SAINTS PRESERVE US

Leveraging Disease

Oh, Alberta! The emotional stage which follows anger and rage is incredulity, an uncomfortable numbness. “Now what!” An electric scream rendered as an unplugged sigh. “What now?” The unilateral actions of the inward-looking, nostalgia-whoring United Conservative Party (UCP) continue to confound progressive Albertans.

Take a moment to picture the lay of the land within Alberta’s immense boundaries: an alpine spine, rolling prairie, boreal forest, wetlands, desert…my province’s geographical features could comprise a concise yet comprehensive photo feature in a tourist guide aimed at visitors to Planet Earth. Given the climate up here, we’ve been accidentally blessed with vistas of almost everything. The land has been altered and scarred since before Alberta joined the Canadian confederation in 1905. This has always been the acceptable price of progress. But these days engaged citizens have gotten around to reading the fine print at the bottom of the sales slip: hidden costs and unintended consequences aren’t covered by warranty.

Alberta’s post-war economic rollercoaster has always been owned and operated by her energy industry. Some would say her government too, deep petro-state. The ride’s been hairy and right now it’s in a downward corkscrew spiral. The view is dizzying and distressing. Throw a dart at a map of Alberta. Chances are you’ll hit an orphaned gas or oil well. The province is prickled with the abandoned steel structures because busted companies aren’t required to maintain funds to clean up after themselves. Alberta’s Energy Ministry has received 37,000 grant applications to erase these eyesores, reclaim the sites. The available cash is federal pandemic largesse, taxpayer money.

Up north the lords of bitumen have fashioned a carbon-intensive Mordor. This is the one massively ugly fact concerning the tar sands that the Canadian Energy Centre (CEC), the UCP’s laughably inept propaganda arm, cannot spin. Last week, even the CEC hacks had their “What now?” moment.

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) is a provincial corporation rubber stamping government policy under the umbrella of the Energy Ministry. It’s variously described as an industry monitor or watchdog. The regulator has temporarily suspended most existing environmental constraints imposed upon the oil patch. Ethical endeavours such as measuring and reducing water and soil contamination levels and greenhouse gas emissions are impractical trifles in this covid-19 era. The tainted, poisoned fate of wildlife is just, well, the nature of things.

Canada’s economy needs Alberta’s energy industry to thrive. Alberta needs her energy industry to survive. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) agrees. So far, no debate. The strident discord surrounding the energy industry here is its future in light of the Paris Accord on climate change. Bitumen extraction is a primitive and expensive process when one considers return on investment, more nimble and ruthless competition, the low price of oil, and the freedom of distant customers to choose their suppliers. Relaxed regulations may goose some CAPP companies to saddle up and gallop backward into the good old days of the wild, wild west when rules and best practices did not apply. Oddly, Alberta’s First Nations aren’t overly excited by the prospect of the old ways returning to the new world order. The chiefs understand that after treaty laws get loosened they tend never to be retightened.

The UCP’s silver bullet for Alberta’s economic woes is the Trans Mountain project, the twinning of an existing pipeline to the Pacific coast along an existing right of way. The outcome of the last provincial election hinged on this magical tube to tidewater even though pipelines, like most national infrastructure, fall under federal jurisdiction. The long-approved though legally disputed private enterprise has since been nationalized and remains under the financial stewardship of the federal government and Canadian taxpayers. Trans Mountain is a toxic topic.

And so the last word must go to Sonya Savage, UCP’s energy minister. Ms Savage was quoted in this morning’s Edmonton Journal. Her remarks were made to an energy industry audience during a remote pandemic podcast to a loosely regulated choir: “Now is a great time to be building a pipeline because you can’t have protests of more than 15 people. Let’s get it built.”

What now? The UCP has applied to the federal government’s covid-19 wage subsidization program for financial assistance.

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative record of socially distant political commentary since 2013. Sign up for e-mail alerts from the Crooked 9.