With all the talk recently about moving our oil out of Alberta to B.C., I’m left wondering what happened to the ‘social license’ our NDP government promised would get our product to tide waters?
Let me start off by saying that Alberta is one of the cleanest and safest energy-producing jurisdictions in the world. We are second to none in the way we produce our oil products and we should be proud of this fact, and yes, this was before the NDP carbon tax was implemented. Both Lloydminster and Hardisty facilities, to name just two, are great examples of how much they care about handling the product both safely and environmentally.
We can recall the cancellation of the Energy East project this past fall, which would have moved product from Hardisty to Saint John, N.B. Overregulation was to blame. If the carbon tax that we are now forced to pay was the magic bullet that would finally get our oil moving, why did the federal government decide to give producers more costly hoops to jump through — hoops that would ultimately wind up killing the project? Shouldn’t the “social license”, that the carbon tax was supposed to give us have allowed Energy East to proceed?
Fast forward to today, it’s now 2018, the carbon tax is 50 per cent higher than it was when the Energy East project was cancelled. That should be 50 per cent more reasons why the “social license” experiment should work, and yet it hasn’t. And now, the minority NDP government in B.C. has announced a regulation that will block the Kinder Morgan TransMountain expansion project from transporting diluted bitumen through the province, either by pipeline or rail, until a committee established by the government makes a determination on whether spilled bitumen can be cleaned up adequately.
The NDP promised that hitting Albertans with a carbon tax would buy us so-called “social license” for pipelines. This new news on TransMountain shows yet again how that strategy is in tatters.
Why is this important to me? First, I’m an Albertan and want to see our province once again be the envy, not only of this nation, but of the world. As the United Conservative Critic for Property and Surface Rights, oil is Albertans property and doggone it, I’m going to fight for it.
I’m curious to see what moves the NDP will make on behalf of TransMountain in the coming weeks, but it’s clear to me that the carbon tax ‘social license’ scheme gets a failing grade with Albertans.