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| The Senate has put the fate of Bill C -48 in some peril., with the Senate Committee that had been reviewing the Legislation from the House of Commons split in a call for the government to not move forward with it |
It's been one of the signature pieces of Legislation that Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen has been advocating for through the years and now as he heads towards his final months as a federal MP, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act Bill C-48 is looking to face some choppy waters as it tries to reach shore, if it makes it there at all.
Yesterday, the Senate Committee reviewing the Bill from the House of Commons, found itself split down the middle, with Senate rules then delivering a recommendation that the federal government not proceed with the bill.
A political move that is rather rare for the Upper Chamber, which normally passes the legislation drafted by elected members of the House of Commons after a short period of overview and recommendation.
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The reaction to the Senate Committee decision also split down along political lines with MP Nathan Cullen expressing his concerns at the latest twist in the travels of Bill C48 through social media.
On the other side of the political spectrum Alberta Premier Jason Kenney was hailing the decision of the Senators as a victory for common sense.
The Alberta Premier followed that up on Thursday morning with a call to action for Albertans to contact the Alberta Senators to ensure that the Senate "Kills Bill C-48 for good"
The decision from the Committee members comes after what has been a fairly extensive period of review of the legislation by the upper body, including having hosted a number of discussions on the Bill, both in Ottawa and other communities including Prince Rupert.
At the Prince Rupert sessions held in April of this year at the Highliner Plaza Hotel, a number of local political officials participated including Mayor John Helin of Lax Kw'alaams, MLA Jennifer Rice, MP Nathan Cullen and Mayor Lee Brain.
Also in attendance were local union and environmental representatives including Joy Thorkelson, Des Nobels and Luanne Roth to name a few.
The Senate Transportation Committee website hosts the transcripts of those sessions for those looking to explore the commentary delivered on the proposed oil tanker ban by the local contributors.
From those archives, a quick read of the testimony from Mayor Lee Brain, who was part of the April 16th afternoon session, highlights some of his opposition towards the prospect of oil tankers operating along the West Coast.
Most on the North Coast haven't had a chance to examine what it was that the Mayor contributed to the forum of April 16th.
So to help to complete that portion of the record, we'll explore some of Mr. Brain's testimony to the theme below:
From the testimony to the committee ...
Mr. Brain: The current economic model simply doesn’t support what is perceived to be these trickle-down effects of these benefits that really do not translate into the community itself. I’ve been in negotiating room now for the last five years with all major projects and have participated in six environmental assessments, and they do everything they can to ensure that the resources are not going to come into the community. Trust me on that.
That being said, one of the messages I want to have here today is just to be really frank with the panel. Regardless if you do or don’t pass this bill, the argument is that it’s not economical to refine oil products in Canada, but I can tell you that it’s not economical for a project to have widespread opposition. Look at Northern Gateway. It was a 10-year process, tens of millions of dollars that Enbridge invested into that, to have nothing but widespread opposition. They even had their environmental assessment approved, and it didn’t even move forward.
The next thing you’re going to do is have another project potentially come here, meet opposition, go through a 10-year process of not going through, and all for what?
The reality is that we need to start refining products in Canada. We need to invest in that at a government level now, if that’s the way the oil industry wants to go about it, so that you value add the industries and we create those jobs here. At the end of the day, having raw bitumen going through the coastline, nobody here can guarantee that there’s not going to be an accident, and it only takes one accident. Then what? You’re not going to be here to be accountable for that.
The other issue is that, on the marine side of things, once the terrestrial operations are completed, the accountability leaves those companies that have brought the pipeline here. Once it’s on the marine side, there’s no accountability. It’s on the shippers for that and they’re just going to say, “Oops, we had a spill.”
Those are some of the issues, and there’s just no way to guarantee that. Prince Rupert is doing well, now. We have propane facilities coming online. We have expansion of our container terminal. We have thousands of jobs that are going to be created here in the next 10 years, based on what we already have going now. There’s no reason to add another oil terminal on top of that.
The Mayor made for somewhat of a current of discussion through a portion of the afternoon session, though at times it appears that Mr. Brain's approach did seem to a few of the Senators to be a case of lecturing them on the issues, with this exchange from the testimony offering up a sense of how the Mayor's approach may have been viewed.
Mr. Brain: I’m just going to interject there, because I met with Marc Garneau directly over this issue. He was here. He met with Metlakatla. He met with Lax Kw’alaams. He met with all of the First Nations. There were 68 engagements over this bill. So to say that there was no engagement, I mean, people can say whatever they want. It’s recorded.
The Chair: I’m just saying, we haven’t heard at testimony that there was.
Mr. Brain: Well, let me tell you right now.
The Chair: But you’re going to tell me? That’s good.
Mr. Brain: I’ve met eyeball-to-eyeball with him, and I feel there was adequate consultation. I find, in this business, that when people aren’t getting what they want, they say they’re not consulted. That’s really the game.
I just want to say something here about this Alberta debate, as if somehow we are not wanting Alberta to be successful. That’s just not the case. The problem is, here, I inherited a bag of lemons for this town when I became mayor. I had an abandoned mill; I had chemicals all over that island that I had to clean up. I didn’t blame the province for abandoning this town. I didn’t blame the feds for making our problems the way they are. I pulled up our bootstraps, and I raised over $100 million in four years to get this town out of the hole.
The reason I did that is because sometimes you have to innovate and you have to look at a problem differently. Right now, we’re trying to do the same things that we did in the 20th century. Alberta is just going to have to innovate, and that means that Alberta and B.C. and Saskatchewan are going to have to team up with the feds to build refining capacity so that we can export refined products out of this port, potentially.
That is the only way, because, as my other message to you was, regardless of your beliefs, if you don’t pass this bill and there is an oil project, it will be massively opposed, and that’s going to be uneconomical. That is a fact.
It won’t matter what your belief is, because we’re in a day and age between science versus belief. You can data mine everyone; it doesn’t matter how much data you present. If people believe something is bad, they will rally and oppose it.
There are 12 different products we could ship out of here with refined oil, and it could be done safely. That’s a different process.
My last point is this. We are growing trade disputes. The big argument is that we’re dependent on Saudi oil. If we start refining in Canada, if we have any issues long-term in the 21st century, then we can resupply for domestic use our own product so that we’re not being held hostage by other countries. There’s another way to start looking at this problem. It sounds to me that the Senators here have already made up their minds. What are you even consulting us for? I’m not against economic development. In fact, I have to do it to get this town off the ground. You can’t make us look like somehow we’re against all of Canada just because we’re saying there is a problem with the process, here. You guys are in control of that, and it’s going to be on you if you don’t follow through with this.
The Chair: Mr. Brain, all we’re saying is that you don’t even produce enough gas in your own province to supply yourselves, so don’t lecture Alberta and Saskatchewan about not refining their product. You have a problem even at the airport in Vancouver, or on Vancouver Island. They aren’t sure they can get a sure supply of fuel for the airplanes because of the lack of refining capacity in this province. Maybe it’s all of us working together that may solve this problem, and not having this argument about what we should do or not do.
Mr. Cullen: With all due respect, I don’t think anyone here is attempting to lecture Alberta on anything.
The Chair: Well, they certainly are lecturing Saskatchewan.
Mr. Cullen: To my friend from Alberta, I’ll bring you back at the fishing season and we can go visit all the Alberta licence plates that are parked down at the wharf, and we can speak to Albertans. I would suggest that rather than obsessing over this idea of who is the victim in this conversation, we attempt to find where the common ground is. Much as Albertans love to come out here and fish and recreate, and buy property — and I wonder why — well, it’s a beautiful place. It’s a sustaining place, which is exactly what our attempt here is to do, is to protect that sustainability. In that common ground as Canadians, we can find better solutions than simply saying, “Let the bastards freeze in the dark.” Which one of your prospective premiers has been saying nonstop, which I think perhaps is one of the most ignorant and unconstitutional things I’ve heard in that election, and that’s saying something.
Mr. Brain: Mr. Chair, one last comment here. You’re talking about our ability —
The Chair: Well, the other prospective premier is —
Mr. Brain: Well, hold on. Here’s the problem. The Chair: What’s the problem? Mr. Brain: We actually have the largest industrial project in Canada, LNG Canada, that made a FID. It has been approved. It is all B.C. gas, B.C. processed, B.C. only. So obviously we are doing something and getting our products out to market, and doing something.
The Chair: Thank you for that.
Mr. Brain: There’s a process that Alberta can go into that can also innovate and make it be a part of it, too, but it’s not the way it is now. You can’t blame us for that, okay?
The Chair: Thank you for that.
In addition to his thoughts on the oil tanker ban, further on in that April 17th session, Mr. Brain also explored some of his past experience related to LNG negotiations, a topic that should be of some interest to local residents considering how the industry for the moment abandoned any plans for Prince Rupert, with Kitimat now seemingly the focus for the industry at the moment.
It really comes down to weighing the risk versus the reward. We can have a short-term reward versus a long-term risk. If that pipeline — which is at the moment imaginary, not anything — were to go through in Port Simpson, for example, and they were to have revenue sharing, and let’s just say Lax Kw’alaams gets $20 million a year from the pipeline to help develop their membership.
There’s no doubt about it, there is a benefit to that. I can tell you right now, Prince Rupert is going to be the service centre for that, but will get no resources, no support from the feds or the province, with all due respect, because that’s what we went through with Pacific Northwest LNG.
Pacific Northwest LNG, which was a $36-billion project just outside Prince Rupert’s boundary, refused to give us an agreement at the city level. They said, “We’re not in your boundary; why should we owe you anything?” I spent four years negotiating as hard as I could to try to get any sort of benefit, which was, actually, going to pay me less than what I’m doing on Watson Island right now.
Maybe one band, or two, are economically prosperous from one pipeline, but the region as a whole isn’t going to benefit from that, unless there is some sort of revenue sharing all down the entire line. What it really comes down to is that, there are other opportunities for that type of arrangement happening in Prince Rupert already whether it’s propane, butane, and potentially methanol. Other LNG opportunities. Other products are safer. They’re not the best, but they are safer, and those opportunities are coming and going already. The ban doesn’t impact that.
My message is whether or not it’s worth the risk to have that 30-year agreement with a couple of bands for something that could impact this area for the rest of our lifetime, because one issue like the Exxon Valdez and this area is done. I can’t run a town when there’s oil on the ground.
You can review the testimonies from all of the participants from the Prince Rupert sessions and those in Terrace from the links below:
Terrace April 17 PM
Terrace April 17 AM
Prince Rupert April 16 PM
Prince Rupert April 16 AM
As for the fate of the Liberals' Oil Tanker Ban Bill, the Senate will now make a decision over the course of the next few weeks, as to whether to accept the committee's report and what next steps should take place related to the fate of Bill C48.
Time however is running short for the prospect of passage of the legislation as it was delivered from the House of Commons, or whether it is further modified by the Senate.
The House of Commons will be suspending its duties for summer recess in the third week of June and with a federal election on the horizon (along with Mr. Cullen's departure from Federal politics), the prospect of a tanker ban may be lost, particularly if the Conservative party were to gain a majority in the House following the October vote.
In the days prior to the Northwest visit of the Senators back in April, we provided a bit of a history lesson on the path of the oil ban, tracing some of the past engagement towards the bill that helped to shape the debate and the final document.
For more items of note from the federal scene see our House of Commons Archive page here.
A wider overview on Federal politics is also available from our political blog D'Arcy McGee.
To return to the most recent blog posting of the day, click here.
The reaction to the Senate Committee decision also split down along political lines with MP Nathan Cullen expressing his concerns at the latest twist in the travels of Bill C48 through social media.
On the other side of the political spectrum Alberta Premier Jason Kenney was hailing the decision of the Senators as a victory for common sense.
The Alberta Premier followed that up on Thursday morning with a call to action for Albertans to contact the Alberta Senators to ensure that the Senate "Kills Bill C-48 for good"
The decision from the Committee members comes after what has been a fairly extensive period of review of the legislation by the upper body, including having hosted a number of discussions on the Bill, both in Ottawa and other communities including Prince Rupert.
At the Prince Rupert sessions held in April of this year at the Highliner Plaza Hotel, a number of local political officials participated including Mayor John Helin of Lax Kw'alaams, MLA Jennifer Rice, MP Nathan Cullen and Mayor Lee Brain.
Also in attendance were local union and environmental representatives including Joy Thorkelson, Des Nobels and Luanne Roth to name a few.
The Senate Transportation Committee website hosts the transcripts of those sessions for those looking to explore the commentary delivered on the proposed oil tanker ban by the local contributors.
From those archives, a quick read of the testimony from Mayor Lee Brain, who was part of the April 16th afternoon session, highlights some of his opposition towards the prospect of oil tankers operating along the West Coast.Most on the North Coast haven't had a chance to examine what it was that the Mayor contributed to the forum of April 16th.
So to help to complete that portion of the record, we'll explore some of Mr. Brain's testimony to the theme below:
From the testimony to the committee ...
Mr. Brain: The current economic model simply doesn’t support what is perceived to be these trickle-down effects of these benefits that really do not translate into the community itself. I’ve been in negotiating room now for the last five years with all major projects and have participated in six environmental assessments, and they do everything they can to ensure that the resources are not going to come into the community. Trust me on that.
That being said, one of the messages I want to have here today is just to be really frank with the panel. Regardless if you do or don’t pass this bill, the argument is that it’s not economical to refine oil products in Canada, but I can tell you that it’s not economical for a project to have widespread opposition. Look at Northern Gateway. It was a 10-year process, tens of millions of dollars that Enbridge invested into that, to have nothing but widespread opposition. They even had their environmental assessment approved, and it didn’t even move forward.
The next thing you’re going to do is have another project potentially come here, meet opposition, go through a 10-year process of not going through, and all for what?
The reality is that we need to start refining products in Canada. We need to invest in that at a government level now, if that’s the way the oil industry wants to go about it, so that you value add the industries and we create those jobs here. At the end of the day, having raw bitumen going through the coastline, nobody here can guarantee that there’s not going to be an accident, and it only takes one accident. Then what? You’re not going to be here to be accountable for that.
The other issue is that, on the marine side of things, once the terrestrial operations are completed, the accountability leaves those companies that have brought the pipeline here. Once it’s on the marine side, there’s no accountability. It’s on the shippers for that and they’re just going to say, “Oops, we had a spill.”
Those are some of the issues, and there’s just no way to guarantee that. Prince Rupert is doing well, now. We have propane facilities coming online. We have expansion of our container terminal. We have thousands of jobs that are going to be created here in the next 10 years, based on what we already have going now. There’s no reason to add another oil terminal on top of that.
The Mayor made for somewhat of a current of discussion through a portion of the afternoon session, though at times it appears that Mr. Brain's approach did seem to a few of the Senators to be a case of lecturing them on the issues, with this exchange from the testimony offering up a sense of how the Mayor's approach may have been viewed.
Mr. Brain: I’m just going to interject there, because I met with Marc Garneau directly over this issue. He was here. He met with Metlakatla. He met with Lax Kw’alaams. He met with all of the First Nations. There were 68 engagements over this bill. So to say that there was no engagement, I mean, people can say whatever they want. It’s recorded.
The Chair: I’m just saying, we haven’t heard at testimony that there was.
Mr. Brain: Well, let me tell you right now.
The Chair: But you’re going to tell me? That’s good.
Mr. Brain: I’ve met eyeball-to-eyeball with him, and I feel there was adequate consultation. I find, in this business, that when people aren’t getting what they want, they say they’re not consulted. That’s really the game.
I just want to say something here about this Alberta debate, as if somehow we are not wanting Alberta to be successful. That’s just not the case. The problem is, here, I inherited a bag of lemons for this town when I became mayor. I had an abandoned mill; I had chemicals all over that island that I had to clean up. I didn’t blame the province for abandoning this town. I didn’t blame the feds for making our problems the way they are. I pulled up our bootstraps, and I raised over $100 million in four years to get this town out of the hole.
The reason I did that is because sometimes you have to innovate and you have to look at a problem differently. Right now, we’re trying to do the same things that we did in the 20th century. Alberta is just going to have to innovate, and that means that Alberta and B.C. and Saskatchewan are going to have to team up with the feds to build refining capacity so that we can export refined products out of this port, potentially.
That is the only way, because, as my other message to you was, regardless of your beliefs, if you don’t pass this bill and there is an oil project, it will be massively opposed, and that’s going to be uneconomical. That is a fact.
It won’t matter what your belief is, because we’re in a day and age between science versus belief. You can data mine everyone; it doesn’t matter how much data you present. If people believe something is bad, they will rally and oppose it.
There are 12 different products we could ship out of here with refined oil, and it could be done safely. That’s a different process.
My last point is this. We are growing trade disputes. The big argument is that we’re dependent on Saudi oil. If we start refining in Canada, if we have any issues long-term in the 21st century, then we can resupply for domestic use our own product so that we’re not being held hostage by other countries. There’s another way to start looking at this problem. It sounds to me that the Senators here have already made up their minds. What are you even consulting us for? I’m not against economic development. In fact, I have to do it to get this town off the ground. You can’t make us look like somehow we’re against all of Canada just because we’re saying there is a problem with the process, here. You guys are in control of that, and it’s going to be on you if you don’t follow through with this.
The Chair: Mr. Brain, all we’re saying is that you don’t even produce enough gas in your own province to supply yourselves, so don’t lecture Alberta and Saskatchewan about not refining their product. You have a problem even at the airport in Vancouver, or on Vancouver Island. They aren’t sure they can get a sure supply of fuel for the airplanes because of the lack of refining capacity in this province. Maybe it’s all of us working together that may solve this problem, and not having this argument about what we should do or not do.
Mr. Cullen: With all due respect, I don’t think anyone here is attempting to lecture Alberta on anything.
The Chair: Well, they certainly are lecturing Saskatchewan.
Mr. Cullen: To my friend from Alberta, I’ll bring you back at the fishing season and we can go visit all the Alberta licence plates that are parked down at the wharf, and we can speak to Albertans. I would suggest that rather than obsessing over this idea of who is the victim in this conversation, we attempt to find where the common ground is. Much as Albertans love to come out here and fish and recreate, and buy property — and I wonder why — well, it’s a beautiful place. It’s a sustaining place, which is exactly what our attempt here is to do, is to protect that sustainability. In that common ground as Canadians, we can find better solutions than simply saying, “Let the bastards freeze in the dark.” Which one of your prospective premiers has been saying nonstop, which I think perhaps is one of the most ignorant and unconstitutional things I’ve heard in that election, and that’s saying something.
Mr. Brain: Mr. Chair, one last comment here. You’re talking about our ability —
The Chair: Well, the other prospective premier is —
Mr. Brain: Well, hold on. Here’s the problem. The Chair: What’s the problem? Mr. Brain: We actually have the largest industrial project in Canada, LNG Canada, that made a FID. It has been approved. It is all B.C. gas, B.C. processed, B.C. only. So obviously we are doing something and getting our products out to market, and doing something.
The Chair: Thank you for that.
Mr. Brain: There’s a process that Alberta can go into that can also innovate and make it be a part of it, too, but it’s not the way it is now. You can’t blame us for that, okay?
The Chair: Thank you for that.
In addition to his thoughts on the oil tanker ban, further on in that April 17th session, Mr. Brain also explored some of his past experience related to LNG negotiations, a topic that should be of some interest to local residents considering how the industry for the moment abandoned any plans for Prince Rupert, with Kitimat now seemingly the focus for the industry at the moment.
It really comes down to weighing the risk versus the reward. We can have a short-term reward versus a long-term risk. If that pipeline — which is at the moment imaginary, not anything — were to go through in Port Simpson, for example, and they were to have revenue sharing, and let’s just say Lax Kw’alaams gets $20 million a year from the pipeline to help develop their membership.
There’s no doubt about it, there is a benefit to that. I can tell you right now, Prince Rupert is going to be the service centre for that, but will get no resources, no support from the feds or the province, with all due respect, because that’s what we went through with Pacific Northwest LNG.
Pacific Northwest LNG, which was a $36-billion project just outside Prince Rupert’s boundary, refused to give us an agreement at the city level. They said, “We’re not in your boundary; why should we owe you anything?” I spent four years negotiating as hard as I could to try to get any sort of benefit, which was, actually, going to pay me less than what I’m doing on Watson Island right now.
Maybe one band, or two, are economically prosperous from one pipeline, but the region as a whole isn’t going to benefit from that, unless there is some sort of revenue sharing all down the entire line. What it really comes down to is that, there are other opportunities for that type of arrangement happening in Prince Rupert already whether it’s propane, butane, and potentially methanol. Other LNG opportunities. Other products are safer. They’re not the best, but they are safer, and those opportunities are coming and going already. The ban doesn’t impact that.
My message is whether or not it’s worth the risk to have that 30-year agreement with a couple of bands for something that could impact this area for the rest of our lifetime, because one issue like the Exxon Valdez and this area is done. I can’t run a town when there’s oil on the ground.
You can review the testimonies from all of the participants from the Prince Rupert sessions and those in Terrace from the links below:
Terrace April 17 PM
Terrace April 17 AM
Prince Rupert April 16 PM
Prince Rupert April 16 AM
As for the fate of the Liberals' Oil Tanker Ban Bill, the Senate will now make a decision over the course of the next few weeks, as to whether to accept the committee's report and what next steps should take place related to the fate of Bill C48.
Time however is running short for the prospect of passage of the legislation as it was delivered from the House of Commons, or whether it is further modified by the Senate.
The House of Commons will be suspending its duties for summer recess in the third week of June and with a federal election on the horizon (along with Mr. Cullen's departure from Federal politics), the prospect of a tanker ban may be lost, particularly if the Conservative party were to gain a majority in the House following the October vote.
In the days prior to the Northwest visit of the Senators back in April, we provided a bit of a history lesson on the path of the oil ban, tracing some of the past engagement towards the bill that helped to shape the debate and the final document.
For more items of note from the federal scene see our House of Commons Archive page here.
A wider overview on Federal politics is also available from our political blog D'Arcy McGee.
To return to the most recent blog posting of the day, click here.
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