Recent comments by U.S. President Barack Obama on his approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline being contingent on some Canadian progress on greenhouse gas emissions, and the potential for the B.C. government to stop transhipment of U.S. thermal coal via Surrey Fraser Docks (SFD) by refusing the permit application for Texada Island terminal expansion, have given me pause to draw some cogent parallels.
It appears to me that the Canadian government could adopt President Obama's holier-than-thou attitude, in his threatened exercise of the presidential permit application process to stop Keystone Pipeline, citing Canada's environmental record, by turning the tables and exercising Transport Canada's jurisdiction over U.S. coal trains in Canada, on a quid-pro-quo basis, for its attempts to export U.S. coal pollution to China. It seems somewhat disingenuous to see Jeff Scott, CEO of Surrey Fraser Docks, plead that his project should not be burdened with climate change externalities, while Obama is doing precisely that with Keystone's project.
The B.C. government is in a unique position to stop the SFD U.S. coal transhipment project by following the Island's Trust recommendation and not permitting the necessary expansion of the Texada Island Coal Terminal. This is the one link in the coal supply chain that is within the Province's jurisdiction. A weak link in SFD proposal and a strong link for its opponents.
Not everyone is enamoured with pipeline expansions, if we look to the B.C. government position that, unless certain conditions are met, it opposes the Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to tap new Asian markets for Alberta oil. If oil can't go west, it may go east via a pipeline just announced by Trans Canada Pipelines. This is one way in which the province's attempt to interfere with inter-provincial trade and commerce or tax another province's resources, may benefit our job-hungry eastern cousins.
As a final note, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make the nexus between seeing all these pipeline alternatives taking the "dirt nap" and the rise of rail transhipment of crude oil to markets in the U.S., or seaports on either of Canada's tidewater coasts. Eminent domain, and lack of regulation of railroads, may shift more of the oil transport business to railroads - an expanding and explosive recipe that could create worse, unintended, consequences, à la Lac-Mégantic, than infrequent and less disastrous oil pipeline leaks.
E.C. "Ted" Eddy,
New Westminster
