The horse-trading over oil pipelines appears to be moving to a different level with British Columbia Premier Christy Clark searching for a $1 billion federal handout to upgrade B.C. Hydro lines therefore it can bolster electricity exports to Alberta.
Kevin Libin: B.C. has little ammo to take shots at Alberta
The throne speech excoriated Alberta for losing control of spending and thinking the great times would last forever, but B.C.’s Liberals shouldn’t talk. Net debt has ballooned under Clark as well as their LNG hopes have to date been stymied. Continue reading.
The pitch occurs the heels of the $1 billion federal bailout of Bombardier Inc. sought through the other top pipeline-bashing province, Quebec.
After squandering whatever goodwill she had together with her next-door neighbour, Clark’s power line proposal is getting the Alberta brush-off it deserves.
Alberta energy minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd made it clear Friday Alberta will not be buying power from B.C. whether it can’t get its oil to the coast.
“We’ll do what’s best for Albertans and Alberta’s economy,” McCuaig-Boyd said in an emailed statement. “We will not be buying more power if we can’t get our resources to promote.”
Clark continues to be peddling the idea for some time and repeated it at federal provincial meetings in Vancouver this week to craft a national plan to reduce greenhouse gases.
“Alberta has promised to get off coal, finally,” Clark said recently, referring to the climate change policy implemented by Rachel Notley’s NDP government which includes the early phase out of coal-fired electricity. “We can help them with energy so they can find a way to shut those coal plants.”
“For us it’s great,” Clark added. “That’s profit for BC Hydro, meaning it’s great for ratepayers. It’s also ideal for Canada because it means we are supplying Alberta with our clean energy so they can get off their coal habit.”
It’s a marvel Clark doesn’t understand why her scheme won’t fly – regardless of how advantageous it may be for that environment or her political ambitions ahead of next year’s provincial election.
For one thing, Alberta has abundant clean power causes of its very own C wind power, solar and economical natural gas. They’re largely produced in a deregulated market by private operators.
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Under Clark, relations forwards and backwards provinces are so strained Albertans are not within the mood to aid her latest pet project, which will come after her massive effort to start a liquefied gas industry remains in limbo.
Clark’s Liberal government has utilized every opportunity to poison the well, whether with Alberta’s former Tories or today’s NDP. It has opposed both Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline and Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion projects, while starting the popularity of installing conditions to alter its position, including getting its share of benefits.
Her government has mocked Alberta within the depth from the harshest oil price collapse in a generation, mentioning in its throne speech recently that “Alberta lost its focus – They expected their resource boom not to end, failed to diversify their economy and lost charge of government spending.”
Clark’s government is even blaming Albertans for driving up home values by moving to B.C., or worsening B.C.’s homeless population.
The most significant turnoff is the fact that Clark hasn’t indicated that spending $1 billion of federal taxpayer dollars so the provincially owned BC Hydro can upgrade the grid forwards and backwards provinces makes economic sense.
B.C. finds itself with plenty of power readily available for export from the Site C dam, a $9-billion hydroelectric project within the province’s northeast. Like pipelines, it’s controversial and it is opposed by many aboriginal communities.
There is already a line forwards and backwards provinces and it is underutilized, said Scott Thon, president and CEO of AltaLink LP, Alberta’s largest electricity transmission provider and the line’s owner.
“We should fix what we should already have first before we believe more broadly,” he explained.
In addition, Thon, who’s also the chairman from the Canadian Electricity Association, said Clark’s proposal doesn’t explain the advantages of her scheme to Alberta consumers.
“We got the horse prior to the cart, and just what we want first would be to define the advantage, therefore we can talk about what we have to capture the advantages, versus saying, let’s go and make something, after which hope you will find benefits,” he said.
Under normal circumstances, it might have made sense for Alberta to import more clean power, from B.C. and elsewhere, to lessen its reliance on high carbon sources.
But pipeline politics got in the way, and it’s finally cutting for both.
Financial Post
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