840,000 kilometers.
That's how long the network of oil and gas pipelines is in Canada.
Virtually every one of those kilometers of pipe was laid by private capital freely invested
over many decades.
Yet today it appears the only way a major pipeline project in Canada can get built is
if the federal government buys the project and makes the taxpayer carry the risk.
That's what happened recently when Ottawa bought for CAD 4.5-billion the Trans Mountain
project that aims to bring more oil from Alberta to the Port of Vancouver.
Even then the pipeline may not get built.
How did it come to this?
The answer is that this was the entirely foreseeable outcome of a policy of appeasement toward
pipeline opponents and environmental activists pursued by the governing Liberals.
Winston Churchill once famously described an appeaser as one who feeds a crocodile,
hoping it will eat him last.
Having devoured all, the crocodile is now ravenously eyeing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
as he nervously tries to shoo the beast away with billions in taxpayer cash.
The roots of this story reach back to before the 2015 federal election.
The previous Conservative government had tried to position Canada as a "world energy superpower"
as Alberta oilsands production rose precipitously and existing pipeline capacity neared its
limits.
Four major pipeline proposals were forging ahead.
Two went to the west coast, one to the Atlantic and the fourth to the US Gulf Coast.
Each of them sought the Canadian energy holy grail: access to tidewater.
Without such access the existing pipeline network only reaches US domestic markets which
are currently awash in American oil.
Canadian oil (WCS) therefore receives a discounted price.
But Canadian oil fetches the world price in Europe and Asia, roughly $20 a barrel higher
than the US price.
In the Conservatives' love affair with Canadian energy exports, the Liberals saw a potential
political advantage.
If the Tories could be portrayed as callous money-grubbers indifferent to the environmental
cost of energy development, the Liberals stood to benefit.
Standing in their way was the regulatory and legal framework developed over many years
by successive governments that set some of the toughest environmental and constructions
standards in the world.
The workings of the National Energy Board (NEB) were widely admired and people came
from all over the world to study how Canada managed oil and gas so successfully.
The Liberals' political strategy therefore required them to make common cause with the
hardline environmental movement.
While claiming to favour responsible pipelines, they had to argue that existing standards
were not just inadequate, but dangerously so, enough to justify political and civil
disobedience.
As the prime minister said while in opposition, while governments may issue permits, only
local communities can give permission for projects that affect them.
The stage was set for direct challenges to democracy and the rule of law in the name
of a higher environmental ethic.
The Liberals duly won the election and, thinking they had a deal with the environmentalists,
set out making good on their promises.
They are toughening regulatory requirements, replacing the NEB, introducing a carbon tax,
banning oil tankers on the northern west coast and, in concert with the Government of Alberta,
introducing tough measures to limit the growth of the oilsands, including a GHG emissions
cap.
This moving of the goalposts mid-game caused the collapse of two of the four pipeline proposals.
Only one project remains that can break Canada's dependence on the US market and add billions
to Canada's GDP: Trans Mountain.
Trudeau rightly says the project is in the national interest but his environmental allies
and the government of British Columbia disagree; the project proponent found such political
risk intolerable and bailed.
Trudeau's sole remaining option was to purchase the project.
Having helped legitimize opposition to pipelines Trudeau is being demonized by his former friends
for agreeing to one.
Tzeporah Berman, one of leaders of pipeline opposition, wrote last week, "After a decade
of the [Conservative] Harper government I thought [Trudeau] was a dream come true.
Now it's a nightmare."
Expect a campaign of civil disobedience along the pipeline route, involving politicians,
international celebrities, Aboriginal groups and environmental activists, to reach a crescendo
over the next year as they test what they believe is the weak resolve of Ottawa to haul
hundreds of people off in paddy wagons.
Expect to see a few hungry crocodiles on the picket line.
I'm Brian Lee Crowley for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute