The updating case study is available Trans Mountain Expansion Project – Policy Case V3 September 2019

Pipeline and climate issues took central stage in last night’s leader’s debate hosted by Maclean’s. There are five main takeaways from the debate. You can watch the debate here, and read transcripts from it here at Maclean’s. All the quotes below are taken from the Maclean’s transcription.

1. Energy and environmental issues have become central to Canadian electoral politics.

The most remarkable thing about last night’s debate is the simple fact that the party leaders spent about one-fourth of their debate on energy and climate issues, a striking change from the 2011 federal election debates where energy and environment was largely ignored. The profile of these issues is a clear indication of the remarkable success of First Nations and the environmental movement in forcing these issues onto the political agenda.

2. Opposition leaders teamed up to blame stalled infrastructure on Harper’s poor environmental policies.

Most of the focus of this debate segment was on attacks on Harper’s environmental record by the other three party leaders, although there were noteworthy exchanges and differences among the opposition party leaders as well. Mulcair and Trudeau made almost identical argument that Harper’s poor environmental record had undermined social license for new energy projects and, as a result, hurt the economy.

Trudeau began the assault:

“[N]ot only has he not helped our environment, but he’s actually slowed our economy. He cannot get our exports to market because there is no public trust anymore. People don’t trust this government to actually look out for our long-term interest. We – he hasn’t convinced communities of the rightness of his – his pipelines, of the proposals he supports. He hasn’t been working with First Nations on the kinds of partnerships that are needed if we’re going to continue to develop our natural resources. Canada will always have an element of natural resources in our economy, but the job of the Prime Minister is to get those resources to market. And in the 21st century that means being smart and responsible about the environment. Mr. Harper’s inability to understand that is exactly why he’s so struggled to actually get our economy growing in a right way anymore.”

Mulcair taunted Harper about his record of getting pipeline projects approved:

“Mr. Harper thought that by gutting our environmental laws, somehow he could get our energy resources to market better. How’s that working out, Mr. Harper? None of those projects has gotten off the drawing board, and it’s not hard to understand why. Canadians across the country want a clear, thorough, credible environmental assessment process. Canada can be a leader around the world. We can play a positive role. But with Mr. Harper, we’ve got the worst of all worlds. Dirtier air and water, we’ve got more carbon pollution, and we’re a laggard on the world stage.”

Trudeau piled on:

“The reason environmental groups in Canada and across the United States are so concerned about Canadian oil is because Mr. Harper has turned the oil sands into the scapegoat around the world for climate change. He is – has put a big target on our oil sands, which are going to be an important part of our economy for a number of years to come, although we do have to get beyond them. And his lack of leadership on the environment is hurting Canadian jobs and Canadian relations with other countries.”

Of course that’s not quite right. It’s the environmental movement that has succeeded in framing the oil sands expansion as a major climate risk. Harper has contributed to the stigmatization of the sector by failing to take any meaningful climate action on Canada’s oil sector.

3. Opposition leaders differ on bitumen exports and pipelines

While the opposition leaders were singing the same song about the link between Harper’s environmental policy retrenchment and the failure of his oil sands export strategy, there were important differences in their positions on the merits of exporting raw bitumen. Trudeau supports Keystone XL, but Mulcair and May both oppose it. Mulcair stressed this difference with the Liberal leader: “Mr. Harper and Mr. Trudeau both agree with Keystone XL, which represents the export of 40,000 jobs. I want to create those 40,000 jobs here in Canada.”

Mulcair and Trudeau had an embarrassing exchange accusing each other supporting Energy East in English and opposing it in French. You could almost hear Harper laughing. May emphasized her opposition to Energy East, stating it “is still about export.”

May sought to drive a wedge between the NDP and environmentalists in BC by demanding to know whether Mulcair opposed the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Mulcair re-articulated his nuanced position that he would wait until the regulatory review was complete. But of course he did not do that with Northern Gateway, which he opposed long before the environmental assessment was completed. That exchange led to flashbacks of the 2013 BC election, where NDP leader Adrian Dix (remember him?) began the campaign with the same position, and disastrously changed it mid-campaign. Mulcair’s probably too smart to make the same mistake.

4. Opposition leaders need to bone up on their understanding of GHG trends

Harper has little credibility on the environmental file, and opposition leaders mocked him for it. When Harper described his climate record, May chimed in “That’s not true!” And a bit later Trudeau blurted out “Nobody believe you!” The problem is that what Harper was saying at that point was correct: “Mr. Trudeau, let’s be clear on what the record actually is. Not only do we take both the economy and the environment seriously; we are the first government in history to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also growing our economy.” Nic Rivers, economist at the University of Ottawa, provided the numbers, direct from Environment Canada.

It is true, as May later emphasized, that the main reason for the decline was the great recession and the policy actions taken by provinces, especially Ontario. It is also true that there has been a steady rise since the 2009 nadir, and that the Harper government’s own projections show them continuing to increase substantially as the oil sands sector expands. But it is also unquestionably true that emissions for the latest year we have data (2013) are lower than when Harper took office, despite economic growth over that period.

There’s plenty of dishonesty in Harper’s statements on energy and environment to criticize. In the debate, he said more than once that Mulcair is opposed to LNG in BC, when that is not his position. His continued castigation of his opponents for pushing a carbon tax (discussed below) is another obvious example. But the opposition leaders should sharpen their understanding of and arguments about carbon emission trends.

5. Harper continued his silly demagoguery against the carbon tax, and no one responded

Since he feasted on Stephan Dion in the 2008 election, Harper has gleefully bludgeoned opponents for supporting a carbon tax. In last night’s debate, he persisted:

“The way you don’t deal with this problem is start imposing carbon taxes that will inevitably – they raise money for the government. They don’t reduce emissions. They hit consumers, and they hit consumers hard…Paul, I’ll say what I’ve said to people across the country: a carbon tax is not about reducing emissions. It’s a front. It is about getting revenue for governments that cannot control.”

There are several problems with this statement. First, while May’s fee and dividend is a carbon tax, the two main opposition parties aren’t supporting a carbon tax. Mulcair advocates cap and trade. Trudeau would let the provinces choose their instrument. More importantly, the argument that they don’t reduce emissions and are only a front for padding government finances is just not supported by the record. BC’s carbon tax has been held up as an international model of a revenue-neutral (meaning it does not raise government revenues) carbon tax that has reduced emissions while the economy grew substantially. It is true that you could use carbon pricing to increase government revenues, and there are pros and cons of doing so. But Harper’s argument that it’s a front for padding government treasuries is sheer demagoguery.

What surprised me is that not one of the three opposition leaders chose to defend carbon pricing. I’m not sure whether this is because they see defending carbon pricing as a no-win strategy against Harper, or they just chose to focus their arguments elsewhere. Whatever the reason, we ended up with a debate heavy on pipelines and remarkably unilluminating on climate policy. A basic word search shows climate issues were out-mentioned by pipelines 43-28.

We’re still waiting for that long overdue national conversation about climate policy.

Nonetheless, congratulations to Paul Wells and Maclean’s for fostering a vigorous debate on these important issues.

June 8 - Convergence 2014: Protecting Our Sacred Waters from Tarsands Oil - photo by Ben West

The next big thing in the battle over the Northern Gateway pipeline happens by June 17, when the Harper cabinet’s decision on the National Energy Board’s recommendation to approve the pipeline (with conditions) is due. What’s likely to happen next?

It’s useful to think about the Northern Gateway conflict as involving four stages. We’ve completed the first regulatory stage, where the project has been submitted and undergone regulatory review. We are now in the second stage, on the cusp of a decision by the elected officials with legislative authority over pipeline approval. When that’s done, there are two more stages: the legal stage, and the on-the-ground stage.

The Political Stage

In my view, the odds are still with Harper endorsing the NEB recommendation. He’s invested a great deal politically in getting oil sands access to Pacific markets, and to walk away from the project would be acknowledging a major defeat. But a yes decision is by no means a slam dunk, for several reasons. First, Harper needs to win the next federal election, and public opinion in BC is not favourable to pipeline approval, which puts the 21 Conservative seats at greater risk.

Second, we haven’t heard from Christy Clark and the government of British Columbia on its position on the pipeline in quite some time. If the Clark government remains opposed (its current formal position is that the project does not meet BC’s famous five conditions), it would be very costly politically for the Harper government to approve it.

Finally, there is no evidence that the adamant opposition of First Nations in BC has changed. From the beginning, First Nations opposition has always been the biggest threat to the project. If Enbridge or the government hasn’t been able to turn that around, approving the project will set back relations with First Nations even further, and jeopardize other resource projects important to the Harper government.

Harper’s Choices

Harper essentially has three choices. He can accept the NEB recommendations and conditions. He can reject them, which would kill the project for the time being (Enbridge would be able to propose the project again at a later date). Or he could pull an Obama, and simply put off making a decision about the pipeline.

The National Energy Board Act gives cabinet the authority to accept or reject the recommendation decision of the NEB but cabinet cannot alter the terms and conditions the NEB recommends. The cabinet can, however, ask the NEB to reconsider its terms and conditions, and give it a new deadline. It can actually do so repeatedly. So if Harper wants to simply buy more time, he can do so by asking the NEB to reconsider. (Updated: Or, as was pointed out by James Coleman at the Calgary Law School, he can just extend the deadline indefinitely under Section 54(3).)  Doing so would be a major about face for the Prime Minister who rammed a streamlining of the regulatory review process through Parliament in 2012, and who has been so critical of Obama for failing to bring finality to the Keystone XL decision. But in some ways it would be the most politically graceful move given the painful choices Harper confronts.

What Happens if Next if Harper Says Yes?

The Federal cabinet decision is the most important decision point in this political stage of the Northern Gateway conflict, but it is not the only one. BC’s Premier Clark would still need to weigh in. It would be very difficult for Clark to move to yes on Northern Gateway without a major shift by either Enbridge or the federal government on BC’s demand of a “fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits.” So one thing to look for as part of a yes decision by Harper is whether big new developments occur on sharing economic benefits with BC. Even if that condition gets satisfied, however, Clark will be risking a major political backlash, if she endorses the project, given the political strength of opposition to Northern Gateway in BC. If Clark takes a stand and says no, the pipeline can only proceed if Harper is willing to go to war with BC politically and constitutionally. Given the importance of BC’s 21 seats to the Conservative’s chances for success in the 2015 election, that seems unlikely.

If Harper and Clark both say yes, then look to two other major decision points. The Dogwood Initiative is poised to unleash a citizens initiative to ban tankers from the Pacific coast. While the process is stacked against initiatives, a strong showing of support in the campaign would send shock waves through the electoral process.

And then there’s the proponent, Enbridge. The company has the option of sitting on the license and continuing to work with First Nations to see if it can reduce opposition to the project. If the company chooses to proceed, then we move to the third, legal stage of the conflict.

The Legal Stage

There are already five legal challenges filed against the NEB decision to recommend approval, two by environmentalists, three by First Nations. More are anticipated if the Harper cabinet says yes. It will take a year or more to resolve these cases; this dispute seems destined for the Supreme Court of Canada. The courts could enjoin Enbridge from proceeding before the issues are resolved. If they don’t, Enbridge could still choose to take a pause until they are resolved.

But if Enbridge puts one shovel in the ground in BC to initiate pipeline construction, we’ll enter the fourth, on-the-ground stage of the conflict.

The Looming Civil Conflict

If legal approvals get put in place and Enbridge proceeds, there will be a grand battle on the ground between the company and pipeline opponents. I believe a decision to proceed with the pipeline will result in civil conflict beyond what Canada has experienced in modern times.  I was at yet another rally today in Vancouver against the pipeline where senior First Nations leaders stated that they would use every legal means to stop the pipeline, and if that failed, their people would take “matters into their own hands” to stop the pipeline. If it comes to this on-the-ground stage, the nightly news will be filled with RCMP dragging aboriginal elders off of roads, and continuous physical and legal confrontations between police and opponents. It will make the Clayoquot Sound conflict look like a tea party.

This conflict over a pipeline continues to manifest the struggle over the definition of Canada moving through the 21^st century.

Neil Young during his Honour the Treaties Tour (CTV News)

January 20, 2014

Neil Young’s Honour the Treaties tour has poured gasoline on the already volatile Canadian energy politics.* There are many issues fueling the conflict, but the one I want to address in this blog is whether Canada is starting to act more like a “petro-state.” Thomas Homer-Dixon, writing about the Keystone XL pipeline in the New York Times, argued that “Canada is beginning to exhibit the economic and political characteristics of a petro-state.” Andrew Nikiforuk ramped up the indictment in a Foreign Policy piece entitled “Oh, Canada: How America’s friendly northern neighbor became a rogue, reckless petrostate.” Writing for Maclean’s, Andrew Leach countered that the role of the oil industry in the Canadian economy is not large enough to justify the label.

I agree with Leach that the data on the role of oil in the Canadian economy mean that Canada is in a completely different category from the countries typically referred to as petro-states.** The oil and gas sector make up about 6% of GDP in Canada. According the World Bank, oil rents in Canada make up 3.2% of GDP, ranking Canada 39th in oil dependence.

But I also believe that Canada, under the Harper government, has in fact begun to act more and more like a petro-state. Canada is not, as Leach suggests, a “failed petro-state;” it is an overachieving petro-state.

Evidence of Petro-state Behaviour

In my view, there are four powerful examples of Canadian petro-state behaviour.

• The most significant example is Canada’s abysmal record on climate policy, and the apparent role of the oil lobby in contributing to the failure to take meaningful action. We used to have a good reputation for leadership in international climate negotiations; now it seems we’re a pariah. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto protocol and generally been a negative force in progress towards global agreement. Domestically, Canada has not addressed the growing GHG footprint of its oil sands and is on track to greatly exceed its 2020 targets. It has repeatedly delayed promised regulations for the oil and gas industry, and evidence has emerged that the government has explicitly done so at the request of oil industry lobbyists.
• Canada has revamped its environmental law framework, at the request of oil industry lobbyists, to smooth the way for the approval of new energy infrastructure like oil sands pipelines.
• Whether it’s the aggressive “won’t take no for an answer” lobbying of the U.S. on Keystone XL pipeline, or the attacks on the EU’s Fuel Quality Directive, much of our foreign policy seems to be about lobbying for the oil sands industry.
• Another element of the petro-state idea if that the government gets blinded by oil wealth and doesn’t serve the public interest, or even its own economic interests – what Terry Lynn Karl refers to as “petromania.” There are indications of this syndrome in Canada as well. I believe if Canada were more strategic in implementing an effective framework for environmental governance of the oil sector, it could still have a vibrant energy industry and dramatically improve its environmental record and international image. The argument that Canada (or Alberta, in this case) was not acting strategically with respect to oil sands governance was made by none other than the late Alberta Premier, Peter Lougheed, as far back at 2006 (see also here).

Why is Canada acting more like a petro-state that its economic dependence on oil suggests it should?

The current structure of the Canadian political system gives the oil industry more clout than its share of GDP would suggest.

First, Canada has a very decentralized federation where energy resources are controlled, for the most part, by provincial governments. In Alberta, where the oil sands are, the economic role of the oil sector is much greater, so it comes closer to looking like a petro-state economically. The energy sector makes up 28% of Alberta’s GDP. Energy resource revenues as a percent of Alberta government revenues have ranged from 19% to 40% over the past 10 years, with an average of 29%. Because Canada is so decentralized, Canadian energy policy with respect to the oil sands is mostly Alberta energy policy, and the province’s economic dependence on oil comes closer to a petro-state than the overall Canadian figures would suggest.

Second, Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is from Alberta, and he’s a conservative with a strong ideological affinity with the oil industry. His political views are far to the right of the median voter in Canada, but our party system makes that possible and, in recent years, easy. There are multiple parties on the centre and left, so Harper’s party, which makes up the right end of the spectrum, can dominate federal politics with a parliamentary majority even though it received less than 40% of the popular vote.

As a result, the federal government under Stephen Harper has been highly responsive to the interests of the oil industry. Canada, whose economic structure should not promote petro-state behaviour, has a political structure that has produced an overachieving petro-state.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* In the interests of disclosure, in addition to being a UBC Professor I also am involved in a small climate action group that has taken positions against oil sands pipelines through BC. I also have more Neil Young songs in my Itunes than any other artist, including the Tragically Hip. It is my personal view that Neil Young has probably written more great songs than any artist of my time. It is also my view that he has written some of the worst (e.g., Cripple Creek Ferry).

** The leading academic work on petro-states is Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty (1997). For a more recent treatment, see Michael Ross, The Oil Curse (2012).

This Saturday, November 16, I will be joining hundreds of others from the Vancouver area at Science World for the No Enbridge Pipeline rally at 2 PM. It is part of a Canada-wide day of action, Defend our Climate, Defend our Communities. I’m excited that, given the importance of proposals to increase carbon exports to BC’s reputation as a leader on climate action, the Vancouver event is focusing on the Northern Gateway Pipeline.  It’s a critical time: the regulatory review panel charged with recommending whether the pipeline should proceed is required to report by the end of December 2013.

I strongly encourage you to join us, to ensure that our political leaders understand the breadth and depth of opposition to this proposal within British Columbia. Last winter, I appeared before the regulatory review panel to explain why I’m opposed to this pipeline. I’ve reposted my statement below.

Oral Statement to Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel, Vancouver, BC February 1, 2013

Good afternoon. My name is George Hoberg, and I’m here to add my voice to so many other British Columbians who have spoken to you in opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal.

I’m a professor in the Faculty of Forestry at UBC. I have a PhD in political science from MIT, and I’ve been on the faculty at UBC for 25 years. My research specialization is environmental and natural resource policy and governance. I teach courses in sustainable energy policy and governance. Parts of my remarks today are from the perspective of a scholar, but I will also be speaking as a teacher and now activist, and finally as a father.

I do want to sincerely thank you for your attention today. I am gratified that you are engaged in such a rigorous process of gathering the facts about the project and listening to the values and perspectives of so many British Columbians. I’m quite sad about the set-up of these hearings; that you felt the need to separate the speakers and panel from the audience. But if it has any benefit, I hope that it allows you to better focus and absorb what you are hearing with an open mind.

As a scholar, one of the things I study is aboriginal resource governance. I know the test for sufficient accommodation, last clearly articulated in the Supreme Court’s 2004 Taku case, is vague. But my reading of the jurisprudence leads me to the conclusion that with such widespread and adamant opposition by First Nations, approving this pipeline proposal would not meet an appropriate test for accommodation. The proponent has offered First Nations substantial economic benefits, and assured them that best practices will be used to minimize the risks of pipeline and tanker spills. First Nations’ opposition west of Prince George remains adamant. In this circumstance, it is hard to see how approving the pipeline can be consistent with accommodating First Nations concerns.

As a scholar I also study environmental policies and procedures including environmental assessment. I strongly believe that the decision, in the terms of reference, to exclude consideration of upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions is terribly misguided. The climate impacts of the proposal are not the only environmental risk posed by the pipeline but they are certainly one deserving careful consideration in your process. One needs only to look at the US environmental assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline to see that it is normal and accepted good practice to include upstream and downstream greenhouse gas impacts during regulatory review of oil sands pipeline proposals.

Pipeline or tanker accidents would be a disaster for our rivers and coast. But what worries me more is that even if the oil arrives safely at its destination, it will still contribute significantly to the environmental disaster of dangerous global warming. It is vital to keep in mind what the pipeline is carrying: carbon. The carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere from the bitumen carried through the Northern Gateway pipeline will amount to 83 million tonnes per year.  Shockingly, that’s one-quarter more than the 67 million tonnes the entire province of BC emits in a year.

Climate scientists are telling us that we face a planetary emergency. If we stay on our current fossil fuel energy path, there’s a virtual certainty of catastrophic climate change. Our models also tell us it’s not too late to change course, to avoid the worst effects. But it’s getting very late. According to the International Energy Agency, we only have 5 years to begin a fundamental transformation of our energy system.

The urgency communicated by the IEA, an arm of the OECD, has recently been amplified by both the World Bank and the head of the IMF. We’re not talking about Greenpeace here – these are the pillars of the global establishment that are sounding urgent alarms. The problem is these organizations don’t set global climate policy. In fact, no one sets global climate policy

If climate science teaches us that we face a crisis, my scholarship as a political scientist teaches that global warming is an extraordinary political challenge. The complexity and magnitude of the issue seem to overwhelm us, and we find ourselves in a classic case of the “tragedy of the commons”, where each individual – in this case political jurisdictions like provinces and nations – acting in their own self-interest produce an outcome that is disastrous for their collective interests.

Because of these political challenges, policy has demonstrably failed to act in the interests of humanity. In this context, what is the right way to think about large new fossil fuel projects? What I do is perform a thought experiment: if we had in place a policy regime designed to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets necessary to meet the consensus 2 degree target, would this project make sense? That would involve putting in place a price of carbon that was several hundred dollars a ton. In that context, it’s hard to imagine massive new oil sands infrastructure would be justified. Studies from MIT support this conclusion.

Up to now I’ve been speaking as a scholar, but I want to shift now. As a teacher, I found it increasingly challenging to explain these scientific and political realities to students and not come to the realization that I need to do more than research and teach. How could I continue to stand in front of several hundred young adults each year, the generation that will suffer the consequences of climate change, and not become more active politically myself? It is our generation of leadership – it is me, and it you – that has the power to make the changes to put us on a more sustainable path. If we don’t act now, it will be too late for them.

They are my students. They are our children.

In 2011, along with other faculty and students at UBC, I co-founded a group called UBCC350. We are a group of UBC students, faculty, and staff committed to advocating for meaningful government climate action. We strongly support aggressive global and national action to address the climate crisis, but our immediate focus is on carbon exports from British Columbia. BC has enacted some progressive climate policies, but they have yet to be fully implemented. Recent proposals for projects that would massively increase BC’s carbon exports threaten to overwhelm BC’s commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.

I know that all the members of UBCC350 are vehemently opposed to this pipeline. We will continue to work hard, going door to door, ensuring people know about the climate implications of the pipeline, and encourage them to act politically with their children in mind.

Finally, I want to speak to you as a father. I have two children, ages 16 and 18. By the time they graduate from university, we’ll be beyond the window of opportunity the IEA gives for the fundamental restructuring of the energy system.

The tragic fact is that if we are guided by short term economic thinking, humanity will simply not be capable of rising to the challenge of taking the concerted action sufficient to avoid dangerous global warming. That’s the inevitable conclusion of my scholarship.

My conclusion as a father, and as a citizen of British Columbia, Canada, and this extraordinary planet, is that we need to act now because it is the right thing to do. Surely the first human duty is to protect our children from harm.

I’m very concerned about the risks of pipeline and tanker spills, and the need to respect the rights and aspirations of the First Nations on whose traditional territories we have settled. But my greatest concern with this proposal is its contribution to the climate crisis. We need to act swifty and dramatically to change the trajectory of our energy system. If we want to maintain a safe climate for our children and future generations, that’s what the science tells us we need to do. Approving massive new oil sands infrastructure is simply not consistent with that imperative.

I urge you to find that Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal is not in the national interest.

Thank you for your attention today.

Today the Government of BC submitted its final written argument to the Joint Review Panel reviewing Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline project to ship oil sands to the Pacific coast at the port of Kitimat in Northern British Columbia. Despite the victory just two weeks ago of a pro-business, pre-resource development party in the BC election, Premier Christy Clark’s government gave a resounded “no” to the project.

You can read the full document here.

Virtually all of the substantial criticism in the 166 paragraph legal submission is about BC concerns with the lack of detailed information about Enbridge plans for pipeline and tanker spills. The most important statement is the document is in paragraph 5:

Paragraph 6 contains the bottom line position: “Given the absence of credible assurance in this regard, the Province cannot support the approval of, or a positive recommendation from the JRP regarding, this project as it was presented to the JRP.”

The core issue really is how much information Enbridge needs to present at this stage about spill preparation. BC summarizes its own view in this paragraph:

Another vital paragraph is the summary position on pipeline risks:

BC essentially repeats the same message in its tanker risk summary:

The final two of BC’s five conditions  got surprisingly little attention. There is only one paragraph on First Nations, emphasizing only that the JRP needs to address First Nations concerns but taking no position:

The question of whether BC will get its “fair share” of benefits, the province’s fifth condition, is not addressed in much detail. The province simply points to some of the shortcomings of Enbridge’s cost-benefit analysis, raising some of the questions brought to the debate by Robyn Allen.

This response by the province is about as strong as one could imagine in the circumstances. But it is very important to keep this statement in context. It is submission to a federal regulatory process, and the JRP merely makes a recommendation to the federal cabinet – Stephen Harper has the final say. Nonetheless, it is very damaging politically to Enbridge’s case for pipeline approval.

Pipeline advocates got a shot of optimism after the NDP was defeated in the election, but this stern rejection from the Clark government is a major blow. It makes it harder for the JRP to recommend approval, and it makes it harder for the Harper government to endorse the pipeline because it would be so toxic to federal-provincial relations.

The prospects for oil sands access to the Asian markets through Kitimat just got a lot dimmer.

Oral Statement to Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel, Vancouver, BC February 1, 2013

Good afternoon. My name is George Hoberg, and I’m here to add my voice to so many other British Columbians who have spoken to you in opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal.

I’m a professor in the Faculty of Forestry at UBC. I have a PhD in political science from MIT, and I’ve been on the faculty at UBC for 25 years. My research specialization is environmental and natural resource policy and governance. I teach courses in sustainable energy policy and governance. Parts of my remarks today are from the perspective of a scholar, but I will also be speaking as a teacher and now activist, and finally as a father.

I do want to sincerely thank you for your attention today. I am gratified that you are engaged in such a rigorous process of gathering the facts about the project and listening to the values and perspectives of so many British Columbians. I’m quite sad about the set-up of these hearings; that you felt the need to separate the speakers and panel from the audience. But if it has any benefit, I hope that it allows you to better focus and absorb what you are hearing with an open mind.

As a scholar, one of the things I study is aboriginal resource governance. I know the test for sufficient accommodation, last clearly articulated in the Supreme Court’s 2004 Taku case, is vague. But my reading of the jurisprudence leads me to the conclusion that with such widespread and adamant opposition by First Nations, approving this pipeline proposal would not meet an appropriate test for accommodation. The proponent has offered First Nations substantial economic benefits, and assured them that best practices will be used to minimize the risks of pipeline and tanker spills. First Nations’ opposition west of Prince George remains adamant. In this circumstance, it is hard to see how approving the pipeline can be consistent with accommodating First Nations concerns.

As a scholar I also study environmental policies and procedures including environmental assessment. I strongly believe that the decision, in the terms of reference, to exclude consideration of upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions is terribly misguided. The climate impacts of the proposal are not the only environmental risk posed by the pipeline but they are certainly one deserving careful consideration in your process. One needs only to look at the US environmental assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline to see that it is normal and accepted good practice to include upstream and downstream greenhouse gas impacts during regulatory review of oil sands pipeline proposals.

Pipeline or tanker accidents would be a disaster for our rivers and coast. But what worries me more is that even if the oil arrives safely at its destination, it will still contribute significantly to the environmental disaster of dangerous global warming. It is vital to keep in mind what the pipeline is carrying: carbon. The carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere from the bitumen carried through the Northern Gateway pipeline will amount to 83 million tonnes per year.  Shockingly, that’s one-quarter more than the 67 million tonnes the entire province of BC emits in a year.

Climate scientists are telling us that we face a planetary emergency. If we stay on our current fossil fuel energy path, there’s a virtual certainty of catastrophic climate change. Our models also tell us it’s not too late to change course, to avoid the worst effects. But it’s getting very late. According to the International Energy Agency, we only have 5 years to begin a fundamental transformation of our energy system.

The urgency communicated by the IEA, an arm of the OECD, has recently been amplified by both the World Bank and the head of the IMF. We’re not talking about Greenpeace here – these are the pillars of the global establishment that are sounding urgent alarms. The problem is these organizations don’t set global climate policy. In fact, no one sets global climate policy

If climate science teaches us that we face a crisis, my scholarship as a political scientist teaches that global warming is an extraordinary political challenge. The complexity and magnitude of the issue seem to overwhelm us, and we find ourselves in a classic case of the “tragedy of the commons”, where each individual – in this case political jurisdictions like provinces and nations – acting in their own self-interest produce an outcome that is disastrous for their collective interests.

Because of these political challenges, policy has demonstrably failed to act in the interests of humanity. In this context, what is the right way to think about large new fossil fuel projects? What I do it perform a thought experiment: if we had in place a policy regime designed to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets necessary to meet the consensus 2 degree target, would this project make sense? That would involve putting in place a price of carbon that was several hundred dollars a ton. In that context, it’s hard to imagine massive new oil sands infrastructure would be justified. Studies from MIT support this conclusion.

Up to now I’ve been speaking as a scholar, but I want to shift now. As a teacher, I found it increasingly challenging to explain these scientific and political realities to students and not come to the realization that I need to do more than research and teach. How could I continue to stand in front of several hundred young adults each year, the generation that will suffer the consequences of climate change, and not become more active politically myself? It is our generation of leadership – it is me, and it you – that has the power to make the changes to put us on a more sustainable path. If we don’t act now, it will be too late for them.

They are my students. They are our children.

In 2011, along with other faculty and students at UBC, I co-founded a group called UBCC350. We are a group of UBC students, faculty, and staff committed to advocating for meaningful government climate action. We strongly support aggressive global and national action to address the climate crisis, but our immediate focus is on carbon exports from British Columbia. BC has enacted some progressive climate policies, but they have yet to be fully implemented. Recent proposals for projects that would massively increase BC’s carbon exports threaten to overwhelm BC’s commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.

I know that all the members of UBCC350 are vehemently opposed to this pipeline. We will continue to work hard, going door to door, ensuring people know about the climate implications of the pipeline, and encourage them to act politically with their children in mind.

Finally, I want to speak to you as a father. I have two children, ages 16 and 18. By the time they graduate from university, we’ll be beyond the window of opportunity the IEA gives for the fundamental restructuring of the energy system.

The tragic fact is that if we are guided by short term economic thinking, humanity will simply not be capable of rising to the challenge of taking the concerted action sufficient to avoid dangerous global warming. That’s the inevitable conclusion of my scholarship.

My conclusion as a father, and as a citizen of British Columbia, Canada, and this extraordinary planet, is that we need to act now because it is the right thing to do. Surely the first human duty is to protect our children from harm.

I’m very concerned about the risks of pipeline and tanker spills, and the need to respect the rights and aspirations of the First Nations on whose traditional territories we have settled. But my greatest concern with this proposal is its contribution to the climate crisis. We need to act swifty and dramatically to change the trajectory of our energy system. If we want to maintain a safe climate for our children and future generations, that’s what the science tells us we need to do. Approving massive new oil sands infrastructure is simply not consistent with that imperative.

I urge you to find that Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal is not in the national interest.

Thank you for your attention today.

The Northern Gateway Pipeline controversy has been remarkable in its intensity, duration, and scope.  It has received an enormous amount of mainstream media attention, beginning with Joe Oliver’s January open letter castigating pipeline opponents as foreign-funded radicals, and continuing through the year. From October 2011 through September 2012, the words “northern gateway pipeline” appeared in 191 stories in the Globe and Mail and 433 in the Vancouver Sun.

The controversy has infected Canadian national, provincial and interprovincial politics, the most extreme example being BC Premier Christy Clark’s refusal to participate in talks about a national energy strategy because of her disagreements with Alberta’s Premier Redford about sharing the financial benefits of the pipeline. It has penetrated deeply into social media and cultural politics. A remarkable number of young people have added “NoEnbridge” as their middle name on Facebook, and even Rick Mercer had contributed with his comedy skit about Enbridge diversifying into piñatas.

There are five categories of reasons why the Northern Gateway Pipeline has been so controversial.

1. Inherently divisive problem structure

The structure of the policy problem has contributed directly to extent of conflict in two ways. First, the distribution of risks and benefits from the project is seriously skewed. The oil sands sector centered in Alberta will receive the overwhelming majority of benefits, whereas the environmental risks of pipeline and tanker accidents are borne predominately by British Columbia. Second, the mega-project is essentially a dichotomous choice. Competing interests can’t bargain over whether to do a little bit of it or a lot. The either/or nature of the choice accentuates the magnitude of consequences and contributes to the sense of immense stakes on both sides.

The fact that this inherently divisive problem structure is overlain by Canada’s particular institutional arrangements and history makes it even more divisive. The federal government – now the cabinet – makes the decision on the project, creating the appearance of distant, centralized power imposing a decision against the interests and will of a opposing province. This situation will certainly sound familiar to Albertans, to whom Pierre Trudeau’s 1980 National Energy Program remains a call to partisan and regional arms.

2. Unstable and divisive political structure

The pipeline controversy is also affected by the peculiar political moment in which Canada finds itself. Core parts of the relevant political structure are unstable because of the disjuncture between the values of the party in power and the public mood. At the federal level, the party with a commanding majority in Parliament received less than 40% of the vote in the last election, and that support comes from the right side of the political spectrum. As a result, the median voter in Canada is well to the left of Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party. Stephen Harper’s victory was enabled by the division among multiple parties on the center-left. If Center-left parties could address this problem before the 2015 election, the majority party could shift fundamentally. Alberta, now dominant in federal politics, could quickly find itself isolated by a Parliamentary majority forged through BC, Ontario and Quebec. (Admittedly, there are no signs at present that this center-left cooperation is likely to occur.)

The political structure of British Columbia is also quite unstable. The currently BC Liberal majority party has become deeply unpopular and seems virtually destined to be defeated by the leftist New Democratic Party that is strongly opposed the pipeline. NDP leader Adrian Dix filed a very strong criticism of the project with the Joint Review Panel, and he’s announced that if he becomes premier the province will reassert its jurisdiction over the environmental assessment of the proposed pipeline.

In terms of interprovincial political structures, there are deep value differences between British Columbian and Albertans. These differences are revealed not just in voting behaviour, but also in responses to questions about value tradeoffs between energy and economic development on the one hand and environmental protection on the other. The center of political gravity in British Columbia is further left and much greener than in Alberta.

In addition to this unstable and divisive national, provincial, and interprovincial political structure, the pipeline proposal has also met with exceptionally formidable organized opposition by environmentalists and First Nations. Environmentalists have brilliantly seized on the issue as a way to mobilize sympathetic British Columbians, especially on the issue of tanker risks, and turned a relatively unaware and indifferent public into strong opponents. The latest poll shows opposition has increased to 60%.

First Nations in BC have also been strongly opposed, and their legal position gives them considerable power. The fact that much of the pipeline’s proposed path (and the tanker routes until open water in the Pacific Ocean) in BC goes through the traditional territories of First Nations greatly complicates the rules for consultation and accommodation.

3. A series of unfortunate events

If the structure of the problem and politics were not enough to create an intense controversy, a series of unfortunate events for pipelines and oil companies added fuel to the fire. The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico was a major political setback for oil megaprojects. The risk of pipeline accidents was accentuated when a significant spill occurred in Northern Alberta in April 2011.

But the most damaging event was the major rupture of an Enbridge oil sands pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The July 2012 statements by US regulators about the company’s abysmal response to the accident transformed the politics of the Northern Gateway project. The formal National Transportation Safety Board report denounced the company for “pervasive organizational failures.” When the NTSB chair made a public statement on the report’s finding, her choice of language was devastating to Enbridge’s reputational standing: “When we were examining Enbridge’s poor handling to their response to this rupture you can’t help but think of the Keystone Kops.”

The Keystone Kops reference produced a fundamental shift in elite opinion and political positioning — suddenly support for Enbridge was politically toxic. Op-ed writers and columnists declared  the pipeline dead. BC’s leading political columnist claimed the “pipeline looks dead and buried,” and another leading columnist announced that the NTSB report “sounds death knell for pipeline.” BC Premier Christy Clark shifted from her “wait and see” position to forcefully advocating five preconditions to the provinces support, including “a fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits of a proposed heavy oil project that reflects the level, degree and nature of the risk borne by the province, the environment and taxpayers.” Federal Conservative politicians, including Prime Minster Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, seem to have muted their advocacy of the project.

4. Strategic blunders by pipeline proponents

While probably less important than the previous three categories of reasons, pipeline proponents have not played their hand as effectively as they might have. Enbridge’s efforts to consult northern communities, especially First Nations, have been roundly criticized as inadequate. But the highest profile blunder was by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver. On the eve of the opening of the Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings, Oliver issued his now infamous open letter to Canadians, demonizing environmental opponents to the project as “radical groups” receiving “funding from foreign special interest groups” who “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.” While Harper must have believed the move would be politically beneficial, it seems to have backfired significantly by pushing many moderates who were offended by the style of attacks into strong opponents of the pipeline.

5. National Identity Dissonance

While it’s far more speculative, I also believe there is something larger at stake here: a deep divide over what kind of country Canada is. (I’ve hyperbolically titled talks about these ideas “how did an oil pipeline become a battle for the soul of our nation?”) Harper has communicated a strong vision that Canada’s future wealth is tied to commodity development and export, especially oil sands. While the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan and much of their public seem enthusiastic about that vision, many in the rest of Canada are strongly alienated from it. You can see this is the concerns (even if ill-advised) about “Dutch disease” in Ontario, and in the strongly environmentally oriented provinces of Quebec and British Columbia. The counter vision to Harper’s “Carbon Canada” has yet to be articulated, but it feels nascent in much of the criticism and antipathy to the Harper government’s “responsible resource development” agenda.

Will 2013 be any different?

The remarkable controversy over the Northern Gateway pipeline has been fueled by a continental divide in interests and values, by events that have damaged the reputation of Enbridge, by strategic blunders of pipeline proponents, and by a deep divide in what kind of future we want for Canada. What’s likely to happen in 2013 and will it dampen the intensity of the controversy?

I expect that the pipeline will remain as controversial and perhaps become even more so in the upcoming year. The problem structure won’t change, unless the federal government or Enbridge finds a way to deliver much greater financial benefit to British Columbia. The political structure at the federal level won’t change absent an unexpected political crisis. BC is likely to have a new government, which should significantly increase tensions between BC and Alberta, and between BC and the Harper government. Environmental opposition isn’t going anywhere. First Nations opposition west of Prince George has shown no signs of cracking, and the #idlenomore movement is providing a new voice to long simmering indigenous grievances about living conditions as well as land and resource rights. Perhaps there won’t be any new big pipeline accidents, and maybe pipeline proponents will have learned from past mistakes and become more political deft.

The issue could quickly recede if Enbridge withdraws its proposal, but it has shown no inclination to do so, just the opposite in fact. Joint Review Panel hearings will wrap up in the next several months, and that may dissipate media interest in the story. But the panel is required to report by the end of the year and that is bound to reignite the controversy.

Canada has a resource-dependent political economy but a political culture that has not been comfortable abandoning its aspirations for leadership in environmental sustainability. We are a developed democracy but have unusual party and federal systems that foster both partisan and intergovernmental conflict. We take pride in our international reputation for supporting human rights but have not appropriately reconciled with the original inhabitants of the land. It’s no surprise that a pipeline megaproject – taking carbon-intensive oil, across unceded aboriginal territory of spectacular wilderness and waterways, to markets in China — is proving to be a divisive, nation-defining controversy.

Victoria, BC October 22, 2012

The Carbon Pipeline

What’s a professor doing here? I’ve got to tell you I’m out of my comfort zone. But what I’ve learned and what I teach compel me to be here. Pipeline or tanker accidents would be a disaster for our rivers and coast. But even if the oil arrives safely at its destination, it will still contribute significantly to the environmental disaster of dangerous global warming.

The Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Kinder Morgan Pipeline – they’re pipelines full of carbon. And they carry a lot of it. If these pipelines are built, they’ll be contributing more than twice as much carbon pollution every year than we currently emit within B.C.

Add that to the coal and liquefied natural gas, and the fossil fuel industry, with government backing, wants to turn our province into a gigantic carbon pipeline to growing markets in Asia. If all the carbon export projects currently on the books in BC get approved, by 2020 our carbon exports will be 10 times our carbon pollution within the province.

The planet can’t afford that. And we have a special responsibility, at this place, at this time, to just say no to these projects. Now is the time to draw a line in the sand.

Climate Science

Scientists are telling us that we face a planetary emergency. If we stay on our current fossil fuel energy path, there’s a virtual certainty of catastrophic climate change.

Science also tells us it’s not too late to change course, to avoid the worst effects. But it’s getting very late. According to the International Energy Agency, we only have 5 years to begin a fundamental transformation of our energy system.

Let’s start here. We simply can’t afford to lock-in more climate warming pollution by building massive new fossil fuel infrastructure like these pipelines. Now is the time to draw a line in the sand.

Political Science

I’m one of a growing number of scientists and other academics who are climbing down from the ivory tower and getting involved in political activism.

The past two decades of climate politics has taught us that the old model of the role of the scientist — “speaking truth to power” — has just not worked.

Those in power don’t listen to the truth if it’s politically inconvenient. In our system the only things that speak to power are money and votes. We don’t have the money, but we can mobilize votes, and that’s why we’re here today:  To show politicians the depth and breadth of opposition to these carbon pipelines.

There’s a time for research. There’s a time for public lectures, for op-eds and petitions. But there’s also a time for more direct action. To stand up for what is right. And that’s why we’re here today. Now is the time to draw a line in the sand.

What climate science teaches us is that we face a crisis. What political science teaches us is that global warming is an enormous political challenge. The complexity and magnitude of the issue seem to overwhelm us. The tragic fact is that if we are guided by short term economic thinking, humanity will simply not be capable of rising to the challenge of taking the concerted action sufficient to avoid dangerous global warming.

We need to reject that mindset. We need to take climate action not because it’s in our short term economic interest to do so, but because it is the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do for our planet. It’s the right thing to do for our children.

The planet can’t afford these new pipelines. We don’t want to profit from them. We have a moral responsibility to say no. Now is the time to draw a line in the sand.

The information on the GHG contributions of BC carbon exports can be found here

The International Energy Agenda 5 years to “lock-in” reference is here

Today the Pembina Institute released a study contributing to the growing expert consensus that Canada has a mild case of Dutch disease. Later this week, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is travelling to Western Canada to further argue his own unique form of Dutch disease.

What a difference a month can make.

Six weeks ago we argued that there is a political narrative available to environmental advocates looking to find a coalition between themselves and the labour movement, which can also drive a wedge in Stephen Harper’s Western Canada-and-Ontario coalition that gave him a majority in the 2011 election: the Dutch disease argument that a rising petrodollar makes Canadian manufacturing exports more expensive and has created a decline in Ontario’s manufacturing sector.

Since then several events, both extraordinary and coincidental, have turned Dutch disease into the most significant policy debate the country is facing. It began with Mulcair, on CBC’s The House:

“It’s by definition the Dutch disease: the Canadian dollar is being held artificially high, which is fine if you’re going to Walt Disney World; not so good if you want to sell your manufactured product because the American client, most of the time, can no longer afford to buy it. We’ve hollowed out the manufacturing sector. In six years since the Conservatives have arrived we’ve lost 500,000 good-paying, manufacturing jobs; more than half of them because we’re not internalizing the environmental costs.”

Mulcair’s comments set off a firestorm of controversy, putting him on the opposite of most political pundits, many economists, the government, and the Western premiers.

IRPP Report

Coincidentally, little more than a week after Mulcair’s interview on The House, the Institute for Research on Public Policy released a report evaluating the significance of the Dutch disease. Specifically, the authors noted there has been “little rigorous analysis of the linkages between energy prices, the exchange rate and manufacturing output in Canada.”

The authors used a two-step process, first determining the relationship between energy prices and the Canada-US exchange rate, and secondly determining the role of the Canada-US exchange rate on manufacturing output.

The first conclusion was that, since 2003, “a 1 percent increase in energy prices was associated with a 0.54 percent decrease in the value of the US dollar relative to the Canadian dollar,” which is much larger than the 0.15 percent decrease in the preceding 1992-2003 period. By comparison, non-energy commodity prices were associated with a 0.73 percent decrease over the same post-2003 period.

For the second conclusion, an analysis of 80 manufacturing industries was conducted and, while 53 out of 80 indicated some level of Dutch disease, only 25 were statistically significant while the rest were functionally the equivalent of no relationship as all. Interestingly, while there was no negative relationship for automotive manufacturing, the biggest negative effects were in textiles, apparel, and leather, “which together account for less than 2 percent of manufacturing output.”

Industry Canada Study

Inconveniently for the Harper Government, it was also revealed recently that an Industry Canada sponsored study being published in the journal Resource and Energy Economics, found some support for loss in manufacturing employment due to Dutch Disease. Unlike the IRPP study, the Industry Canada study looked at losses in manufacturing employment. It concluded that, of those jobs lost to exchange rate fluctuations, 33-39% is due to increases in energy commodity prices. However, given the results of the IRPP study, we can reasonably assume that this constitutes a much lower loss of employment than the headline numbers suggest.

Today’s Pembina and MacDonald-Laurier Reports

Using regional economic impact models produced by the Canadian Energy Research Institute, the Pembina Institute argues that large regional disparities are occurring as a result of the oil sands boom. In fact, the authors of the Pembina study reject the Dutch disease label as inadequate to capture what is happening in Canada today. Instead, they argue the distribution of benefits and rapid growth is “a uniquely Canadian strain of the Dutch Disease that could be called “oilsands fever” – a strain that is beginning to create clear winners and losers in Canada’s economy and could pose a significant risk to Canada’s competitiveness in the emerging clean energy economy.”

The authors emphasize the challenges facing provinces without significant natural resource production in attracting and retaining skilled labour in, the overwhelming hold on the economic benefit from oil sands production (94%) by Alberta alone, and the inflationary effects. Their prescriptive elements include establishing a federal savings fund, eliminating preferential tax treatment for the oil and gas sector, convening an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada to continue study of the problem, have a federal committee study regional competitiveness, and establish a Canadian energy strategy.

However, the waters of the Pembina report have already been muddied by a MacDonald-Laurier Institute report arguing the opposite conclusion from the same data by the Canadian Energy Research Institute. MLI finds a significant positive impact from the oil sands, in absolute terms, for every province in the country.

The two studies are using the same data. The different conclusions from the reports reflect the different perspectives of the groups. MLI emphasizes the absolute magnitude of the contributions of oil and gas to provinces outside of Alberta. Pembina doesn’t disagree, but emphasizes the economic and political effects of the unbalanced distribution of these benefits, an issue on which MLI is silent. Neither study can convincingly say whether the positive economic spillovers of the oil sands are more or less powerful than the negative dynamic of the Dutch disease. Even MLI’s concluding sentence reveals how incomplete our understanding of these competing forces is: “While the so-called “Dutch Disease” mechanism may operate, in practice it is partially (perhaps more than fully) offset by the gains to the overall Canadian economy documented by these studies.”

Analysts will continue to differ about the magnitude of the Dutch disease dynamic and whether and how policy changes should be made to address it.

Mulcair, Polluter Pays, and Gaps in the Research

Returning to Mulcair’s comments on the CBC and elsewhere, in discussing the Dutch disease he continually emphasizes the critical importance of applying the polluter pays principle. In doing so, Mulcair is describing something that is similar to, but not exactly, Dutch disease, and calling it the same. He claims that Dutch disease occurs when you fail to internalize the environmental costs of resource extraction; specifically, because companies do not have to pay the full cost of greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts, they are able to develop resources at a faster rate than they would otherwise be able to do, and therefore putting more upward pressure on the dollar than would be the case if the costs were properly internalized.

This argument about internalizing environmental costs is Mulcair’s own distinctive addition to the concept of Dutch disease.  Unfortunately, none of the studies summarized above actually deal with the argument that Mulcair is making, leaving a giant hole in the current research.

Climate Hawks and the Dutch Disease

It is particularly surprising that the Pembina report does not address the polluter pays part of Mulcair’s argument because the environmental impact of the oil sands have been central to the group’s mission, and placing an effective economy-wide price on carbon seems to be the natural go-to recommendation in all the group’s reports on the topic. Why would Canada’s leading climate hawk environmental group pass up the chance to make the case for effective carbon pricing in another politically salient way?

We can only speculate that they believed including it would produce an undesirable political backlash. They are already well-known for having that position, and when they have made the case for effective carbon pricing in the past they have been accused, like anyone else who mentions the idea in Canada, of advocating regional wealth distribution. And perhaps because Mulcair’s comments have been considered so incendiary, emphasizing the polluter pays component would have associated the group too closely with a divisive partisan argument.

The dilemma faced by Pembina in this report is a dilemma for many climate hawks: does it make political sense to embrace the Dutch disease narrative? Analytically, it would seem preferable to keep the issues separate. Designing effective climate policy for Canada is an enormous task in its own right, why complicate it by including it in the same package of initiatives designed to address Ontario’s struggling manufacturing sector? Even the strongest serious cases for the Dutch disease argument suggest that there are greater and more important forces at work in Canada’s manufacturing challenge than the explosive growth of the oil sands.

But politically, climate advocates are not getting any meaningful traction in Canada, so aligning themselves with the Dutch disease argument makes sense if Mulcair’s political strategy can be a winning one. Nik Nanos, one of Canada’s preeminent pollsters, believes this is a high reward manoeuver for Mulcair, who is looking to shore up support in Quebec and expand into Ontario, for much of the same reasons as were previously discussed in this blog.

Analysts vs Advocates, again

While Mulcair’s rhetoric may be beyond what is well supported by economic analysis, as noted by John Ibbitson he probably does not have much to lose from adopting more extreme positions than the evidence warrants (yet). A sizeable portion of the public agrees with his viewpoint – enough to make a difference in key areas. According to Harris/Decima, 51% in Quebec agree with Mulcair in Quebec, while 47% in British Columbia and 37% in Ontario do.

If the choice comes down to oil sands expansion with demonstrably inadequate environmental checks and balances, or a sketchy economic argument with powerful narrative potential, the choice seems pretty clear for climate hawks.