MORGAN: Pipeline construction must be an election plank

https://www.westernstandard.news/opinion/morgan-pipeline-construction-must-be-an-election-plank/62771

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Cory Morgan

'If the nation can’t even build a pipeline to a coast, it deserves to be pushed around.'

The proposed $12 billion energy East pipeline was cancelled in 2016 after the election of the Trudeau Liberals.

Canada has a crisis in the immediate term with Trump’s ridiculous tariffs. How this mess will be resolved remains to be seen. It certainly doesn’t help that Canada’s parliament is prorogued while the prime minister is a lame duck.

If nothing else, Canadians have suddenly discovered just how vulnerable they have let themselves become due to strangling the ability to export oil and gas products for decades. Canada has abundant resources, but the ones the USA values the most are the petroleum products. If the nation were ever to dream of putting serious pressure on the USA in a trade war, it would have been through reducing exports of oil and gas to the USA. As it stands now, the USA purchases well over 97% of Canada’s oil and gas exports. They have a buyer’s monopoly and it allows Trump to shake Canada like a dog with a rag doll.

Pipelines and export infrastructure take time to construct. In fact, they take an impossibly long time to construct in Canada. That’s why investors fled and the federal government found itself purchasing the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. Now the entire nation is paying a terrible price for the short-sighted policies of an anti-energy government.

We have an opportunity to fast-track pipeline and export terminal construction in a way like we have never seen before. That opportunity is the upcoming federal election.

In a democratic nation, nothing provides a more solid mandate than receiving the stamp of approval from voters in a general election. It’s the one time when every Canadian has the opportunity to express themselves on issues and who they want to be governed by.

Quebec has been the main hindrance to getting energy infrastructure constructed to the East coast. They use the nonsense term of “social license” and claim Canada doesn’t have this imaginary license to build a pipeline.

What better way is there to garner this supposed license than in a general election?

Pipeline capacity expansion has the highest public support it likely has ever seen in Canada right now. No major party would lose a significant degree of support by campaigning on getting pipelines built across the nation right now.

Leftists despise Trump and Putin more than they dislike pipelines. If Canada gets pipeline access to the East Coast, Canada will no longer need to purchase $200 million per year in Russian oil as it has and it could snipe European oil and gas customers from Putin. With increased access to the West coast, Canada could send its oil and gas products to energy hungry South Asian markets and reduce or eliminate the discount American buyers currently enjoy on Canadian products. What leftist could resist the temptation to offer an economic middle finger to both Trump and Putin at the same time?

Aside from the spite aspect, increasing Canada’s ability to export energy products just makes good economic sense. Every business does better when it has a broader customer market.

The only factor making pipeline construction economically unviable to both coasts is the government. Regulations and delays kill investment in its tracks and it costs a fortune. That is a very easy problem for a government to solve if it can find the will, however.

We don’t need more studies or consultations for pipelines. It has all been done to death repeatedly for both the Northern Gateway line and the Energy East proposal. Nothing has changed. The mountains are in the same place, the pipelines need the same routes, and the chronic opponents will continue to chronically oppose them. No further studies, licences or consultations will change that. The government must declare these lines in the national interest, approve them, and clear the way.

We don’t need the government to build the lines. We have seen how well that went with the Trans Mountain expansion. Private industry would be willing but they need rock-solid guarantees.

A right of way must be charted across the country and naysayers must be shut down.

The first Trans Mountain line went across some of the roughest terrain in North America and was done in 18 months with 1950s technology. We can build pipelines quickly if we get the governments at all levels out of the damn way.

Trump is going to be in office for the better part of four years. If he sees earth moving on new Canadian pipelines to the East and West by the end of his first year, he will take notice.

Every major party must put the immediate construction of pipelines within their platforms. The biggest consultation of them all is the election and with that under their belt, whoever wins will have all the “social license” they need to get it done.There will never be a better time than this year.To dally is to let the activists and bureaucrats slither into the project and it will never get done.

If that happens, Canada may as well get used to being the kid getting sand kicked in its face at the beach. If the nation can’t even build a pipeline to a coast, it deserves to be pushed around.