Trudeau has to go?

[kertejud2]

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Wait what? Enbridge wanted to build that line and jumped through an absurd amount of hoops to try to comply with the ever-changing goalposts. If it wasn't for Trudea playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe and arbitrarily rejecting it, it likely would have been built.

They wanted to build it until the price of oil crashed, the cost of the pipeline rose, and approval was set upon 209 conditions.

By the time Enbridge stopped talking about the pipeline, less than 30 of the 209 conditions were fulfilled, only about half of the necessary FN had approved it, and the feds had conspicuously stopped talking about it: “We think it’s obviously in the vital interests of Canada, and in the vital interests of British Columbia,” (Stephen Harper, 2012) to “No particular project is a national priority,” (Jason Kenney, 2014). Plus the cost of the pipeline kept seeing large increases ($6B in 2012, $7.9B in 2014 with the conditions put on approval setting them to rise "substantially more) while oil was crashing.

https://globalnews.ca/news/1409132/g...ortant-kenney/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/is-...lved-1.2965355'

So all that was happening, and then the Liberals were elected.

It wasn't a game of 'eeney, meeny, miny, moe' from the Liberals. The Conservative governments approval put the conditions on it that ground it to a halt to the point nobody was talking about it anymore, then the courts (not the government) overturned the approval. The Liberals then fulfilled their election promise (hardly arbitrary, they were 'given a mandate') and didn't approve it again, they did approve nearly a million barrels a day of export capacity with TMX and the Line 3 expansion.

Anything since the court decision to overturn the approval of Northern Gateway has been political theatre to appease to the environmentalists in the party, and try to win back some voters pissed about the TMX approval. But it was nowhere close to being a reality.

[kertejud2]

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In Kerts world, if the pipeline isn't already built, then there was never an economic case for building it. Governments are powerless to influence this situation.

Oh I'm sure there was absolutely an economic case for building it before the price of oil fell by 50% and construction costs increased by 30% and then government conditions were put onto it that would further increase the costs and reduced the returns.

It's how the economic (and legal) case changing was Trudeau's fault when all that happened before he became PM that I'm confused about. Or how any of it would change if Alberta were independent.

[94boosted]

The 209 conditions most certainly didn't help, that's what I was referring to when I said ever-changing goalposts. Here's an interesting piece I read on Northern Gateway a couple years ago, https://s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.co...0-%20FINAL.pdf. The NEB found the project to be in the public interest of Canada, Harper approved it. Then, similar to Trans Mountain, the approval was overturned. And of course that's when Trudeau in all his wisdom concluded that the project is not in Canada's best interest.

[ExtraSlow]

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Oh I'm sure there was absolutely an economic case for building it before the price of oil fell by 50% and construction costs increased by 30% and then government conditions were put onto it that would further increase the costs and reduced the returns.

I'm quoting this because I think I found one statement that I can agree with you on.

[kertejud2]

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The 209 conditions most certainly didn't help, that's what I was referring to when I said ever-changing goalposts. Here's an interesting piece I read on Northern Gateway a couple years ago, https://s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.co...0-%20FINAL.pdf. The NEB found the project to be in the public interest of Canada, Harper approved it. Then, similar to Trans Mountain, the approval was overturned. And of course that's when Trudeau in all his wisdom concluded that the project is not in Canada's best interest.

It was found to be in the public interest with "approval subject to conditions." The conditions weren't met, so approval was overturned.

Should projects go any other way?

[Cagare]

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It was found to be in the public interest with "approval subject to conditions." The conditions weren't met, so approval was overturned.

Should projects go any other way?

Well that's not exactly what happened. In January 2016 the Trudeau government signaled that the Northern Gateway was not in the best interest of Canada. Subsequently in May of that year Enbridge requested an extension to the start date of construction which was one of those conditions (https://web.archive.org/web/20160914...29&crtr.tp1D=1)

Just after that in June I believe the courts squashed the existing approval stating concerns with First Nations Consultation. At which point it went back to Cabinet until November when they said it would not receive approval.

https://thenarwhal.ca/topics/enbridge-northern-gateway/

Enbridge had an agreement with PetroChina for this pipeline originally that was set in like 2010. They had customers, they still charged the same to transport the product so the short term oil prices are not what killed this. This was clear signaling by the new Federal government that they had no interest at that time in building national/large length pipelines. This is why Enbridge has chosen to focus on smaller projects that stay out of Federal jurisdiction as much as possible, or that have large support like natural gas pipelines in Ontario and Quebec.

I am not suggesting this project was perfect by any means, but the politics that are getting played by this government are terrible. The goal posts are not clear for any business that needs to deal with the federal government as they have made it clear that the decisions they make are not in the best interest of the country but for their individual party.

[94boosted]

Not sure it's worth arguing with kertejud2, Trudeau and the Liberals are clearly champions of pipelines and have done everything they can to make sure Northern Gateway, KXL and Energy East got built. We're all just misinformed.

[Cagare]

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Not sure it's worth arguing with kertejud2, Trudeau and the Liberals are clearly champions of pipelines and have done everything they can to make sure Northern Gateway, KXL and Energy East got built. We're all just misinformed.

Yeah, well, it's very frustrating because I don't feel that we are acting in the best interests of Canadians anymore. That's not just on oil/gas but in general. I had conversations with the folks that led the initial approvals/consultation work for the northern gateway. They had solutions or mitigations to every issue that was brought forward. It became very clear through the hearing process that they needed a green light from every single group involved, which was going to be hard to obtain.

Hilariously the Harper conservatives were not without their political issues to manage. Fun fact, the same day that the Harper Conservatives approved this pipeline Senator Duffy was charged by the RCMP. Then in April/May of 2016 when all of the court challenge issues were played out Duffy was acquitted on all counts in Court. Also, Wallin/Brazeau had their charges dropped.

[mr2mike]

I'm certain we (AB) could get by on our savings in transfer payments alone. Till we figure out the pipeline shit.
We're in an abusive relationship and can't see it being better outside of the Canadian relationship.

[killramos]

An abusive relationship is an incredibly, and depressingly, apt analogy.

Wonder what that makes Kert...

[kertejud2]

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https://thenarwhal.ca/topics/enbridge-northern-gateway/

Enbridge had an agreement with PetroChina for this pipeline originally that was set in like 2010. They had customers, they still charged the same to transport the product so the short term oil prices are not what killed this. This was clear signaling by the new Federal government that they had no interest at that time in building national/large length pipelines. This is why Enbridge has chosen to focus on smaller projects that stay out of Federal jurisdiction as much as possible, or that have large support like natural gas pipelines in Ontario and Quebec.

I mean, from the link:

Still, after 10 years on the table (Enbridge signed a deal with PetroChina more than a decade ago), Enbridge has no firm shipping agreements with oil producers and is widely believed to be dead in the water.

Which was true, for a time.

https://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas...roject/?oc=dst

PetroChina Withdraws from Canadian Pipeline Project
Friday, July 13, 2007

The idea the government wasn't supportive of building large pipelines also doesn't make sense when they approved a larger one the same day they put the tanker ban on Northern Gateway. And approved the Line 3 Expansion. Again, the anti-pipeline government approved nearly a million barrels a day in export capacity. They're getting attacked on one side by not being pro-pipeline enough, and attacked on the other for facilitating the growth of the oil sands by approving pipeline projects.

I am not suggesting this project was perfect by any means, but the politics that are getting played by this government are terrible. The goal posts are not clear for any business that needs to deal with the federal government as they have made it clear that the decisions they make are not in the best interest of the country but for their individual party.

But this is where TMX is the exception. It wasn't in the best interest of the party to approve it, it was in the best interest of the country. Northern Gateway was a political play, but it was a freebie. The Liberals killed it for the same reason the CPC publicly walked away from it. Supporting it cost votes in BC and there wasn't much to get excited about in terms of it actually getting built, so unlike other pipeline approvals, there wasn't much economic risk. But the Liberals were clear for years their stance on Northern Gateway, so it shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody what it's fate would be once approval got overturned. As for the politics being played, the project was killed based on conditions the previous government attached to it. Nothing changed with the conditions, Enbridge failed to meet them (they asked for an extension, even though the timeline was one of the conditions).

The goal posts change as politics do, it's the nature of democracies. Enbridge should know this as much as anybody. Deal with Canadian and BC politics on Northern Gateway, but now get to deal with shifting American goalposts on Line 3 and Line 5 when it was easy on the Canadian side. Or TC with KXL and it's rollercoaster of American regulations and challenges and approvals.

[94boosted]

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The idea the government wasn't supportive of building large pipelines also doesn't make sense when they approved a larger one the same day they put the tanker ban on Northern Gateway. And approved the Line 3 Expansion. Again, the anti-pipeline government approved nearly a million barrels a day in export capacity. They're getting attacked on one side by not being pro-pipeline enough, and attacked on the other for facilitating the growth of the oil sands by approving pipeline projects.

This is the same government that forced TC to include downstream emissions in the Energy East review process (https://financialpost.com/opinion/te...getting-caught). I honestly don't know how you can defend Trudeau and the Libs on the pipeline front.

[Buster]

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This is the same government that forced TC to include downstream emissions in the Energy East review process (https://financialpost.com/opinion/te...getting-caught). I honestly don't know how you can defend Trudeau and the Libs on the pipeline front.

PipelineCo: "we would like to build a pipeline"

Liberals: "excellent. It must be made out of cotton candy and powered by unicorm farts...and get approval from every FN in Canada that wants a say."

PipelineCo: "I don't think that makes the project practical"

Liberals: "SEE?!!!? Pipeline projects don't make sense!!!"

[killramos]

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PipelineCo: "we would like to build a pipeline"

Liberals: "excellent. It must be made out of cotton candy and powered by unicorm farts...and get approval from every FN in Canada that wants a say."

PipelineCo: "I don't think that makes the project practical"

Liberals: "SEE?!!!? Pipeline projects don't make sense!!!"

“You have given out too much...”

[kertejud2]

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This is the same government that forced TC to include downstream emissions in the Energy East review process (https://financialpost.com/opinion/te...getting-caught). I honestly don't know how you can defend Trudeau and the Libs on the pipeline front.

Don't conflate being against some pipelines as being against all pipelines. If they wanted, they could have killed all export capacity expansion (and come out better politically). But despite being the 'anti-pipeline' and anti-O&G party, Alberta's oil production has still increased every year under Trudeau (hell, even with the dreaded duo of Notley and Trudeau being at the helm during the oil price collapse, Alberta's oil production continued to increase) and pipeline expansion was approved of almost a million barrels a day with TMX and Line 3. So you can see why the anti-O&G crowd don't see Trudeau and the Liberals as the environmental crusaders and ideologues that Albertans do.

Are they the most pro-pipeline and most pro-O&G party? Obviously not. But they've gotten as many pipelines going as the CPC would have been able to (and I'm not even convinced the CPC had the ability to get TMX built, for no other reason than they're so ideologically focused the thought of buying the pipeline probably wouldn't have occurred to them when it would have inevitably ran into the legal challenges and roadblocks). So I guess I can defend them for that I guess.

The downstream emissions were heavy handed and got TC to walk away early, but when KXL was given new life it pretty much meant Energy East was getting booted way down the line anyway. Not that I think Energy East would have gotten approved if KXL stayed dead, but there would have been more interesting theatre than just throwing downstream emissions out there. But now we're on the hook to try and keep KXL going, ironically enough.

[Buster]

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(and come out better politically).

Why is this the case, do you think?

[kertejud2]

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Why is this the case, do you think?

Because there are seats that can be won or lost based on environmental policy (as a voter map comparison of BC in the 2011 and 2015 elections would attest). The pro-pipeline voters tend not to change their votes too much.

Nobody voted for the Liberals because they bought TMX. But voters turned against them because they did. Country and economy over the party’s vulnerable left.

[Buster]

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Because there are seats that can be won or lost based on environmental policy (as a voter map comparison of BC in the 2011 and 2015 elections would attest). The pro-pipeline voters tend not to change their votes too much.

Nobody voted for the Liberals because they bought TMX. But voters turned against them because they did. Country and economy over the party’s vulnerable left.

Do you think that if the Liberals supported the economy too much (by supporting pipelines), they would risk an election loss?

[kertejud2]

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Do you think that if the Liberals supported the economy too much (by supporting pipelines), they would risk an election loss?

The only reason they didn't have the election loss already is because of Conservative incompetence. The risk is already there. Liberals losing votes to the NDP, Bloc and Greens over their environmental policy, but the Conservatives just can't anger their base and become anti-O&G by supporting the carbon tax and steal all the red tories in southern Ontario who are pretty much only hanging on because of environmental policy (as per Lisa Raitt).

Their support of KXL isn't winning them any voters either, and keeps providing ammunition for the NDP and Greens to keep chiseling away at their left further. At some point it's going to give.

A big part of the pipeline game is the benefits are delayed. Support a pipeline now, lose votes, and the next party gets to see the economic benefits. If the Liberals can hold on again, maybe the pipeline gamble will pay off for them and it would convince them they're worth the continued support.

[94boosted]

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Don't conflate being against some pipelines as being against all pipelines. If they wanted, they could have killed all export capacity expansion (and come out better politically).

They obfuscated the process for pipelines (EE, TMX and NG) so badly they basically forced themselves into having to buy TMX to prevent a complete meltdown in AB.

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Their support of KXL isn't winning them any voters either, and keeps providing ammunition for the NDP and Greens to keep chiseling away at their left further. At some point it's going to give.

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But now we're on the hook to try and keep KXL going, ironically enough.

Do you mean because Trudeau pouted and told Biden that he's "disappointed" by the cancellation?