It’s time for Alberta to play hardball, oilpatch execs say before Trudeau meeting today

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Alberta now to take stock of the devastation wrought through the collapse in oil prices.

Trudeau’s rebranding of Canada offers sunshine to Davos, but it’s cold comfort for battered oilpatch

Like it or otherwise, he will also get an earful within the spate of anti-energy moves produced by his government that can make a recovery harder.

Indeed, despite declaring in Calgary within the final days of his election campaign last October that “Alberta matters deeply to me,” his policy choices to date have shown the opposite.

They include: Formalizing a moratorium on oil tanker traffic on the northern B.C. coast that handcuffs the already-permitted Northern Gateway pipeline; additional regulatory requirements for that proposed TransMountain pipeline expansion and also the Energy East pipeline conversion that lengthen and duplicate already-unwieldy regulatory processes; reforms towards the National Energy Board that shake confidence in Canada’s capability to get anything built; and a climate change test on export pipelines that gives Ottawa new powers over Alberta’s energy resources.

We know Canada’s economic engine is limping, cheap he’s here is a clear indication he understands the us government can’t be in the sidelines.

Trudeau pushed with the changes to gain ‘social licence’ for pipelines after no progress is made under the Conservatives. The end result so far is that they have empowered opposition and fuelled anger and division, making solutions even more difficult to attain.

Still, there’s appreciation for that visit, which at the minimum shows good intentions so at the start of his mandate.

“It’s clear to me, based on everything I see within the public domain, the best Minister appreciates the degree of the problem,” said Asim Ghosh, president and CEO of integrated oil company Husky Energy Inc. “We know Canada’s economic engine is limping, cheap he’s this is a clear indication that he understands the us government can’t be in the sidelines.”

Trudeau may help by giving timely review of pipelines, suggested Ghosh, whose company is a large heavy oil and oilsands producer in Western Canada, and also by being conscious of Canada’s competitiveness when boosting environmental requirements.

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“We possess a situation where our biggest customer has now turned itself into our biggest competitor,” he explained, referring to the United States. “Last time I checked, their oil production was up 75 percent within the last six years. Now more than ever before we have to tap into Canadian resourcefulness to attract the investment which will revive activity and protect jobs within the natural resource sector.”

Meanwhile, Alberta within the humiliating position of having to ask Trudeau for federal aid.

Alberta has been doing “a lot of heavy lifting” for Canada for many years, and now it’s time for many payback from Ottawa, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said in front of meeting with Trudeau in Edmonton Wednesday. “Now it’s time when we need our authorities to come here and also to use us, to support us throughout the trying times that we’re facing.”

During the two-day visit, discussions between Trudeau and the Alberta government were likely to focus on pipelines, job creation, economic diversification and federal infrastructure investment.

Trudeau was because of make a stay in Calgary on Thursday. Earlier within the week, he said he would talk with community and business leaders to talk about methods to Alberta’s rising unemployment which there would be “concrete measures” in the upcoming federal budget to will help Alberta, and that the federal government has promised accelerated infrastructure spending to assist stimulate the economy.

What Albertans want is to be able to take care of themselves by growing exports of gas and oil, getting fair prices, with no amount of economic diversification help or federal handouts will replace that.

Frustration using the pipeline gridlock is widespread, and so is talk of retaliation and of greater Alberta independence.

Glen Schmidt, president and CEO of Laricina Energy Corp., one of Alberta’s junior oilsands companies, said it’s the perfect time for Alberta to play hardball.

For example, Alberta should oppose BC Hydro’s Site C Dam around the Peace River because of its potential effect on water levels in Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park, he suggested.

“If B.C. feels pipelines do not provide advantages to them, Alberta too should legitimately resist the lack of benefits from Dam C,” Schmidt said.

“Alberta can not be na?ve inside a realm of self-interest. Ontario sees pension reform as moving too slowly, it is going its very own way. B.C. re-writes the rules on inter-provincial pipelines. Alberta cannot concede to some national regulator if our interests aren’t respected, so we go our own way.”

It’s not idle talk, and Trudeau needs to deliver on his pipeline promises — or he’ll have a bigger problem than ‘social license’ in his hands.

ccattaneo@nationalpost.com

Twitter.com/cattaneooutwest