OTTAWA — First it was word about federal regulations for the oilpatch, then it was a cancelled breakfast meeting.
Alberta Energy Minister Joe Liepert says Ottawa has been giving the province and its rich oilpatch the cold shoulder since the federal election.
Liepert is in the nation’s capital in part to meet the new federal minister of natural resources, Joe Oliver. But he said his meeting with Oliver was called off at the last moment with no explanation.
“I get off the plane yesterday and the meeting is cancelled ... All I can say is, the next phone call is up to him.”
Liepert said he doesn’t want to be conspiratorial, but he’s getting mixed signals.
However, a spokesman for Liepert said it was a simple matter of scheduling. Paul Duchesne said the meeting was postponed because Oliver had to give a speech in Toronto on Tuesday and make a major announcement in Chatham, Ont., on Wednesday.
“Tomorrow evening and Thursday were offered as alternative times. Unfortunately, these times did not work for minister Liepert,” Duchesne said.
“Ministers Oliver and Liepert will continue to have discussions over the phone until an alternative meeting can be scheduled.”
Liepert said he’s also smarting over the appearance of Environment Canada officials in Calgary in the last couple of weeks, talking about imposing greenhouse gas regulations on the oilsands.
Environment Minister Peter Kent announced right after the election that his next move in controlling greenhouse gases will be to regulate emissions from the oilsands. Senior officials followed up by going to Alberta to meet with company executives — an initial round of consultations that kicks off a months-long process of forming binding regulations.
But the federal approach has got Alberta’s back up, Liepert said, adding that he quickly heard back from the oil executives that “they were very unhappy with the tone and the words.”
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said it has written a letter of complaint to Kent, requesting a meeting to make its concerns known.
“We think there are better ways to do that other than with the big stick,” Liepert said.
Alberta is also concerned about the federal and provincial governments each setting up “duelling panels” to monitor water quality in the oilpatch, Liepert said.
And he’s nervous that federal bureaucrats won’t see the benefits of approving a new pipeline to the West Coast to allow Canadian oil to be shipped more easily to Asia.
Liepert said that despite not meeting with Oliver, he will be able to meet with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and International Trade Minister Ed Fast. He’ll remind them that projections for Canada’s economic recovery are largely based on strong energy production from Canada’s West.
To illustrate his point, he is inviting the provincial and federal energy ministers to sleep over at an oilsands camp and have breakfast with oilsands workers from their respective provinces.
Liepert said he wants to talk to Oliver about setting a more constructive tone, and eventually forging a national energy strategy that would involve all the provinces and Ottawa.
If political leaders all agreed that Canada should be a global energy player, exporting all types of energy to other countries, then decisions such as where and whether to build pipelines would be far more straightforward, Liepert said.
Liepert and Oliver are set to co-host a federal-provincial meeting of energy ministers in Kananaskis, Alta., in July. Liepert wants the meeting to agree on the principles, goals and objectives of an energy strategy.
Business leaders have ramped up their call for such a strategy in recent months, asking politicians to set goals and set a price on carbon so that wise business decisions can be made.
Liepert agreed it’s important for all participants to be united if Canada is to achieve its climate-change goals of reducing emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020. He noted that Alberta has already set up a carbon market, while Ottawa has rejected such an approach.