Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)

2021-05-06 22:52 [p.6872]

Madam Speaker, I do not think that Canadians are fully aware of the reputation of Enbridge across the United States.

After the Kalamazoo, Michigan spill in 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board reviewed the occurrences of that spill. The head of the inquiry actually said to the media that Enbridge had a culture of negligence, and that they resembled, at the time of that spill, a bunch of Keystone cops.

We have a problem in defending, and we will have to defend, that we need to get the products to Sarnia and are cutting a corner getting from Alberta to eastern Canada by ducking through the United States. I would maintain that as a Canadian concerned for the safety of the Great Lakes and the environmental risk there, we have a problem because I do not trust Enbridge either.

That pipeline is old, and when—

Hon. John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood)
2021-05-06 22:53 [p.6873]

Madam Speaker, I can hardly respond to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands in five seconds. That is an impossible task.
However, she does make a point, and I take it.

The post Americans don’t trust Enbridge. We shouldn’t either. appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2021-05-06 22:52 [p.6871]

Madam Speaker, I do not think that Canadians are fully aware of the reputation of Enbridge across the United States.

After the Kalamazoo, Michigan spill in 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board reviewed the occurrences of that spill. The head of the inquiry actually said to the media that Enbridge had a culture of negligence, and that they resembled, at the time of that spill, a bunch of Keystone cops.

We have a problem in defending, and we will have to defend, that we need to get the products to Sarnia and are cutting a corner getting from Alberta to eastern Canada by ducking through the United States. I would maintain that as a Canadian concerned for the safety of the Great Lakes and the environmental risk there, we have a problem because I do not trust Enbridge either.
That pipeline is old, and when—

Hon. John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood)
2021-05-06 22:53 [p.6871]

Madam Speaker, I can hardly respond to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands in five seconds. That is an impossible task.
However, she does make a point, and I take it.

The post The people of Michigan don’t trust Enbridge because of 2010 Kalamazoo oil spill appeared first on Elizabeth May.

In a catalogue of alleged failings of the Green Party of Canada, (editorial July 30, 2014) the most absurd claim is that of moral relativism. We are the only party left in Canada to have principles and stick to them.

The Conservatives were once thought of as a party of fiscal responsibility, yet Stephen Harper has added to the national debt and expanded the size of government. His promises of accountability are buried under scandals of the culture of entitlement he once decried.

The New Democrats once championed the poor and down-trodden, but now clamor to appeal to the middle class calling not for guaranteed annual income, but for lower banking fees.

The Liberals stand less condemned, if only because their approach to principle was always pretty flexible – big tent and all. Still, the support for the Keystone and Kinder Morgan pipelines while opposing Enbridge suggests polling as a basis for position.

The Green Party of Canada, along with Green parties around the world, stand on six global green values: participatory democracy, social justice, ecological wisdom, non-violence, sustainability, and respect for diversity.

In the context of conflicts around the world, we are anything but moral relativists. The reason I was the only Member of Parliament in June 2011 to vote against the continued aerial bombardment of Libya was that Green principles of non-violence and promotion of a culture of peace made voting for bombing impossible. There were peace talks rejected as we joined the side of those calling for Gadafi’s head. It was clear when Parliament voted to keep up the bombing that the side we supported included al-Qaida-linked extremists. It was clear that warehouses full of munitions would flood into other countries and lead to greater instability, loss of life and chaos. It was clear that shifting our mission statement from Responsibility to Protect (R2P) innocent civilians to regime change would cost us down the road and remove the possibility of relying on the R2P doctrine to intervene in Syria.

In the case of the current Israel-Gaza conflict, it is critical that positions be based on international law. Pursuing peace cannot be discarded as unrealistic. It should be possible for all Canadian political parties to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization and to demand it cease its shelling of Israel. It should be possible for all other political leaders to continue to press for a two-state solution, one that defends the right of the State of Israel to exist, but equally calls for a secure Palestinian state. It is simply not credible to take the stance of all three other leaders (Messrs Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau) that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s siege of Gaza is legal and meets humanitarian standards. It does not. The death toll among Gaza’s civilians provokes the conscience of the world. Hamas is to blame for provocation, but to imagine that Israel is blameless is untenable.

We are the only party that bases our decisions on evidence. That is why we may take positions ahead of the “group-think” curve, calling for caution on newer technologies while others throw caution to the wind. We have been consistent about climate policies, while other parties treat the greatest threat to our children’s future as “flavour of the month.”

Our budgetary plans are based on a thorough examination of the sources of revenue, macro and micro-economic impact of policy. We are the only party to prepare election platforms that have been thoroughly costed over a three year horizon. We were the only party to submit our budget to the Parliamentary Budget Office to ask for verification that our numbers added up. (They did.)

We have been the most accountable in office of any MPs. I was the first MP to post all my expenses (original receipts) on line. Now Bruce Hyer, Green MP from Thunder Bay-Superior North does as well. We have pushed other parties to greater levels of accountability.

The biggest reason that Canada needs to Green Party is that we are the only party fighting to restore real democracy by reducing the power of political parties themselves. We need to tear down the bloated Prime Minister’s Office. We must reduce the unhealthy top-down control that turns good people, elected as MPs, into little more than ciphers. We are the only party that wants to eliminate the excessive hyper-partisanship of modern political debate and replace it with respectful dialogue to find common ground. We will make it a priority to replace the perverse first past the post voting system with fair proportional representation.

We will elect more Green MPs in the next federal election, forging consensus across party lines and working for the people who elected us. I appreciate that your editorialists would like it if all Canadian political parties kow-towed to “group think. We never will. And for that reason alone, more Canadians are turning to the Greens to give them reason to believe in the possibility of responsible government.

Elizabeth May, O.C., is the leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands. Her eighth book, “Who we are: Reflections on my life and Canada” (Greystone Books) will be released in October 2014.

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Yet, surprisingly the discussion of energy policy gets brushed under the carpet. My contention is that the reason the various energy debates are so unproductive is that we are operating in the absence of any over-arching strategy. Canada is the only country in the OECD without an energy policy. Canada is one of the only countries in the world not participating as a member of the International Renewable Energy Agency. Canada is the only country in the OECD without a comprehensive climate plan. Canada is the only country in the world to have ratified Kyoto and withdrawn. Canada is the only industrialized country without a national Transportation plan.

These are not small gaps. And their absence contributes to the nastiness of the debate. The debate tends to fall to regionalism. As a federal party leader, I find the province versus province aspect of the discussion the least productive and most damaging to our national interest. Energy decisions cannot be presented as binary choices in which for British Columbia to “win,” Alberta must “lose.”

What we need is to think like a country. We need to assess what set of policy tools best advance the multiple interests of all parts of the economy and all parts of the country. We need an energy strategy for Canada.
The idea that we need a national energy strategy was floated by former Premier of Alberta, Alison Redford. It was then immediately shot down by the prime minister.

That idea must be revisited. We need a national approach to our energy future. Our starting point should be to agree to some key national goals. I would suggest they would include:

1. Energy security – currently half of the oil consumed in Canada is imported from Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Norway and Venezuela. Meanwhile, the “plan” seems to be to boost production of the most greenhouse intensive fossil fuel, bitumen and ship it to China for refining. Unlike the U.S., Canada has no strategic petroleum reserve. There is no plan for domestic energy security.
2. Energy pricing – We need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and start pricing carbon.
3. An effective greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction plan for the needed transition to a low-carbon economy.
4. Full employment goals – we create more Canadian jobs by processing bitumen in Canada than by mixing it with toxic diluents and then shipping that dangerous product through pipelines to tankers heading overseas to other nations’ refineries and jobs there.
5. The promotion of innovation and competitiveness in Canada – Canada is falling behind the US in productivity and innovation. Part of the reason is shifting from relatively more value-added exports to raw resource exports (60% of all our exports were value-added in the late 1990s, falling to 40% recently, according to Statistics Canada.) Value-added not only creates more jobs, it attracts innovation, R and D and improves Canada’s productivity.
6. Social justice; ending energy poverty – “energy poverty” concerns must be part of any national energy strategy.
7. Any energy strategy needs to be premised on respect for First Nations right and title, as the recent Supreme Court of Canada language in the Tsilhqot’in decision makes clear is not optional; it’s mandatory;
8. Energy strategies for a resourceful and resilient Canada.

Taken separately, we could be fighting over these individual elements without resolution. Taken together in a grown-up conversation, they all fit together.

If we met around the same table and worked to achieve a consensus that respected the interests of all parts of Canada, demonstrated a responsible approach to the growing climate crisis and worked to create the kind of energy super-power we could be, one working to decrease dependence on fossil fuels, I am confident a realistic energy plan could emerge.

The first step is to start thinking like a country.

Originally published in the Hill Times.

The post Why Canada needs an Energy Policy appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Debate has been about how best to export raw, virtually unprocessed bitumen — as much as possible and as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the eastern half of Canada depends on imports of foreign oil from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and Norway. As Gordon Laxer of the Parkland Institute tried to point out to a Parliamentary committee (before the Conservative chair ordered him to stop talking and stormed out of the room), Canada has no energy security.

I feel some responsibility for this shift in debate, as I was the first political leader to point out that there was something wrong with the picture.

RELATED: Sign the petition for an oil-free coast.

Unlike the US, we have no Strategic Petroleum Reserves. If there was a blockade of foreign oil or an economic embargo, those in Eastern Canada would have to wait for tankers to bring them bitumen for processing through the Panama Canal and up the eastern seaboard. As bizarre as that sounds, it was the solution offered by a Suncor executive when asked in committee about the vulnerability of eastern Canada to embargos.

Oppositional Canada

The irony is that the dividing line of foreign oil to the east and Alberta oil for the west was the result of deliberate government policy—aimed at helping the Alberta oil and gas sector. Back in 1961, the National Oil Policy decreed that eastern Canadians (east of the Ottawa River) would only receive imported oil while those in the West had to purchase Alberta product. By deliberate policy, Eastern Canadians became dependent on foreign oil, while Alberta oil was consumed by those in western provinces and exported to the US. Now it is time to think like a country.

The Solution: Shipping East?

However, the current proposal also makes no sense. Former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna has proposed shipping unprocessed bitumen to St John, New Brunswick, to put it in tankers to export it from there. Others are proposing refining it in New Brunswick.

The first decision point is Enbridge’s application to reverse its Number 9 pipeline. This pipeline was built in the 1970s and had originally flowed west to east. It was reversed in the 1990s as the markets favoured cheaper foreign oil.

Now, Enbridge is applying to reverse it once again, running a different product, dilbit, from west to east. The request to the National Energy Board is being considered in two stand-alone applications; Line 9A (Sarnia to North Westover) and Line 9B to Montreal.

From there the bitumen would likely go south through New England. When I was in Washington DC, I heard from quite a few Congressmen and Senators that they do not want those pipelines over their territory.

Bitumen

The nature of bitumen and diluents in pipelines is a critical issue in why the Green Party oppose pipelines of unprocessed product to either coastline. So, before talking about the direction of pipelines, we need to talk about the product.

Even after the extensive and intensive process of extracting the viscous material known as bitumen from the soil in which it is found (generally about 10% by volume), it is still not processed to even the level of crude oil. Crude oil can flow. Bitumen cannot. It has the consistency of peanut butter, so needs to be mixed with something else to flow. That something else is called ‘diluent’—a mix of undisclosed chemicals. The most commonly used diluent is a natural gas condensate, similar to Naptha. The public does not know the make-up of any particular diluent. Some have more benzene than others—benzene is a well-documented carcinogen.

The resulting so-called dilbit product is about 30% diluents and 70% bitumen. We do know a lot more about dilbit than we used to. And we did a lot of that learning through the 2010 Enbridge dilbit spill in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. We know it both floats and sinks; that it is far harder and far more expensive to clean-up than unprocessed conventional crude. The Kalamazoo spill is still not cleaned up.

Meanwhile a debate rages about whether dilbit is more likely to cause pipeline failure. Cornell University found that between 2007 and 2010 pipelines carrying dilbit had a spill-rate three times higher than pipelines carrying conventional crude. Oil sands products have a higher sulfur and a higher acidic content than conventional crude and those properties could explain its increased corrosive nature.

This finding led to the Department of Natural Resources to commissioning a study by a group called Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (ATIF). That study compared dilbit and conventional crudes and concluded the types of corrosive compounds between the two products were comparable. So we have labwork versus the real life rate of spills in US pipelines. At the moment, despite what Harper’s Cabinet ministers claim, the science on the corrosive nature of dilbit is not settled.

Meanwhile, if local residents along the Number 9 pipeline wish to speak before the NEB hearings, or even submit a letter, they are required to fill out a 10-page form, and are also encouraged to submit references and a resume! This is an NEB effort to meet the new requirements imposed by the horrific overhaul of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that took place last year in the Omnibus Budget Bill (C-38).

Unlike the previous CEAA, which was premised on a fundamental commitment to rights of public participation, the Harperized CEAA restricts access to only those ‘directly affected’. The NEB has made this restriction even worse by demanding that any citizens who want to make comments, fill out the forms and apply within a two-week period—which will close before this article will be in print.

Refineries In Alberta

So, what should be done? The best environmental, economic and climate outcome would be to slow down the boom-and-bust cycle of constant expansion in the oil sands. What the late Peter Lougheed used to describe as the ‘traffic jam’ of feverish expansion in the oilsands prevents the construction of ancillary infrastructure, like upgraders and refineries.

The hyper-inflationary bubble that sits on northern Alberta is what makes it cheaper for Big Oil to build a $7 billion pipeline to Texas, rather than build facilities in Alberta. Any reasonable carbon plan would set a level of managed growth for oil sands production—say 2 million barrels of oil a day (more than the current 1.7 million barrels, but less than Harper’s goal of 6 million barrels of oil a day). That level of production could cool down the capital and labour markets enough to build upgraders and refineries near the resource. Then, we could be talking about shipping—by pipeline, truck or train—a finished product whose properties are better understood. Shipping a product with a far lower risk of environmental impact in the event of spills.

If we are thinking like a country, we should get Alberta oil to Eastern Canada, but we should not ship bitumen + diluents.

The post Pipelines to the east? appeared first on Elizabeth May.

“10,000 barrels of dilbit, a mixture of bitumen and toxic diluent, were spilled in Arkansas last week. Citizens in Toronto and everywhere along Enbridge’s Line 9 have legitimate concerns and tough questions to ask the NEB. Muzzling their opposition is against basic principles of natural justice. These new barriers to free speech would not stand up to judicial review,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

In their fight against Omnibus Bill C-38, the Greens tried to prevent the destruction of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). Green Leader Elizabeth May put forward amendments –rejected by the Conservatives– to protect rights for public participation, which were once fundamental to the CEAA. The terms used in C-38 restrict public participation to those “directly affected”. “It is that terminology that has led to the abuse we witness today, but even with that restrictive language, the NEB has made it even more restrictive by adding its own two-week timeline,” said May.

“Enbridge plans to pump dilbit, with added benzene, a notorious carcinogen, through our neighbourhoods using an aging pipe system originally built for natural gas. What would a spill near Lake Ontario mean for the water supply of millions of people?” asked May.

“After muzzling scientists, Stephen Harper muzzles citizens. Add his obsession for the oil business and his disregard for Parliament in the mix, and you’ve got a great example of Harperland in action,” said May.

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As a New Year’s Resolution, I knew it was a long-shot—but so are many New Year’s Resolutions. So, like most of us this New Year, I will re-commit to some unfulfilled 2012 resolutions — including seeing Stephen Harper leave office (one way or another) within 2013.

Crystal-ball gazing is notoriously prone to failure, but let me make some likely predictions. Within the continuing attack in the House of Commons against the fabric of Canadian criminal law, we will see more bills that assault Charter rights through a ‘tough on crime’ agenda. The Conservatives are bound to return to the internet snooping bill, C-30, famously described by Vic Toews as representing a choice of standing with the Conservatives or standing on the side of child pornographers.

Up early in February will be C-43, titled the act for the ‘faster removal of foreign criminals act’ but which, actually, can limit access to Canada to people who are not criminals at all. The bill gives the Minister of Immigration the right to deny a claimant permanent residency in Canada for ‘public policy reasons,’ a term which is undefined.

We will see the last significant environmental law (at least among those that have an impact on land-use and conservation) being dismantled. The Species at Risk Act (SARA) was rumoured to have been planned to be in the fall omnibus bill, C-45. The Hill gossip is that the provinces were not willing to see the act being downloaded to the provinces as rapidly as was being proposed. Environment Minister Peter Kent has said to expect the overhaul of SARA as stand-alone legislation.

It won’t be too early to start seeing the impacts of the egregious changes from 2012. The new and pathetic excuse for an environmental assessment act is so badly drafted that even industry is bound to start complaining. And the destruction of the Fisheries Act in relation to protection of fish habitat could well be the subject of litigation, especially due to the impacts on First Nations rights.

Another potential area of litigation could be First Nations push back against the Canada-China Investment Treaty. I keep hoping that a case can be brought for injunctive relief to block ratification while there is still time. As I write this, the treaty is not yet ratified. The Prime Minister can legally ratify at any time he convenes a Cabinet meeting. We need to keep the pressure up, particularly on Conservative MPs, to urge them to pressure the Prime Minister to, at a minimum, reject the treaty with language that locks us in for 31 years. We should insist that, at least, the exit provisions match NAFTA, with a 6-month opt-out provision.

By December, the Joint Review Panel on the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, or as I like to call it, ‘The Great Pipeline of China’ will report. Thanks to changes in C-38, the National Energy Board is no longer the decision-maker. The NEB will make a recommendation based on the Joint Review Panel report. Then, Prime Minister Harper’s Cabinet will rule. Despite all the opposition, and the clear climb-down on rhetoric from the PM and his Cabinet members in the last year, it will be a surprise if the project is turned down. We will stop it from being built, somehow, but we cannot afford to assume the fight is already won.

Beyond the legislative agenda, we are likely to experience within Canada and globally, more extreme weather events due to human-induced climate change. I am convinced another year cannot go by without people around the world, urged on by the world’s scientists, making the links and demanding governments take action. We need to become more active, more assertive in making the case that the changes we are seeing now are dangerous, and that we are only seeing the tip of a very large (and melting) iceberg.

No doubt we will experience heartbreaks (I cannot speak of what happened to little children in Newtown, Connecticut). We can never anticipate exactly how the military industrial complex will make its greed and Machiavellian machinations felt in a troubled world. We will have moments that bring us great joy, worry about things that in the scheme of things do not matter much, and love and lose loves, as in every year. The world did not end in 2012 and perhaps human consciousness will evolve.

Perhaps, from our beautiful islands—big and small—off the west coast of British Columbia, just perhaps, our work for change will lead the way. All the best to us all in this new year.

The post What will 2013 hold for Canada? appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Stephen Harper’s latest moves in the Enbridge project debate have been a lot like that shell game.  He has whizzed the cups around the table.  In the blur of moves, some may believe he has changed his position.  

Analyzing the moves in sequence helps focus on the most likely of explanations.  This latest “wait for the science” gambit is all about defusing the pipeline issue before and during the spring BC provincial election.

Things have been shaken up on this issue by two key events. The first, July 10, 2012, was the  release of the findings of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Accident Report on the Kalamazoo, Michigan Enbridge spill.  The second was Premier Christy Clark’s announcement, a toughening stand unveiled from July 16-21, that she could not be counted on to support the project, unless Alberta and the federal government agreed to concessions. And in this blur of news, Stephen Harper seemed to have a change of heart, claiming that he had always said the decision would rest on the findings of the Joint Review Panel.

Of course, if Stephen Harper was thinking about the evidence, the logical time to have spoken up about pipeline safety was immediately following the July 10 condemnation of Enbridge by US officials.  Is there any evidence that the US NTSB 150 page report lambasting Enbridge for incompetence and negligence had any impact on the PM? 

The PMO message machine did ensure a strong statement was made in response to the accident report.  On July 19, Environment Minister Peter Kent leapt to the defence of Enbridge. In a Globe and Mail story headlined “Ottawa maintains support for Enbridge and Northern Gateway,” Peter Kent said, “Pipelines are still, by far, the safest way to transport petrochemicals in any form.”  According to the news report, Peter Kent also said he had not read the U.S. NTSB report.  His defence of Enbridge? 

“It is an older pipeline; it is a different set of geographic and technological realities from some of the new major projects being proposed,” he said.

Pity poor Peter Kent; told by the Boss to peddle an impossible sales pitch.  Is the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to remain perpetually new? A never-get-old pipeline? Just the next week, July 27, Enbridge had a new leak in relatively new, 1998 vintage, pipeline in Wisconsin.

In the time between Peter Kent’s defence of Enbridge’s 2010 Michigan spill and the new one in Wisconsin, Christy Clark made her first public criticism of Enbridge.

On August 1, on CKNW and the Bill Good Show, Heritage Minister James Moore became the first member of the Harper cabinet to criticize Enbridge.  Moore chose to criticize Enbridge while praising Kinder-Morgan’s pipeline expansion plans.

Chronologically, the next development was within days. Clearly, prior to Moore’s August 1 radio comments, the wheels were in motion for the letter from Peter Kent and the head of the NEB to the Joint Review Panel.  The letter, dispatched on Friday August 3, told the JRP that their report would be due on December 31, 2013. Frankly, to that point, all indications pointed to forcing the completion of the review far sooner than December 2013. 

On Tuesday, August 7, (the first business day following the Kent deadline letter), Stephen Harper met with Christy Clark and then recast the issue, claiming he was going to allow science to decide whether the pipeline would be approved:

“And as I’ve said repeatedly, the government does not pick and choose particular projects. The government obviously wants to see British Columbia’s export trade continue to grow and diversify; that’s important. But projects have to be evaluated on their own merits.” (emphasis added)

The reality is that the Prime Minister had never said anything remotely like this before.  With specific reference to Enbridge, he has “repeatedly” used the term “national interest” to describe the importance of the project.  Speaking in China in February, Harper made his clearest commitments to ensuring the Northern Gateway project is built. In a Reuters story, “Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built,” Harper said, “our government is committed to ensuring that Canada has the infrastructure necessary to move our energy resources to those diversified markets.”

Is he really backing away from unequivocal support?  

Rather than a change in his position, the new con game is about trying to reduce the opposition to the pipeline during the BC election.  That’s why the deadline is now December 2013. My bet is that trying to reduce the “with us or against us” rhetoric was the main topic of conversation when Clark and Harper met. The more people believe it is only a hypothetical threat, the more the BC election may not require BC political leaders to harden their opposition to federal railroading of a risky super tanker and pipeline scheme.

In this con game, my money is still on the reality that Stephen Harper is more determined to export bitumen to China than to any other policy objective.

The post The shell game appeared first on Elizabeth May.

International Day of the World’s Indigenous People was first proclaimed by the United Nations in 1994, and Canada signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples last year in June.

However, the commitment to uphold rights has yielded nothing in terms of results from the Harper Conservatives. Instead, the curtailing of consultation with First Nations in the Environmental Assessment process, cuts to Aboriginal health programmes and the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline-and-tanker scheme are just a few examples indicating that the Harper Conservatives are not interested in empowering the voices of indigenous Canadians. The treatment being given to Indigenous language speakers at the Joint Review Panel hearings on the Enbridge Northern Gateway project is a particularly appalling example.  While many First Nations have presented at the hearings, their voices are not properly materializing in the official published transcripts.  Instead, translators are inserting placeholders indicating ‘native word’, an inaccurate and disrespectful label that demeans oral Aboriginal traditional knowledge.

The Green Party of Canada recognizes that Aboriginal cultures, languages and histories are a fundamental source of our Canadian identity. A responsible government would promote and protect indigenous media, provide protection for indigenous intellectual and artistic property rights, and support the development of Aboriginal education curricula that are language and culture specific.

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“The only way governments can handle controversial projects of this manner is to ensure that things are evaluated on an independent basis scientifically, and not simply on political criteria,” Harper told reporters at an elementary school.

“And as I’ve said repeatedly the government does not pick and choose particular projects. The government obviously wants to see British Columbia’s export trade continue to grow and diversify; that’s important. But projects have to be evaluated on their own merits.”

(Peter O’Neil, “PM insists pipeline projects not a political move,” August 7, 2012, Victoria Times Colonist)

He didn’t seem very comfortable as he said it. The words were a bit awkward — “controversial projects of this manner”. “Manner?” No wonder. It was a complete abandonment of all Harper message machine management over the last year.

My favourite bit, if I am allowed favourite bits of howler whoppers, was the gratuitous, “As I’ve said repeatedly…” Where and when did he ever say anything like this before?

Let’s look at what he actually has said repeatedly.

In November 2011, the prime minister was interviewed by Global TV in Vancouver and asked specifically about the Enbridge project:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: There are environmentalists who will oppose any of these projects. Obviously, there will be environmental assessments and there always have to be negotiations with First Nations but that all said, this is a critical and important project to Canada as a whole.

Global TV: Canadian opposition may not be the only stumbling block.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: I think we’ll see significant American interests trying to line up against the Northern Gateway project, precisely because it’s not in the interests of the United States. It’s in the interests of Canada.

Global TV: Could they do anything to stop it?

Prime Minister Harper: Well, they’ll funnel money through environmental groups and others in order to try to slow it down but, as I say, we’ll make sure that the best interests of Canada are protected.

(Emphasis added. The link is down to the actual interview on the Global website. This transcript comes from the website of Vivian Krause, www.fair-questions.com.)

On January 5, 2012, the prime minister appeared on the Calgary radio programme hosted by Dave Rutherford. He laid out much of his spring legislative agenda. Specifically, he emphasized approving the use of supertankers on the B.C. coast. He asked, since oil tankers ply waters off Atlantic Canada, why couldn’t oil supertankers move along the B.C. coast? (He made no reference to the 1972 federal-provincial moratorium on supertankers along the north coast of B.C.) Since there is only one project undergoing review that involves over-turning the moratorium to allow supertankers on the northern coast, the Rutherford show comments were directly supporting Enbridge.

On January 9, 2012, the day before the Joint Review Panel into the Enbridge project got underway, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, delivered the next blow in what was a carefully constructed PR barrage demonstrating that the Harper Conservatives supported the project. Joe Oliver issued a blistering attack on environmental groups and First Nations that may stand in the way of the pipelines and tankers. Here’s what he said:

“We must expand our trade with the fast growing Asian economies…Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth.

No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.

These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”

January 30, 2012, in the House in response to a question from Bob Rae, Stephen Harper said:

“It is vitally important to the national interests of this country that we are able to export our energy products to Asia and, obviously, that is something the government hopes will happen in the future.” (Many similar comments can be found in Hansard.)

The one that rather caps it off comes from his February trip to China. Dateline: Guangzhou, China:

Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built
By David Ljunggren, Reuters
Fri Feb 10, 2012

Canada’s Prime Minister on Friday made his strongest comments yet in support of a proposed pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific coast, saying his government was committed to ensuring the controversial project went ahead.

Enbridge Inc’s Northern Gateway pipeline, which is strongly opposed by green groups and some aboriginal bands, would allow Canada to send tankers of crude to China and reduce reliance on the U.S. market.

An independent energy regulator — which could in theory reject the project — last month started two years of hearings into the pipeline.

In remarks that appeared to cast some doubt on the regulator’s eventual findings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it had become “increasingly clear that it is in Canada’s national interest to diversify our energy markets”.

He continued: “To this end, our government is committed to ensuring that Canada has the infrastructure necessary to move our energy resources to those diversified markets.”

Of course, it is not just what he said, it is what he did that makes a mockery of this entirely bogus claim that he does not “pick and choose projects,” or pre-judge any project prior to review.

The entire apparatus of environmental law has been turned upside down and eviscerated. The budget omnibus bill, C-38, repealed the environmental assessment act, replaced it with a far weaker review, applying to fewer projects, coupled with removing protection for fish habitat, endangered species and navigable waters.

Other resource extraction projects will no doubt benefit from fast-tracking and lax review, but the first one to benefit would appear to be the one the PM keeps talking about. And for further proof, go back to this bit of reportage from Reuters:

“An independent energy regulator — which could in theory reject the project — last month started two years of hearings into the pipeline.”

That is no longer the case. Bill C-38 removed the independence of the National Energy Board decision-making, ensuring that the Cabinet could overturn any NEB decision. (Since the NEB is pretty reliably an approver of pipelines, I suspect this change in our laws was made to reassure the Communist Chinese government. They may have had some suspicion that the PM could not really deliver on his promise of the Great Pipeline of China being built since, after all, Canada has an independent regulator. No more.)

There are more quotes that can be hauled out. Stephen Harper has talked about Enbridge and sending tankers full of bitumen crude to Chinese refineries quite a lot. One thing you cannot find is when he ever said he was interested in the evidence.

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