David Staples: Mark Carney build pipelines? No, for him they’re a dirty word

Record numbers of Canadians want to see oil and gas pipelines built from ocean-to-ocean. Mark Carney evidently isn’t one of them. For Carney, “pipeline” is a dirty word.

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Just this week in Calgary, Carney gave a lengthy press conference on his plan to break free from energy dependence on President Donald Trump’s U.S. by rapidly approving and building resource projects and corridors.

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Carney started his speech by bragging about his straight shooting, saying, “Since becoming your prime minister, I’ve chosen to continue to speak plainly.”

I’ll take Carney at his word on his plain-spokenness. But we all reveal ourselves in what we say and also what we don’t say. Notably, not once in Calgary could Carney bring himself to plainly speak one particular word — pipelines.

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On the campaign trail, Carney will talk about critical mineral development and clean energy subsidies, as well as plans for industrial carbon taxes and energy corridors. He’ll talk so much about Canada becoming an “energy superpower” that you might assume he’s gearing up for Canada to challenge the U.S., China and Saudi Arabia for world oil and gas and critical mineral domination.

But when it comes to new pipelines — an economic driver that Canada needs to unleash prosperity, to lower energy costs for struggling consumers and an uncompetitive industry, to help export low-emission LNG to replace dirty coal-burning in Asia, and to challenge dictator oil exports from Russian, Iran and Saudi Arabia  — Mr. Plain-Spoken refuses to commit to anything but sneaky, textbook Liberal obstructionism.

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The only time at the Calgary press conference when the word “pipeline” came up was when my Calgary Herald colleague Rick Bell asked Carney point blank if he would flat-out promise to build them.

“I’ll be direct,” said Carney. “I’m focused on results. I’m focused on specific projects. I’m focused and I’m putting in place as prime minister a process that was very clear. We’re going to identify projects of national interest. Any major energy project, virtually any major energy project, that comes from this great province is going to pass the boundaries of other provinces and is going to be built on aboriginal lands. They will need the consent and the support of other provinces and of aboriginal people.”

Consent? That’s the standard and sly Liberal excuse to thwart Canada’s oil and gas industry. If Canadian projects must have consent from an increasingly small number of anti-oil-and-gas provincial and Indigenous leaders, we will fail.

Funny how such consent is never an issue for Carney’s own aggressive and intrusive green schemes. When it comes to clamping down in an obvious area of provincial jurisdiction such as Alberta oil and gas with policies like a federal industrial carbon tax or an emissions cap, Carney simply says we must do it, with little or no mention of seeking consent from Alberta, other provinces or Indigenous people. But when it comes to building anything that might help the oil and gas sector, such as pipelines, Carney suddenly must get consent from one and all, a notion our top court has rejected.

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Carney now promises major resource project assessment in two years, as opposed to taking five years. But no major projects at all got approved under Trudeau’s C-69 Industrial Assessment Act. Even so Carney is keeping C-69, with its avalanche of red tape and an approval process so daunting it’s stopped dead major resource development.

In contrast, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promises to axe all carbon taxes and commits to a one-year deadline for industrial project approval, with consent needed only from most interested parties, not all.

Carbon taxes and tariffs, massive subsidies to inefficient green schemes, and a knee-capped oil and gas sector are great news for Carney’s well-paid army of consultants and bureaucrats needed to measure, report on and tax all aspects of carbon use in Canadian society. But jobs, industry and investment will flee to Trump’s U.S., which is axing carbon taxes and green red tape and subsidies.

Our economy will continue to dwindle, with Alberta’s economy in particular peril.

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In this way Carney’s economic agenda threatens Canada’s unity and sovereignty. His plan will shatter the country. Those of us who hunger for the prosperity that flows out of resource development will fiercely reject those who continue to throw up roadblocks.

But Canada’s biggest threat won’t be internal. It will come out of our inability to compete internationally. We are becoming a weakling that can’t stand up to bullies like Trump’s U.S. and Xi Jinping’s China. They will be only too happy to sell us their goods while picking over the bones of our broken industries.

dstaples@postmedia.com

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