WATCH ABOVE: Conservatives not considering unilateral regulation of oil and gas industry
OTTAWA – On Tuesday Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood in the House of Commons and said this:
“Under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy, it would be crazy economic policy to do unilateral penalties on that sector. We’re clearly not going to do it.”
“This government has been clear that we want to see oil and gas regulations on a continental basis, given the integrated nature of the industry,” he continued, “With the current conditions in the oil and gas sector, this government will not consider unilateral regulation of that sector.”
The most interesting thing about the outright rejection of regulations on the oil and gas sector is that the government didn’t try to hide it in an omnibus bill, or bury it in a late Friday document dump. On the contrary, it shouted it from the rooftops, loud and proud, and dared anyone to disagree.
READ MORE: Harper calls oil and gas regs ‘crazy economic policy’ in times of cheap oil
This tells you a few things.
First, this idea has been road tested. Focus groups of voters, no doubt, were given the scenario and gave their reactions.
It’s safe to say that enough of them, or at least enough who come from the conservative base, thought it was a great idea, because either: a) they believed it would be unfair to a suddenly struggling oil industry or b) because they never believed in regulation or climate change anyway.
Secondly, it suggests that the prime minister’s long standing commitment to regulating emissions was never more than an inch deep. His aversion to government interference in the marketplace, especially Alberta’s oil and gas industries, apparently is more longstanding.
There was a time though when the conservative government was a champion of the idea, in fact beating its chest about GHG regulations.
Here’s what then Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver had to say at an energy conference in Dallas back in March 2013:
“Canada is the largest supplier of heavy oil to the U.S., and soon to be one of the few with stringent oil and gas GHG [greenhouse gas] regulations. In contrast, other suppliers are doing little or nothing to manage GHG emissions.”
And there was this from both Joe Oliver and then Environment Minister Peter Kent in a joint press release from July 2013:
“…we are currently developing regulations for the oil and gas sector that will make Canada one of the few major oil exporters in the world to apply GHG reductions to its production.”
The quotes go on and on, year after year since 2006. It certainly seemed that the government was sincere, and for a time, it probably was.
The regulations after all, were part of a broad agreement with the United States that committed both countries to reduce GHG emissions by 17% of the levels we saw in 2005 and to get there by 2020. There was nothing unilateral about that. That 17% was vigorously negotiated between Ottawa and Washington.
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The problem since then is that Canada’s sector by sector approach didn’t bring us anywhere close. Environment Canada itself told the United Nations that very thing, and this week added that there has been virtually no progress in the past year towards that goal. Now with no regulations for oil and gas, the word “virtually” can be replaced by “absolutely.”
The prime minister is on another jag, though, and it’s all about price. The suggestion is that regulations were all well and good when the price of oil was high, but utterly crazy when the price is low. It’s an awkward bit of logic because it immediately begs the question, what is the price that makes regulation acceptable?
What may be reasonable to assume is that Stephen Harper is just being the authentic Stephen Harper. He’s not a fan of regulation, he’s not going to play nice with environmentalists who will never vote for him anyway, and he is a student of what works politically, no matter who’s offended.
And like it or not, what often works politically is authenticity. Even if that means that to some people, he looks like Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons.
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