A showdown is brewing between the premiers of British Columbia and Alberta over the future of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline and its economic benefits.
The planned 1,200-kilometre pipeline would take oil from Alberta to the Pacific port of Kitimat, B.C.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark contends her province deserves a larger piece of the $5.5-billion project, especially since it is taking on the environmental risks of an oil spill.
It’s a request Alberta Premier Alison Redford rejects. She said Alberta won’t be sharing any royalties. Instead, B.C. will get the benefits of a construction-phase hiring boom and the spinoffs of a strong national economy.
Redford also argues that negotiating economic and commercial benefits for every project would change the principals of Confederation.
So which of the premiers have the upper hand in the feud, perhaps the tale of the tape can provide some insight.
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| Christy Clark | Alison Reford | |
| Title | Premier of British Columbia | Premier of Alberta |
| Year elected: | Clark has yet to officially be elected premier. She was sworn in on March 14, 2011 after becoming Liberal leader – a job left vacant when Gordon Campbell stepped down. She was later elected as an MLA during a May 2011 byelection. | Redford became premier after winning a leadership race in October 2011, and then won the Alberta general election in April. |
| Former profession: | Clark is no stranger to politics, serving as a Liberal MLA in B.C. from 1996 to 2005. During that time she also served four years as deputy premier. She left politics in 2005 and became a radio talk show host. | Redford’s professional resume runs long. She has been involved in provincial and federal politics since the 1980s, serving as a senior policy adviser to Joe Clark when he was secretary of state for external affairs, and later in the Prime Minister’s Office. She later worked as a technical adviser for constitutional and legal reform issues in Africa, helped administer Afghanistan’s first parliamentary elections and managed a judicial training and legal reform project for the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme People’s Court in Vietnam. |
| Her demands: | Clark laid out five conditions that need to be met before B.C. will support the project, the most contentious of which is a “fair share” of money. Clark won’t say how much she wants, but a report commissioned by her government suggests B.C. would receive $6.7 billion of the $81 billion tax revenue expected to flow from the project. Ottawa would get $36 billion and Alberta would earn $32 billion. None of those figures include the resource royalties to be collected by Alberta. The other conditions include environmental assessment approvals, extensive emergency response plans, and consideration of First Nations concerns and treaty rights. | At first, Redford wasn’t hearing any of what Clark has to say about this pipeline, going so far as to say that B.C.’s demands would “fundamentally change Confederation.” She has since softened her stance, saying “It would be wrong for anyone to characterize that we’re not going to talk, but at this point in time, this isn’t the week for it.” |
| Electoral considerations: | Clark faces a May 2013 election date under increasing pressure from the NDP. New Democrat leader Adrian Dix outright opposes the Northern Gateway, and public opinion in the province is far from sold on the pipeline. Clark faces the task of striking a balance between the Conservatives who are in favour of the project and New Democrats who are opposed, in order to diffuse the pipeline as an election issue. | Redford is only months into a majority government. During her 2011 leadership campaign, she pledged to implement fixed election dates, sending Albertans to the polls between March 1 and May 31 every four years. By that standard, Redford is safe until 2016. |
| Arsenal of weapons: | The provincial government could bog the project down in red tape by delaying permits and denying it electricity. | The B.C. premier has threatened that the project won’t go ahead without her approval — but if that happens, some have argued that even B.C. would lose out on any windfall. |
| Fighting words: | “If Alberta doesn’t sit down and talk about it, the project can’t go ahead. It’s as simple as that.” | “We’ll continue to protect the jurisdiction that we have over our energy resources.” |
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