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Peter Julian has seen the oil-and-gas industry from the ‘shop floor’ during his days as a labourer in a B.C. refinery. It’s not a job or career he pursued, instead moving to social enterprises and eventually representing Burnaby-New Westminster as an NDP member of Parliament. Before being handed the portfolio of energy and natural resources shadow minister, Mr. Julian watched over treasury board, international trade and transportation. The varied experience, Mr. Julian says, allows him to appreciate the energy sector’s impact on the wider economy. In a wide-ranging talk with FP energy editor Yadullah Hussain, the MP spells out the NDP’s stance on the country’s energy sector. Here are edited excerpts from the interview.
Q The federal government believes oil sands is crucial to its economic strategy. Given your stance on the oil sands, what would be the key pillars of your energy strategy?
A We have to get the policies right so we are looking at the overall contribution of the oil sands. We want to see prosperity for average families right around the country and allow us to transition to a green-energy economy because we need to go where our major competitors are going. One of the concerns I have is the emerging and growing green-energy gap between Canada and other industrialized countries. In 2011, in one quarter in the U.S. there were 600 patents for sustainable-energy innovation; in Canada we had 10.
The overall green sustainable-energy sector is estimated to be about US$3-trillion by 2020 — Canada gets far less than 1% of that. In terms of public sector, Canada’s investment and research and development is the lowest among industrialized countries. We have been falling further behind, not just in green-energy development but in R&D generally. Coming out of Charlottetown [from the energy and mines ministers’ meeting last week], we are seeing number of provinces taking initiatives — Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Ontario — and yet the federal government is simply not there.
Q Renewable energy is crucial, but has its own issues. In the meantime, there are significant investments in hydrocarbons that can’t be ignored.
A US$3-trillion industry in green energy goes beyond infancy — that’s significant investment worldwide. If Canada is lagging on R&D, we are also missing a real opportunity in oil sands development. You have massive investments like Shell Canada with Quest, looking at carbon capture and storage. And yet the federal government seems to completely reject the policy of cap-and-trade, which allows us to put a price on carbon. Shell Canada has been very clear with the Quest investment, which includes [investments from] the Alberta and federal governments. What we are seeing from the federal government is piecemeal development … they are rejecting the possibility of putting in place a cap-and-trade system that allows the sustainability of new developments and installations like Quest.
Q The industry is gearing up to produce around six million barrels per day in the next 20 years. Is the NDP against that development altogether or would you favour it if all the environmental conditions were met?
A There are two issues. First is the environmental pact. Due diligence is simply not being done, particularly by the federal government in terms of enforcing existing regulation. The rapid pace of the oil and gas development is worrisome in part because sustainability has not been established. But here is the other issue: We need to ensure the resources we develop should have, as much as possible, value-added done in Canada. We are exporting raw bitumen, raw logs and raw minerals. The Conservative government’s plan is to export more in raw state.
This is a real problem because when you look at the disastrous trade deficits that we are seeing now in large part because we have a government that is focused on raw exports rather than the development of value-added products. We have lost half a million manufacturing jobs under the Conservatives’ watch and they want to fuel raw exports rather than development of refinery capacity and upgrading capacity.
For the rest of this interview, please go to the National Post website: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/14/oil-sands-exporting-jobs/