Tag Archives: Trans Mountain Pipeline

The silent majority in support of energy is finally speaking up.

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For decades we have let the anti-progress, eco-extremists set the dialogue and the agenda on proposed energy projects. We were too busy working. We aren’t the type to spill into the streets. Their protests aren’t going anywhere right?

Well we were wrong.

The extremists are winning and all of Canada is paying the price as we lose billions in energy revenue and untold billions in general investment as we are seen as a nation that is a slave to minority protesters.

Finally people are getting up and not letting the extremists control the messaging.

Last month thousands of ordinary Calgarians came out on a cool day to show their support for the Trans Mountain pipeline.
The demonstration was productive and peaceful. Great speeches were given by activists and politicians and many in Canada took notice as they finally saw people taking interest and getting out to show their concern with the state of our energy industry.

This is quite a contrast from the increasingly violent and extreme anti-energy protests that we are seeing.

Polls are indicating that Canadian support for the Trans Mountain pipeline is actually increasing in light of the ongoing protests against it.

Normal Canadians are tiring of the extremists and nutcases dominating discussion on important energy infrastructure projects.

That said, politicians still live in abject terror of the tiny minority of crazed protesters who set up grimy camps and illegally chain themselves to equipment. The influence of these extremists is disturbing to say the least.

We need to beat them at their own game and we are beginning to do so.

Today a protest was being planned by the usual suspects where they intended to make a racket outside of the downtown Calgary Marriot in hopes of disrupting an Enbridge shareholders meeting in the hotel.

The group Rally 4 Resources organized a counter demonstration with just two days notice and the result was excellent.

 

 

Well over 200 concerned citizens came out on a rainy Wednesday afternoon to support the Line 3 expansion.

An orderly demonstration of support was held while the dozen or so extremists found themselves lost in the background pounding their drums in futility.

Had people not come out in support of our energy industry, the little handful of anti-progress demonstrators would have had full control of the messaging and headlines today. Instead they failed and were exposed as being the tiny minority that they are as they were dwarfed by the positive demonstration of energy supporters.

This is what we need to keep doing. I know that we have things that we would rather do. I know that we need to earn a living as opposed to taking grants from American interests as the anti-pipeline lobby does. Despite that, we need to keep coming out.

We need to blunt the disruptive tool of demonstrations that the anti-progress lobby uses. The best way to do that will be to keep coming out to show just how tiny their support levels really are despite all the noise they make.

I don’t know the folks at Rally 4 Resources personally but I do want to thank them for putting this together. They did a great job.

The only thing that was lacking was a large media presence.

The well funded anti-energy types are very skilled in media communications and they play it well. We need to work on that front as well in future gatherings. People need to hear from the majority for a change and that means working to get that message to the media.

I look forward to the next rally.

Are we in a confederation or not?

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con·fed·er·a·tion:

noun

  1. an organization that consists of a number of parties or groups united in an alliance or league.

Canada is referred to as a confederation. As regions and provinces, we agreed to and came together under a common constitution under the understanding that membership in this confederation was to be of benefit to all of us as a whole.

One of the most important aspects of our confederation is the ability to move our people and goods unfettered from coast to coast. If we allow municipal or provincial jurisdictions to hinder the movement of goods and people, we will then become a loose collection of nation states. What benefit is there for a province to remain in confederation if inter-provincial barriers are as onerous or worse than international ones?

Our founding fathers knew this. That is why they entrenched the authority to govern interprovincial trade within our constitution. It is pretty straightforward and doesn’t take a constitutional lawyer to translate and interpret things.

Section 91 of the constitution lays out what lands under federal authority and part two of that section reads:

2.
The Regulation of Trade and Commerce

I quoted it to show just how clear this constitutional authority is. There is utterly no question that the regulation trade and commerce is under federal authority. No ambiguity.

Next is section 121 of the constitution which is also very clear:

121. All Articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into each of the other Provinces

The constitution makes it clear that the federal government has both the authority and the obligation to ensure the free trade and movement of goods between the provinces.

In looking at recent and current issues with inter-provincial pipeline projects, it is clear that perhaps Trudeau understands that he has the authority to ensure the free trade of goods but he apparently doesn’t understand the obligation to enforce that authority when required.

The National Energy Board is a federal creation. While we would not want to see constant federal intervention in NEB activities, the NEB gets its mandate from and ultimately answers to the feds. In caving to activists supported by provincial and municipal politicians, the NEB has essentially neutered itself as an authority on pipeline approvals. In tossing out an entire committee due to what really were some weak activist complaints and in entrenching the absurd requirement to take upstream & downstream emissions into account with pipeline approvals, the NEB killed the Energy East line through unreasonable regulation. This will have a chilling effect on future and current pipeline applications unless we see something drastically change. The Transmountain pipeline has been delayed yet again and it is looking very likely that it will be killed by the application process soon. This is where the federal government needs to take control and assert their authority.

The inaction from Ottawa on these pipelines is purely political. Trudeau is terrified of antagonizing Quebec politicians such as Denis Coderre and Philippe Couillard for fear of losing seats in la belle province. The same can be said in BC where the mayors of Burnaby, Vancouver and the Premier of the province are all lined up in opposition to the Transmountain expansion. None of these municipal or provincial politicians have any authority to hinder these projects but unless Trudeau begins to exercise his federal authority in these affairs, local opposition will continue to delay or halt these essential Canadian projects.

We can rest assured that provincial politicians in favor of pipelines will become more bold as frustration with Trudeau’s impotence on the issue grows. We can look forward to trade wars as Premiers use regulation to punish neighboring provinces for hindering development. While turning off the oil taps to Vancouver for a week could be effective in gaining support for infrastructure expansion, the support would be grudging and consumers as always would ultimately pay the price. Nobody would come out happy from such a trade war.

If provinces are forced to go toe to toe all the time on trade issues such as this, it is inevitable that people will start asking themselves what the point is in being within a confederation? As the price of consumer goods rise and unemployment skyrockets due to cancelled projects, those voices will gain strength.

Nostalgia and emotion will only carry a person so far if they can’t get food on the tables. People need to see a real, tangible benefit in being within confederation and the free trade of goods provides that. That benefit is quickly vanishing due callow inaction from our federal government and the long term costs to our entire nation could be exceedingly high.

As long as our constitution is not being enforced, we are only a confederation in name only. If inaction continues, perhaps real movements will begin move provinces out from even that nominal presence within confederation. Lets hope it doesn’t come to that.

OMG! OMG! We’re surrounded!!!

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The hyped hysteria from the anti-progress crowd who oppose the Gateway Pipeline project has been hitting a fever pitch as hyperbole and utter fabrications are being spread about pipelines.

One would think that this was the first major oil pipeline ever built. I do understand however that your average person really has little to do with oilfield and pipelines and that is understandable. It does make people impressionable however and it is time for a reality check.

To begin with, there are over 825,000 km of existing oil and gas pipelines in Canada.

More excellent information on Canada’s pipelines and their safety record can be found here.

 

canada

If we want to go further into buried utilities and add small natural gas service lines, water lines, sewage lines and such the number goes into the millions of kilometers. They are around us all the time everywhere you go even if you do not notice it.

Have you ever noticed that pretty much every city seems to have long narrow parkways that are often used for bikepaths, dog parks and golf courses? Ever wonder why such oddly shaped parks were designed? Well, more often than not those parks are actually right-of-ways for large pipelines. While it is indeed perfectly safe to have a large high pressure pipeline go through a city, we can’t build houses and such right on top of them so the land is often used for parks. Have we heard of any massive blowouts? Cities destroyed by leaking oil?

With the millions of kilometers of pipelines throughout North America it is pretty easy to cherry pick some incidents of leakage to try and paint all pipelines as being unsafe. For the few kilometers of pipeline that spring leaks every year, one should keep in mind the millions of kilometers of pipeline that do not. That is not to say that it is acceptable to have pipelines leaking but the scope and scale of things has to be kept in mind. We are very good at moving products through pipes and we are getting better all the time. Companies are heavily fined for pipeline breaches and they lose product. Rest assured companies that own buried utilities have utterly no incentive to have them leaking.

Next I am going to point out something utterly shocking.

 We have had a crude oil pipeline running from Alberta to the West coast for almost 60 years!!!!

2_0203_rb_transmountain

The Trans Mountain Pipeline has traversed the Rocky Mountains since shortly after World War II and the world has not come to an end. Well over 200,000 barrels per day of crude has been flowing through some very sensitive regions of the mountains without an environmental catastrophe and that pipeline is old. Newer ones are much safer. Demand is far outstripping the capacity of that pipeline today.

How has this large pipeline snuck under the radar for so many for so long?

Well to begin with, it’s buried. I am being serious here. Many people are under the misimpression that these pipelines are above ground. That myth has been happily fed by people in opposition to development as surface pipes paint an ugly and intrusive picture. Again, with most people not spending time in the oilfield, their impressions are formed on the pictures that media put out.

Below is a picture that accompanied an article about the Keystone Pipeline in FFWD magazine a little while ago.

pipeline_t_w498

Isn’t that perfect? A nice pristine mountain background broken by an unsightly and intrusive surface pipeline. Never mind that the picture has utterly no relation to either the Keystone or Gateway pipelines which will be buried. It gives nice negative optics to be reinforced. May as well use pictures of sewage pipes spewing into oceans. It is just as relevant.

In my job I have to occasionally pop out to locate buried utilities. As can be seen in the picture below not only am I cold and wearing a safety vest that is ill fitting, I am holding an electronic locating wand. That is because pipelines buried in isolated areas are actually quite difficult to find so I have to begin at the wellhead as I did below and locate the pipe from there.

 

Photo0121

Below are the stakes I placed to indicate the location of the line. As can be seen, one would never even know it is there had I not marked it. That is the case with most pipelines and is much of the reason that so many people do not realize just how much pipeline infrastructure they are surrounded by every day. The dead trees are due to a forest fire a few years ago by the way. It had no impact on the pipe and as can be seen the natural regrowth is coming along very well. Some anti-progress types like to wrongly imply that a forest that has been cut or burned is gone forever. Trees grow back.

Photo0122

 

Modern pipelines are buried following very strict quality and environmental standards. Riparian buffers are observed. Bores are used to bypass water bodies without threatening the water itself. Sensitive areas are avoided and construction is timed to avoid migratory wildlife.

Pipelines are a reality of life and they have been moving oil and gas in North America since the turn of the century. They are nothing new and they really do not cause much harm despite the hysteria of opponents of development.

The need and demand for energy is a fact of life as well. The oilsands are not going away and they are not going to be shut down. The product from the oilsands will be transported to market one way or another. Pipelines are by far the safest means of carrying that product.

If we do not use pipelines, product will continue to be moved with tanker trucks or trains as pictured below.

 

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Basic

 

There are real concerns and issues that need to be heard regarding the Northern Gateway pipeline. Unfortunately those legitimate concerns are being drowned out by groups who are determined to derail all forms of progress with any means possible. These people will not stick to facts in their crusade against energy and they are harming an important process.

Lets face the reality that we will be moving oil products through pipelines and try to stick to a realistic goal of trying to move product  as safely as possible. That means we need to stick to the facts.