Canada’s western premiers meet in Yellowknife on Tuesday and Wednesday to talk about a number of issues including a proposal for a national pharmacare plan. It’s something that has been talked about for awhile now and most of the health-care organizations in the country are in favour of such a plan.
Given the growing number of senior Canadians, there is an urgency to develop a plan.
But it’s hard to believe that with Rachel Notley, Scott Moe and John Horgan all in the same room at the same time, the matter of a pipeline won’t come up.
Alberta’s Notley and Saskatchewan’s Moe are in favour of Trans Mountain. B.C.’s Horgan is opposed, at least in part because he leads a minority NDP government that is being propped up by the Green Party.
No amount of scientific evidence and not much attention to a two-year study of the idea by the National Energy Board is enough to convince Horgan that this pipeline can be built and operated safely.
Instead, it is being left to lawyers and judges to make the decisions necessary to either expedite the project or kill it, and they are taking the time they feel is needed to make a judgment.
All the while, the proponent, Kinder Morgan, and a collection of business and Indigenous leaders who see jobs and economic opportunities as a goal, are left to bite their nails and contain their impatience. So are potential foreign investors and buyers who wonder if Canada’s reputation for getting things done in a timely fashion is about to hit a pothole.
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“That’s the big concern I have,” Janet Riopel, CEO of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, told me. “The energy sector and, indeed, all parts of our economy require international investors and buyers to keep it going and to grow it.”
Angus Watt, who runs a wealth management practice in Edmonton and who chairs the Edmonton consul community, makes the same point.
“Here we are, trying to diversify our economy,” he told me. “We’re not going to be able to do that without investment help. But how can we ask for help when potential investors don’t know if we can deliver what we promise?”
Kinder Morgan has more than $1 billion invested in the project to this point. It has served notice that if there is no substantive agreement by May 31, it may consider terminating its plans. The federal government has offered to make an investment but doesn’t seem willing to follow through on its own approval of Trans Mountain and order construction to proceed.
WATCH: David Akin on Kinder Morgan’s deadline for Trans Mountain progress
Last week, the government of Alberta passed Bill 12, which allows the province to restrict the flow of crude oil to the west coast as a pressure tactic to get the B.C. government to stop delaying Trans Mountain. The B.C. government promptly announced plans to sue Alberta for its alleged infringement of interprovincial trade.
All this happened on a day when the Vancouver Board of Trade along with the chambers of commerce from Calgary and Edmonton were gathered in the Alberta capital, looking for common ground and calling for an end to the high pitched rhetoric coming out of various capitals.
It does not appear that there is a solution if the matter is left to the politicians. That leaves the future of Trans Mountain up to the courts. Unless, of course, someone comes up with a brilliant idea this week in Yellowknife. That’s the sort of prescription the Alberta economy, in particular, could really use.
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