and without prejudice towards coming generations,” the pope wrote.
The pope could have been writing for Alberta’s political leaders. Today, we have yet another premier who cannot see beyond the old normal of the days of wine and roses, a leader who belligerently blames others for his own irresponsibility. This lack of leadership is having disastrous effects on the economic and environmental life of this province, effects which will echo long into the future. We should be doing better.
(Unsplash photo by SELİM ARDA ERYILMAZ)