Petroleum, and more specifically the pipelines that carry it to market, was a major part of the Aug. 6 federal leaders debate held in Toronto and hosted by Macleans. Here we’ve provided a cheat sheet clarifying what each leader said about each of the four major pipeline projects that have been in the works for several years, but none of which have begun construction.
The pipelines in question are TransCanada’s Energy East, TransCanada’s Keystone XL, Enbridge’s Northern Gateway, and Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain Expansion. These are each of the leaders statements, as recorded in the transcript provided by Macleans. Paul Wells of Macleans acted as the moderator. If there is no comment listed under that pipeline heading, it’s because that leader did not refer directly to that project during the debate. In some cases, comments from the moderator or other debaters have been included to help clarify the comments.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May
Energy East: No direct comment made.
Keystone XL: No direct comment made.
Northern Gateway: The Green Party opposes every single one of the pipelines that are proposed, risky pipeline schemes to get unprocessed oil out of this country — Mr. Mulcair’s right. Every single one of these raw bitumen, unprocessed oil pipeline schemes is about exporting Canadian jobs. That’s why the Green Party knows we can oppose every single one of them.
TransMountain Expansion:
And I would like to have Mr. Mulcair’s answer clearly. Will you join us and fight against the risky pipeline and tanker expansion tripling the transport of unprocessed oil from Vancouver? Will you help us defend our coastlines?
Well, with all due respect, Mr. Prime Minister, your record on climate is a legacy of – litany of broken promises, including one that’s directly relevant to the questions that Paul Wells was asking you about exports. You committed in 2008 not to export unprocessed oil, bitumen, to countries that have weaker emissions standards than Canada. That would obviously include China, the destination point for Enbridge and Kinder Morgan, which only the Green Party on this stage opposes. It makes no sense to export unprocessed oil to countries with poor environmental records.
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(To Mulcair) I’m still not sure where you stand on Kinder Morgan, because it’s pretty straightforward. They plan to put three times as many tankers moving out Vancouver, loaded with diluted bitumen. It’s very hazardous, risky material. And we know, whether– regardless of what kind of process it goes through, it should not go ahead. It must be stopped.
New Democratic Party Leader
Thomas Mulcair
Energy East: With regard to Energy East, it could be a win-win-win: better price for the producers, more royalties for the producing province. It could also help create those jobs in Canada. And of course it could help with Canada’s own energy security. But here’s the rub. Mr. Harper has gotten the balance all wrong. He has scrapped a series of important environmental laws, starting with the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Species at risk has been affected; fisheries. Instead of dealing with First Nations on a respectful, nation-to-nation basis, he spends a hundred million dollars a year fighting them in court. We’ll take a different approach. We’ll work with First Nations. It’ll be a new era in relations with First Nations because they are the resource rulers in a lot of these cases. Mr. Harper’s belligerent, butting – butting heads approach is not working, and that’s why not one of those projects has gotten off the table.
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In the case of Energy East, for example — where we would be replacing the super tankers that right now come down the St. Lawrence to Saint-Romuald across from Quebec City, we’d be replacing the extremely dangerous trains that are going through communities all across Canada. That’s the type of evaluation that we should do — it’s an objective evaluation — if we can get back to a credible system, which we’ve lost.
Paul Wells: In a – in an interview with our colleagues at l’Actualité, you also said that, for Energy East to make sense, you’ve got to internalize the price of carbon in the price of the project. That sounds like a carbon price. Would that be felt by consumers at the gas tank?
Mulcair: Internalizing the cost, as I just said before with regard to sustainable development, making the polluter pay, that’s a normal rule of sustainable development; otherwise, you’re making everybody in society bear it. User pay, polluter pay – basic rules of sustainable development. I brought in overarching legislation in Quebec. It went so far as to change the Charter of Rights to include the right to a clean environment.
Keystone XL: Getting our resources to market is critical. But Mr. Harper’s gotten the balance wrong. He’s gutted our environmental legislation, and he knows that that’s hurting jobs in our resource sector, it’s hurting our economy, and frankly, it’s hurting Canada’s international reputation. Building on my experience as an Environment Minister, when I brought in overarching sustainable development legislation, I would enforce that type of legislation: make polluters pay for the pollution they create. And these projects would get looked at with a thorough and credible environmental assessment process. Mr. Harper and Mr. Trudeau both agree with Keystone XL, which represents the export of 40,000 jobs. I want to create those 40,000 jobs here in Canada.
Northern Gateway: I believe that a clean environment and a strong economy do go hand in hand. What we especially said in the case of Northern Gateway — and I got a chance to visit the Douglas Channel — was there was no safe way to bring those large super tankers into that narrow channel. That just doesn’t make any sense. What I have said in the case of Keystone XL — you just heard me repeat it — part of sustainable development is creating those value-added jobs in your own country. You don’t export them to another country.
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By the way, that 40,000 job figure is Mr. Harper’s own figure. Mr. Flaherty and him were boasting in the States that it would create 40,000 jobs there. I want to create those 40,000 jobs here in Canada.
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This is part of my track record, that people are free to consult. When it was the Rabaska liquefied natural gas plant across from Quebec City, and I was the Minister of the Environment, I didn’t even want to look at it because of the danger of those tankers in the St. Lawrence, the same approach I took with regard to Northern Gateway and the tank— dangerous tankers in the Douglas Channel.
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TransMountain Expansion:With regard to these other projects, we have to be able to look at them objectively with thorough, credible environmental assessment processes.
I am taking the position that you can study these thing— these projects. Ms. May takes the position that you can say no to them, all of them, in advance. Mr. Harper is taking the position that you can say yes to all of them in advance. We want a clear, thorough, credible process that the public can have confidence in.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau
Energy East: Mr. Mulcair has been somewhat inconsistent on pipelines. In English he’ll say that he supports the Energy East pipeline; in French he said that it’s out of the question. And that kind of inconstancy, quite frankly, isn’t the kind of leadership we need for Canada. You can’t say one thing in English and its opposite in French. The fact is we need to restore public trust in our ability as a government to create a level playing field upon which proponents of a project can acquire social license, can gain the public trust from the communities it’ll touch, by working in concert with First Nations, Metis Nation, and Inuit peoples to make sure the right partnerships are in place, and also to make sure that the scientific oversight and rules and guidelines are actually protecting Canadians.
This is about not just doing right by our environment; it’s also about doing right by future generations. I have three kids, and I know I want my kids to grow up in a country as fresh and pure and clean as Canada was when – as we remember it to be and as it used to be. And for that to be – take hold, we have to have a government that’s actually demonstrating leadership, that understands that you cannot make a choice between what’s good for the environment and what’s good for the economy. In the 21st century, they go together. Investing in clean tech, in jobs, investing in the kids of pollution reduction and emissions reductions that we need is what this country hasn’t done well enough under Stephen Harper.
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Canadians know that we need an actual approach that gets it, that restores that public trust that we have simply lost over the past years. Mr. Harper has failed on the environment, and therefore he’s failed on the economy. Mr. Mulcair continues to – to say different things in both languages. But I will say that, on Energy East, I have consistently said that it needs to gain social license. And the Conservatives in New Brunswick, you know, criticized me roundly when they were in government. So I don’t know what Mr. Harper’s talking about in terms of that.
Keystone XL: The reason environmental groups in Canada and across the United States are so concerned about Canadian oil is because Mr. Harper has turned the oil sands into the scapegoat around the world for climate change. He is – has put a big target on our oil sands, which are going to be an important part of our economy for a number of years to come, although we do have to get beyond them. And his lack of leadership on the environment is hurting Canadian jobs and Canadian relations with other countries.
Northern Gateway: No direct comment made.
TransMountain Expansion: No direct comment made.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper
Energy East: (in response to Trudeau) Well, Mr. Trudeau, you do exactly what you accuse Mr. Mulcair of doing. You go to one part of the country, Atlantic Canada, you’re for Energy East; you go to Quebec, and you’re against it.
All of these – all of these – all of these parties have opposed all of these projects before we’ve even had environmental assessments. That’s not the responsible way you do things. The government has environmental assessments. You do – take your – you take the evaluation based on that and you move forward. And that’s – you know, that’s taking the jobs and the economy seriously along with the environment. The way you don’t deal with this problem is start imposing carbon taxes that will inevitably – they raise money for the government. They don’t reduce emissions. They hit consumers, and they hit consumers hard.
Keystone XL: Well, in fact, our energy exports have increased, not just our — until recently, obviously — not just our oil and gas exports to the United States, but we’ve also seen increasing uranium exports and coal exports and others to Asia. But I would say this, Paul: the federal government does not build pipelines. We obviously favour seeing a diversification of our exports, but we – we establish an environmental assessment process. Companies have to go through that, and they are going through that process.
In terms of the Keystone pipeline, as you know, that’s a – that’s a situation under control of the United States. I’ve had many conversations with President Obama. He’s not asking Canada to say anything. He’s saying he will simply make a decision that’s in the Americans’ best interests. But as you know, there’s overwhelming public support on both sides, so I’m very optimistic in the long run about the future of that project.
Paul Wells: Do you think we simply have to wait for a new President to get Keystone passed? And what if that President is a Democrat?
Harper: Well, that may be poss– that may be the case. But the reality is that there is overwhelming public support in the United States, including in Congress on both sides of the aisle. So I – I (sic) actually very confident, looking at the field, that whoever is the next President I think will appro– will approve that project very soon in their mandate.
The project went through a rigorous environmental assessment with a time limitation, as we established. The assessment recommended some 200 conditions on the project. We approved the project subject to those conditions. It’s now up to the – up to the proponent to fulfil those conditions. And that is how the system works in this country.
Northern Gateway: the position of the government is that we have a scientific expert evaluation of every project before we decide to proceed. That’s how the government’s – that’s how the government has handled these projects. Mr. Mulcair, by his own admission, has already ruled out a number of projects before they even went through the process and is – and is positioning himself to be against others as well.
That – that is the record of the NDP. They’re always for projects till they actually face one, and then they’re against it. That’s why in British Columbia they oppose even liquefied natural gas.
TransMountain Expansion: No direct comment made.
