Premier Brad Wall discussed football, agriculture and carbon capture technology with three U.S. senators during their visit to Saskatoon on Saturday, but the legislators invariably had Canadian oil on the mind.
"All of us are involved in energy independence initiatives," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. "I think most Americans are very frustrated that our country is buying more Mideast oil after 9/11 than we were before, and I’ve been hearing about the oilsands for the past few years."
Graham, accompanied by Saxby Chambliss, a Republican senator from Georgia, and North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, toured Alberta’s oilsands projects last week before coming to Saskatchewan.
Reports of the oilsands being a dirty, environmentally devastating operation are unfounded, says Graham.
"The California oil we extract has more carbon than the oilsands…But you can’t just look at it that way. Dirty oil to me has a lot to do with regimes. We’re able to buy oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan and all of us feel good about that. If we buy oil from our Canadian friends we know the money’s not going to terrorism. It’s a safe, secure supply of oil."
Wall pointed out that Saskatchewan sells more oil to the U.S. than Kuwait.
"We need to tell that story in America," he said.
Most Americans are not aware of how much Canadian oil the U.S. buys, says Hagan. "The fact that Canada is providing the U.S. 17 per cent of our oil I think is critical, and I don’t think a lot of Americans really understand and know that. Canada is our friend, and we all know that most of the people in the Middle East are not our friends, they are our enemies and we need to be buying more oil from Canada."
Chambliss called it a "national security imperative to buy as much oil from Canada as possible."
Wall encouraged the U.S. to invest in Saskatchewan’s clean coal and carbon capture and storage technologies.
"We are leaders in carbon capture and sequestration. We would like to see a partnership with the department of energy," he said. "They actually put money into that Weyburn project years ago, and who knows what’s possible in the future in terms of investments…There’s not an X amount of dollars we’re asking for today by any means, but we’re saying we want to further this partnership on energy and environment."
Graham expressed interest in carbon capture as a means of reviving old oil wells and as a way to reduce the footprint of his state’s coal plants.
About 50 per cent of the power in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia comes from coal, "so anything you can do to help us make coal cleaner is good for our environment and good for the coal industry," he said.
"The breakthroughs that need to be made to make clean coal commercially viable are happening right here in Saskatchewan."
With Chambliss, the lead Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Wall brought up a beef with American rules requiring country of origin labels on imported Canadian food products. U.S. country of origin labelling rules are making it harder for Saskatchewan meat products south of the border.
"Of course we believe it’s a non-tariff barrier to trade," said Wall.
"What we would prefer is a North American label, because we have excellent traceability and excellent safety guidelines in terms of meat in our province."
Chambliss was unmoved.
"Premier Wall has been very vocal and very forceful in his arguments…but that is American policy and I support it."
The issue is best left for the World Trade Organization to deal with, he said.
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