Herb Pinder is a Saskatoon businessman and lawyer whose career includes sports agency and private equity, with a large focus on early stage energy companies.
How federal energy policies punish Western Canada while protecting Central Canadian interests — and why voters east of Manitoba hold all the power.
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Editor’s Note: Herb Pinder is a Saskatoon businessman with long history investing in oil and gas. He’s also a lawyer and sports agent, and was interviewed on the Pipeline Online Podcast here. Pinder is a columnist for Western Standard, and he has agreed to have his columns republished here on Pipeline Online. This one first appeared on Western Standard here on Feb. 10.
We all know that Quebec, by agreement, has enjoyed ‘special status’ since Confederation in 1867. One can understand the uniqueness of that province, its culture, language, and history. But we in the West also have our own special status, especially when it comes to energy policies.
But as Quebec advances its independence, the noose tightens around energy. Punitive and ideological policies are imposed, often without consultation. Creating one of Canada’s great ironies, these opposite dynamics divide our country.
Examples of different strokes for different folks (and provinces) abound.
Although US oil tankers move up and down Canada’s West Coast, Bill C-48 disallows loading or unloading, effectively eliminating future pipelines; yet oil tankers flow up and down the St. Lawrence River (despite demonstrated danger to whales) delivering oil to central Canada.
The ongoing and future prosperity of Western Canada, and indeed the country, depends upon moving Canada’s bountiful resources to markets. Regardless, the new Prime Minister, the Minister of Energy, and the rest of the government requirements illustrate our ‘special status,’ especially regarding pipelines. This includes provisions for the consent of other provinces and Aboriginal bands along the routing; yet the new Gordie Howe bridge, delivering manufactured and other goods to the United States, critical to the prosperity of central Canada, faced no such limitations, even with its high emission levels.
Strange, given the proportion of carbon dioxide emissions from a typical barrel of oil. The western-based upstream (finding, developing, and producing oil) is responsible for 10% of the emissions from every barrel. Another 10% results from the refineries spread across the country.
But 80% of total emissions from every barrel result from the consumption of that oil. It is people living their lives (planes, trains, automobiles, and manufacturing, especially important products such as steel and aluminum). All the above are big users of fossil fuels and critical to the economies of Ontario and Quebec. But they are also among the primary CO2 emitters in our country.
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So, our special status is negative, placing inordinate, arbitrary, and unfair limitations on only 10% of the emissions along the chain. The recent Memorandum of Understanding is mostly unintelligible except for clear and costly requirements to decarbonize oil; yet the same sourced 540,000 barrels shipped east each day from the West have no similar conditions. Likewise, oil shipped up the Saint Lawrence River is sourced from many producers around the world, none of which is “cleaner” than oil produced in Western Canada. Yet, no regulatory impediments.
Why?
The answer is … surprise — the largest block of voters resides in Ontario and Quebec, and most elections are determined before the Manitoba border. The Prime Minister, like his predecessor, is abusing the vulnerable and powerless West and is doubling down on our special status.
While pipelines are especially important to the economy of the West, this is only a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Successful federal states such as the United States and Australia enjoy a bicameral structure of government, which provides input to policy from all regions of the country and further provides checks and balances by the separation of powers within federal states.
The pages of the Western Standard have described the pathway to power in Canada on many occasions. Quebec’s constant breach of our constitution is accepted by the federal government; the unsaid but obvious quid pro quo is political support for the Federal Liberal Party. There are reasons it is often described as Canada’s “natural governing party.”
Our special status also requires the undue sharing of Alberta’s prosperity through equalization. The lack of any real voice in policy formation enabled Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program in the early 1980s, as well as the more recent cancellation of the long-earned approval of the Northern Gateway Pipeline, and the imposition of layers of regulatory impediments.
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Following the first major trade salvo from President Trump, there was national consensus (including public statements from many federal cabinet ministers) that we need pipelines to serve diverse offshore oil customers, and further resolve that Canada clean up its own act, with reference to interprovincial trade barriers.
Not long after, however, our new Prime Minister introduced (at the behest of Quebec), legislation enshrining the dairy, egg, and chicken cartel and marketing boards across the country. Protecting a primary industry in Quebec and across the country results in higher prices for a range of products, denial of consumer choice, including from other imports, and ensuring the continuation of the expensive quotas producers must purchase.
Push up the cost of food staples, then reduce the GST to mitigate costs. The Carney government is making it up on the fly, responding to political winds.
The cost of this dislocation is exemplified by the regular pouring of excess milk down the drain rather than reducing prices to Canadian consumers. Those cows, often supplying more than the allotted quota, apparently do not understand the nuances of the regulatory requirements of the top-down, command-and-control benefits of socialism.
Even many federal Conservatives voted for this legislation — further validation that the path to power in Canada flows through Quebec. The legislation is irresponsible, especially while Canada is on the cusp of renewal of the critical CUSMA trade agreement. The lust for power prevails over even agreed strategic policy formulation.
But no say by Westerners concerning such important matters. Westerners are third-string citizens in a country that refuses to adopt full democracy, enabling periodic attacks on the West for political gain, money, and/or the imposition of ideological values.
Those who accept this ‘special status’ dishonour our forefathers and mothers who came to the West, breaking the land and building a platform for our prosperity.
Will we continue to betray future generations from the dignity of participating in a real democracy, without the malignant ‘special status’?
For those opposed to independence, what is your solution?
Just asking.
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