BURST
VICTORIA — Premier David Eby responded with a sneer to the news this week that Ottawa was in discussions with Alberta and Saskatchewan about an oil pipeline to the northwest coast of B.C.
“I almost fell out of my seat,” Eby told the CBC’s David Cochrane Thursday. “I feel like I’m watching a couple of tourists wearing sandals wander into the woods on the North Shore of Vancouver saying, ‘don’t worry about us, we know where we’re going.’
“They’re going to have to be rescued by a helicopter, and guess who has to send the helicopter?”
B.C. should obviously have been included in the pipeline conversation, Eby argued.
“I think we can bring some information to the table.”
Time was when B.C. might have made a constructive contribution.
As recently as June, the premier went on national TV to assure the country that he had an open mind about a new heavy oil pipeline to B.C. from Alberta.
“Sometimes I feel like the media is gathering round and chanting fight, fight, fight between us and Alberta,” he told CTV’s Vassy Kapelos. “There’s no fight here now.”
“It is a simplification and not quite right to say I’ve said ‘no’,” he told the CBC’s Rosemary Barton, before expressing support for a Western energy corridor, which “could potentially include a heavy oil pipeline project.”
The B.C. premier has since dismissed the project. Just last week he denounced it “as a figment in the mind of a communications person in Alberta.”
This week he made a prediction: “As each day passes and we’re told that it is just around the corner, it will become increasingly apparent to absolutely everybody that there is no pipeline project to speak of.”
That was Tuesday.
Next day the Globe and Mail headlined “Ottawa, Alberta close to deal that includes oil pipeline to B.C. coast.”
Is it any wonder that the parties concluded Eby would have nothing positive to contribute to the discussions?
Eby mocked the pipeline project in the CBC interview as being “advanced by a politician who frankly is in trouble at home.” Alberta’s Danielle Smith, presumably.
He knows a thing or two about such rescue efforts. B.C. NDP insiders say it needed several moves before the recent party convention to elevate Eby’s prospects in the leadership vote from a feared 70 per cent to the 83 per cent outcome.
One of those moves was a multi-billion-dollar sweetener to the government’s public sector wage offer. Another was an accord with coastal First Nations calling on the federal government to continue the oil tanker moratorium on B.C.’s northern coast.
Eby bristled at this week’s speculation that Ottawa could exempt some tanker traffic from the moratorium.
“It’s like explaining to a vegetarian that they’ll still be a vegetarian if they eat a few steaks,” the premier, who is a vegetarian, told the CBC audience.
Yet, in the same interview, he argued that Alberta should instead support upgrading the carrying capacity of the existing TMX oil pipeline and dredging Burrard Inlet to accommodate larger tankers.
Wouldn’t a greater capacity make for more tanker traffic? Wouldn’t bigger tankers risk bigger spills?
To borrow from the premier’s simile, wouldn’t that be like telling a vegetarian that they would still be a vegetarian if they only eat steaks on Burrard Inlet but not on the north coast.
Eby repeated his prediction that the Alberta-to-B.C. oil pipeline will be entirely dependent on “the federal government putting up the $50 billion to build a publicly owned pipeline.”
This week, the premier mustered his one-seat legislative majority to pass the enabling legislation for the $6 billion North Coast hydro transmission line, which will also be financed with public money.
Eby insists “it is close to certainty as possible” that the line will ensure $50 billion worth of mines.
But none of those companies is funding the transmission line.
Instead, this is a case of “British Columbians stepping up to do big things and to build in advance of demand.”
If he builds it, they will come. Welcome taxpayers, to David Eby’s field of dreams.
While Eby sees Alberta with its hand out for federal financing, he insists B.C. wants nothing more than for Ottawa to stay out of the way.
“We’re not even really asking for help, we’re just asking, please stay out of the way so we can do this for Canadians,” he told the CBC host.
Eby told a different story when a reporter asked recently about the federal government’s promise of a mere $150 million loan for the power line.
“Your impatience with the federal government’s funding matches my own,” replied the premier.
“B.C. taxpayers cannot single-handedly fund the prosperity of the entire nation. We’re also federal taxpayers here, and we need to see some of that money coming back into BC. And so we’re going to be making very explicit asks for financial support for these projects.”
He says the “strongly worded” letters seeking financial support from the federal government will go out soon. I doubt Ottawa — or for that matter Alberta and Saskatchewan — will be at all surprised.