There isn’t a country on this planet which, if it contained the energy reservoir of the oilsands, would not exploit it, bring it into production and export it. There isn’t a country on Earth that would listen to pressure groups telling them to keep the resource in the ground and just try to live on renewables.
That scenario just isn’t going to happen.
But strange as it seems, we live in a country with the resources of Alberta’s oilsands, but without a national or even regional long-term plan to develop the resource to the widest possible benefit. The practice has always been to get ’er done as fast as possible, ship as much as possible out of the province in a raw state to foreign owners, to take less than optimum royalties — and to save none of the revenue for the future.
Full-page ads were taken in the Globe and Mail decrying the meeting of Canada’s energy ministers in Kananaskis this week as “all hat and no cattle.” That’s probably because the hotel the ministers are meeting in puts free copies of the paper at every room. The buyers of the advertisement want Canada’s energy strategy to include weaning the economy off fossil fuels, and into better efficiency and renewables.
It’s useless to suggest we leave our resources in the ground, but the ministers who gathered to lay groundwork for a national energy strategy have to find a perspective broader than ‘get ’er done.’
One might wish we could in fact slow the development of oilsands, deep gas and other reserves until a workable national energy plan could be developed, but that’s not going to happen, either.
In the end, the ministers’ meeting got unanimity (minus the votes of B.C. and Ontario, which didn’t attend), to improve efficiency of energy use in the country (no targets set yet, though), and streamlining the approval process for new projects that involve both provincial and federal approval standards (so we can get ’er done faster).
There was also unanimity that Canada should seek to export more bitumen to somebody other than the United States, which takes 97 per cent of our current output.
That obviously means a national support for a pipeline from Fort McMurray to the West Coast, to carry that crude to Asia. Farewell to the Keystone project that’s getting so much flak in the U.S.? We wish.
It seems too much to hope for, from a roomful of politicians, but Canada’s national energy strategy should include an emphasis on upgrading at home. The pipeline to the coast should at least carry refined crude, which might be further upgraded in India or China, according to the customer’s needs.
Alberta is already missing its own targets (such as exist at all) for upgrading bitumen. The Energy Resources Conservation Board figures we’ll only be upgrading 52 per cent of our bitumen by 2016. The target (such as it exists) is 72 per cent.
That already includes a doubling of current upgrading capacity, but by 2016, total production will also double, leaving percentages behind.
That’s a lot of jobs and economic growth lost.
Finding labour is becoming a problem once again in Alberta’s north, but a large portion of these jobs disappear when new production comes onstream. Is boom-and-bust now part of the strategy? Are we back in the business of exporting our topsoil?
If the means of energy production is a national environmental, labour and economic concern, and requires a national strategy, so should the requirement to upgrade at home. Building refineries in B.C. capable of “shipping to contract” for global customers is better than shipping raw crude. At least the jobs, economic activity and tax revenues would stay in Canada.
The process for a national energy strategy is just beginning. but ‘get ’er done’ should not be the plan.
Greg Neiman is an Advocate editor.