Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

OTTAWA— Japan has rebuilt the highways, but villages and towns swept away by an earthquake and tsunami a year ago are harder to re-establish. And the wider effects will continue to be felt across the country for years.

Among them is a Canadian link. The nuclear-plant meltdown caused by the disaster has Japan rethinking nuclear energy, and that makes the country more keenly interested in Western Canadian pipelines that might one day bring natural gas to be shipped overseas to Asia.

The disaster killed 19,000, devastated towns in eastern Japan, and caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that kept the island nation on tenterhooks – and have made its people wary of relying on nuclear energy in the future.

Japan’s ambassador to Canada, Kaoru Ishikawa, said the highways have been rebuilt, and major companies have been able to repair and restart factories in the affected zones of eastern Japan. The government has offered tax incentives for companies to invest and financial assistance to individuals, but there is still a struggle to rebuild lives in many communities.

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The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

The federal and Alberta governments struck up a secret, high-level committee in early 2010 to coordinate the promotion of the oilsands with Canada’s most powerful industry lobby group, a document obtained through an access to information request reveals.
 
The committee brought together the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) with deputy ministers from Natural Resources, Environment Canada, Alberta Energy and Alberta Environment to synchronize their lobbying offensive in the face of mounting protest and looming international regulations targeting the Alberta crude.
 
Environmental organizations criticized the existence of a committee they said they were hearing about for the first time.
 
“I’m old-fashioned enough to believe that there should be a separation between oil and state, but with these types of secret committees it’s hard to see any daylight between them,” said Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace.

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

BOWDEN, ALTA., AND OTTAWA— Chad Winters keeps his hand on his radio, politely giving orders to co-workers toiling at an oil property in a stretch of Alberta farmland.

“One tonne of 40/70,” Mr. Winters requests over the radio. “Three thirty-three, then hold till I tell you otherwise.”

Mr. Winters speaks a language few understand. He runs the show in the field when Trican Well Service Ltd. (TCW-T17.350.150.87%)is called in to perform a controversial technique used to gather oil and natural gas from impermeable rocks.

On this day, Trican is working for NAL Energy Corp. (NAE-T7.810.182.36%)near Bowden, about 100 kilometres north of Calgary. Trican is there to pump water, chemical and natural additives, and nitrogen down a well at frighteningly high pressure, with hopes of forcing fissures in the rocks thousands of metres below the surface. Sand will follow, propping open the cracks, allowing trapped oil to escape. The process is called hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.

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The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

OTTAWA — Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith, sounding an alarm about the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to the B.C. coast, argued Thursday that an oil sands pipeline should instead go to Atlantic Canada.
 
Ms. Smith, expected to give Alberta Premier Alison Redford a serious challenge in the upcoming spring election, advanced the idea publicly for the first time at a speech in Ottawa.
 
She offered what she described as a solution to the problems faced by land-locked Alberta given the Obama administration’s rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico, and the aggressive environmentalist-aboriginal campaign against the Enbridge Inc.’s $5.5-billion Gateway project to Kitimat, B.C.
 
“As we look to move our oil sands to market in the face of resistance to the south and west coast, an all-Canadian solution is looking increasingly attractive,” Ms. Smith said in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada that was attended by several Alberta Tory MPs and former political staffers who worked under Reform party founder Preston Manning.

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The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

From a speech by Jim Prentice, senior executive vice-president and vice-chairman of CIBC, to the Toronto Board of Trade Thursday.

No room for ‘ideological purity’ on government
 
My objective is to knit together my views on the structural changes taking place within the Canadian economy, with a particular focus on the impact of planned energy megaprojects, the dawn of the Asian century and the accelerating erosion of Canada’s industrial and manufacturing base in Ontario.

Given these forces and their complex implications, how best can we spur economic development and create prosperity for today, tomorrow and for generations of Canadians to come?
 
The days of nation-building are not at an end. In response to domestic and external demand, you will find no other G8 country — in fact no other country in the world — that is bringing on infrastructure projects at the pace and relative scale of Canada. The investment is significant. Close to $290-billion of investments over the next 20 years. And the list of projects on the drawing board is astounding.

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The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Former minister’s demand for state intervention revives ideas Adam Smith exploded centuries ago
 
There has been a good deal of talk recently about a national energy strategy, which, for the Harper Conservatives, means market-orientation, and less red tape and politics. For others, however, it seems to mean something a little more dirigiste, something bigger, grander and all-encompassing. Surprisingly, this group includes former Harper government minister Jim Prentice, who is now senior executive vice-president and vice-chairman of CIBC.

A speech Mr. Prentice gave to the Toronto Board of Trade on Thursday was a jaw-dropper. It was the kind of mushy mixed economics that is regurgitated with tedious regularity every decade or two by those who have forgotten, or never understood, the lessons of economic history. Mr. Prentice appears to reject market orientation as unaffordable “ideological purity.”
 
Twenty years ago, Paul Tsongas, a Democratic U.S. presidential candidate, declared that “American companies need the United States government as a full partner if they are to have any hope of competing internationally. That means an industrial policy. Take a deep breath, my Republican friends. It’s a brave new world out there. Adam Smith was a marvelous man, but he wouldn’t know a superconductor or memory chip if he tripped over one.”

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The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Some will say it’s about time, others that it doesn’t stop expansion plans, still others that they want to see results before getting too excited, but Canada’s oil sands sector deserves recognition for launching the world’s biggest collaborative effort by any industry to do better by the environment.
 
In a ceremony in Calgary Thursday, the top executives of 12 major oil sands companies came together to sign a founding charter in which they committed to accelerate improvement in four major areas: tailings ponds, greenhouse gas emissions, land disturbance and water use.
 
They are doing it as part of a new group, Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), representing 80% of oil sands production: BP PLC, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Cenovus Energy Inc., ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy Corp., Imperial Oil Ltd., Nexen Inc., Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Statoil ASA, Suncor Energy Inc., Teck Resources Ltd. and Total S.A.

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

TORONTO, CALGARY AND OTTAWA— Dalton McGuinty concedes he never should have blamed his province’s economic woes on the “petro dollar,” marking a rare climbdown for a political leader not known for speaking off the cuff. Alison Redford insists he still owes her an apology, rebuffing him once again in favour of a tried-and-true Alberta strategy of picking a fight with Ontario.

The he-said, she-said exchange between the two provincial leaders was supposed to end on Wednesday morning, when Mr. McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, blamed the perils of working in “real time” for making a comment he now regrets – that he would prefer to have a low Canadian dollar instead of a booming oil-and-gas sector in Western Canada.

Instead, Ms. Redford, the Alberta Premier, suggested Mr. McGuinty still owes her province an apology for his earlier refusal to support the oil sands.

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The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Ontario gets such substantial benefits from the oil sands that we should all be advocates for their speedy development. That’s Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s view of the world. Premier Dalton McGuinty’s version is that Ontarians would be better off without the high “petro dollar” that hurts our manufacturing sector.

It’s a she-said, he-said that has pundits across the nation weighing in on everything from the merits of the oil sands to the supposedly pathetic state of Ontario’s economy.

McGuinty has acknowledged that he should have “self-edited.” There was no benefit to sounding ungracious about Alberta’s success or defensive about Ontario’s economic challenges. But the premier was not wrong to make clear the Ontario perspective on Redford’s demand that everyone jump onboard the oil sands train.

The facts are irrefutable: the vast majority – an estimated 94 per cent – of economic benefits from the oil sands remain in Alberta. The booming oil and gas sector has contributed mightily to the high Canadian dollar. That has damaged Ontario’s traditional strength in manufacturing.

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The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Matthew Mendelsohn is director of the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto.

The national media have all sided with Alberta Premier Alison Redford over Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty on the impact of the oil sands on the Ontario economy.
 
The Alberta premier went down to Chicago and chastised the Ontario premier for not loving the oil sands. When McGuinty declined to profess his love, the media piled on him for being ungracious.
 
But Redford should understand that with Alberta’s new economic and political power comes responsibility. Demanding that everyone prostrate themselves at the feet of the oil patch is not the right approach.

Let’s turn to the substance of the issue. The national media objected to McGuinty stating aloud the truth: the value of the Canadian dollar is heavily impacted by the price of oil and the dollar’s appreciation has hurt many in the manufacturing sector.

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The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

It’s human nature to want to avoid admitting mistakes, and the bigger the mistake, presumably, the bigger the temptation to escape the blame.

Far easier to blame someone or something else, preferably some force beyond one’s control. I couldn’t do my homework because the dog ate my notes; sorry I missed the deadline but there’s a traffic jam on the highway; I remembered your birthday but the package didn’t arrive in time; I wouldn’t have ruined the economy but the dollar is too high.

That last humdinger was offered Monday by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty in a bid to slough off responsibility for the economic mess now confronting the province he has led for the past eight years. Politely invited by Alberta’s Premier Alison Redford to lend support to her province’s effort to defend its oil industry — which has been a key reason Canada has avoided recession  — Mr. McGuinty responded with a churlish refusal. Instead he sought to explain away Ontario’s slow slide into debt and deficit as the result of a stronger currency.

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The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

There’s an old, never-fail strategy in Alberta politics: When your government is in trouble on the eve of an election, pick a fight with Ottawa. Almost nothing rallies Alberta voters around their provincial government like a dust-up with the feds. The only thing better is when Ottawa starts the skirmish.

Alberta may as well not even have held its 1982 campaign. Coming the year after the Trudeau government imposed the National Energy Program on the province, the provincial Conservatives could have run tree stumps as their candidates in most constituencies and won. There were 79 seats in the Alberta legislature that year. The Tories won 75. They earned over 62% of the popular vote.

New Alberta Premier Alison Redford is at the head of a government in trouble (although, according to recent polls, not as much trouble as when she took it over last fall from the bumbling and unpopular Ed Stelmach). And a provincial election is expected this spring. But until Monday, it looked as though Ms. Redford wouldn’t have a central Canadian bogeyman to run against.

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The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Hot on the heels of Alberta Finance Minister Ron Liepert’s North American tour, Premier Alison Redford is hitting the road – visiting key American cities, including Chicago, New York and Washington – to sell her vision of a more co-operative energy strategy. But along the way, the rookie Premier seems to be getting a hard lesson in the harsh reality of politics.

Ms. Redford is facing a tough challenge: The capacity of existing pipelines will soon be maxed out and Alberta needs to get the approval of other jurisdictions (either B.C. or the United States) to build new ones. Oil sands opponents have a keen understanding of this dilemma. Their strategy has been to block Alberta’s access to foreign markets, in the hopes of preventing further expansion of the oil sands. In order to counter its opponents and enable the land-locked province to export its bitumen, Ms. Redford has been trying to get other politicians to help her sell the oil sands – specifically, the Premier of Canada’s largest province, Dalton McGunity.

“We in Alberta have a resource that matters to the rest of the country,” said Ms. Redford. “It’s not enough for Alberta to be talking about the importance of Keystone in the United States. We need the Premier of Ontario talking about that.”

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Dalton McGuinty, the Premier of Ontario, should not have responded ungraciously to an appeal by Premier Alison Redford of Alberta for solidarity from Ontario and Quebec, in the course of her speech on Friday to the Small Explorers and Producers Association on Friday. In particular, she wants the Premiers of the two Central Canadian provinces to help articulate the importance of the Keystone XL pipeline to the country as a whole.

“If I had my preferences,” said Mr. McGuinty – using the subjunctive mood to express what grammarians call a contrary-to-fact hypothesis – “as to whether we had a rapidly growing oil and gas sector in the West or a lower dollar, I’ll tell you where I stand: with the lower dollar.”

But Mr. McGuinty cannot enforce his preferences. Such exercises of the imagination are futile. There is of course a correlation between the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar and foreign demand for Canadian commodities, and a higher dollar means that Canadian goods – both manufactured products and natural resources – are more expensive.

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

TORONTO AND CALGARY— Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s vision of a national Canadian energy strategy has bogged down in an increasingly bitter dispute with Ontario over the economic benefits of the oil sands.

Ms. Redford had suggested Ontario should be a more vocal advocate for oil-sands development, on the grounds that related businesses benefit Ontario’s economy. That met with a rebuff on Monday from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who said Canada’s high “petro dollar” has hobbled exporters in his province.

That prompted a sharp rebuke from Ms. Redford. She said Mr. McGuinty’s “simplistic” approach to the oil sands and the Canadian dollar is based on a “false paradigm” and suggested that the leader of the country’s one-time economic powerhouse needs to broaden his outlook.

“When we talk about oil sands, it’s not about what’s in Alberta’s best interests,” Ms. Redford told reporters Monday. “It is about what’s in Canada’s best interests.”

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