Category Archives: Environment

Aug 22 2014
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Energy, Environment

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to protect

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It seems that the Alward government is bound and determined to pitch itself over the gunnels of the ship of state and drown contentedly in the political equivalent of Davy Jones’s locker.

For the second time in as many weeks, the ruling Tories (for now) are having to answer tough and humiliating questions related to their administration of shale gas development in the province.

The first controversy, indirectly but not tangentially related to water, involved its decision to proceed with an RCMP investigation of Calgary-based Windsor Energy in 2011. The Province claimed in a public statement that the exploration company had violated the Oil and Natural Gas Act by failing to obtain permission from the Town of Sussex before conducting seismic testing within its municipal borders.

The Mounties said the allegation was baseless and refused to lay charges. Emails obtained by this newspaper organization this month confirmed that a lawyer working for Communications New Brunswick at the time strongly urged the Department of a Natural Resources to back off days before government officials ultimately ignored the advice and decided to go public with its probe.

Guess who’s suing whom for libel, and to the tune of 100-million bucks? Hint: The grin on the face of Windsor’s CEO has achieved Cheshire Cat-like dimensions, of late.

It’s all priceless, given that the central worry among those who oppose tight oil and gas plays in the province is the degree to which the key extraction technology, hydraulic fracturing, might poison the water tables of largely rural communities, which still depend on wells.

To wit: If legislators don’t understand the scope of their own regulations, how can they be trusted to protect the public’s drinking water?

Now, the very same lawyer, Charles Murray, who told the government it didn’t have a legal leg to stand on three years ago, has issued a stinging indictment of the Province’s waterway protection policies. This time, though, he’s not a consulting factotum; he’s New Brunswick’s ombudsman.

Payback really is, well, a bummer.

According to Telegraph-Journal legislative reporter Chris Morris, in a piece this week, “Charles Murray states in the report of his investigation into a complaint filed last year by the Nashwaak Watershed Association that the existing regulation governing waterway classifications ‘is in some respects worse than having no regulation at all.’”

He continued: “Over 12 years have passed, and the Clean Water Act has been amended, yet (the water classification) regulation exists primarily as a mirage, misleading observers to their detriment. The history of this file leads us to conclude that the Legislative Assembly must take a more direct interest if it wishes the province of New Brunswick to have an effective Water Classification Program rather than an illusory one. . .(This is) like a smoke detector without batteries. It provides no protection.”

In its absurdly lame defence, the T-J reports, the provincial Department of the Environment (which is, by every observable standard, merely a bedroom community of the Department of Natural Resources), stipulates that it has “initiated a process to develop a provincial water strategy. This will include a public engagement component, and will include discussion concerning the existing Water Classification Regulation, and whether it is the right tool to achieve our water management objectives.”

It must be joking. What water management objectives? For more than a decade, we now know, the Province has had a law on the books that its various governments – both Tory and Grit – have repeatedly refused to parse, let alone enforce.

And not just any law. It deals with water, people. . .water! Ninety-per-cent of the stuff comprises our human body weight. If we stop drinking good, old H20, we die within seven days. No other consideration in economic development – especially of natural resources – occupies a position of primacy more than does this.

Indeed, it’s bewildering – in fact, it boggles the mind – that this government expects to create a shale-gas industry, expand mining and forestry operations across the province, track in a pipeline from the west whilst winning the hearts and minds of New Brunswickers for its intentions without a sound, responsible water protection regime.

Perhaps this government is weary of public office.

Perhaps it does, in fact, prefer to commit suicide by droning and then, finally, by drowning.

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Jul 23 2014
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Economy, Environment

Economy and environment are not mutually exclusive

 

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For many, if not most, New Brunswick’s peripatetic Green Party Leader David Coon whistles past the graveyard of the province’s economy when he insists that we, in this struggling part of Canada, must strive to break our addiction to fossil fuels.

It’s no good, he says – a rum thing that can only bring us and our our planet more misery. In one of his blog posts in early June, he wrote, “The Green Party will create new jobs in a new economy, powered by. . .green buildings, renewable energy, local food, information technology, smart grid, electric vehicles, local business, public transit, health education, and sustainable farming and forestry; this is the Green Party’s vision of our future, not the old pollution-based economy the other parties are trying to resuscitate.”

Last week, he reiterated his message while campaigning in the province in what is certainly another doomed stab at political relevance, come September’s general election. 

But is he as defiantly deluded as his detractors claim?

Traditionalists – a group that includes most of us – contend that economic development simply can’t proceed in any meaningful way without the heavy use of oil and gas. After all, that’s how we built our job-generating, tax-producing industries under the long shadows of our various industrial revolutions. 

How else would we have invented plastic bottles, plasma TVs, rayon? Without the cheap, accessible energy afforded by fossil fuels the world would be devoid of super-conducting metals, which give us the integrated circuits that power our smart phones. 

By God, how would we cope?

The corollary argument, of course, is that true environmental stewardship is anathema to economic development, both practically and on principle. It requires a degree of tree-hugging and hair-shirt-wearing that stifles innovation and turns entire segments of the populace into Whole Earth Catalogue readers.

If these mantras hold true, then one would guess that the richest, most successful economies the world necessarily post the worst track records on the environment.

Well, dear reader, guess again.

The ninth most-affluent nation on Earth is Switzerland. It also happens to be the greenest country on the planet. Luxembourg is the second-wealthiest nation, and the also the second-most environmentally circumspect.

According to recent economic research aggregated by the popular website, top10thebest.com, “Switzerland, a rich nation in the European continent, is among the most prosperous countries in the world. It boasts (a) diverse and stable economy, and it has managed to maintain its excellent record in terms of. . .GDP. What makes Switzerland one of the wealthiest countries is its extensive sources of income, such as agriculture, tourism and banking. It is also known as the leading exporter and maker of the finest watches, and well-off individuals consider the country as a financial haven to increase their money.”

Meanwhile, swissworld.org reports, “At the end of 2009 the (country’s) Federal Council decided to continue with the SwissEnergy Action Plan until 2020. SwissEnergy is the main national platform for economical and intelligent energy use and the use of renewable energy. Energy-saving measures are implemented by SwissEnergy in partnership with the cantons, municipalities, business and environmental organisations.”

As for Luxembourg, top10thebest.com says that nation “is among the most prosperous countries (and) also recognized as a tax heaven. In fact, several billionaires from other parts of the world choose to live in this nation to free themselves of expensive taxes in their native countries. . .The sources of income (in) Luxembourg include telecommunications and steel.”

And yet, referencing a 2010 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report, a Wikipedia entry states, “Despite its growing GDP and population, Luxembourg has made progress in decoupling environmental pressures from economic growth and has developed a National Plan for Sustainable Development. The annual vehicle tax is now calculated as a function of CO2 emissions. A National Plan for Energy Efficiency has been introduced, together with economic incentives targeted at the construction industry. A national body has been created to provide information and advice on energy savings and renewable energy.”

All of which suggests that Mr. Coon is on to something. We who think him deluded may, in fact, be the deranged ones.

 

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Jul 15 2014
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Climate, Environment, Politics

How to make poor-weather friends in eastern Canada

 

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The temptation to assign blame for Mother Nature’s tempests is, at times, overwhelming – especially when you’ve been without power for a week. 

According to New Brunswick’s electrical utility, on Friday as many as 18,000 people in this province were still in the dark, both literally and figuratively, after post-tropical storm Arthur slammed into the Maritimes on July 5. 

A rising chorus of those affected are asking tough questions. 

Why is it taking so long to restore service to everyone? Why are some homes reconnected while their neighbours across the street remain blacked out? Have our famously verdant urban streets become states of emergency just waiting to happen?

Naturally, a matching deluge of politics falls steadily on the capitol these days. 

The provincial Liberals have criticized the Tory government’s weather preparedness, suggesting that NB Power was, once again, caught with its pants down around it ankles. “It’s a total embarrassment,” charged Rick Doucet, Grit MLA from Charlotte-The Isles, last week. “How many events do we have to go through before we’re going to learn? . .This is the third major weather event to hit New Brunswick in the past seven months. We should be getting better at this, but it appears that’s not the case, unfortunately.”

The critique prompted an immediate and sharp rebuke from provincial Energy Minister Craig Leonard, who barked: “For them (Liberal opposition members) to come out and criticize the preparation work done by this utility, in the middle of the restoration work, is just the lowest of the low. . .It just highlights their ignorance.”

But, in at least one respect, we are all ignorant. To what extent should we, on the East Coast, expect increasing and increasingly severe weather? And how should those calculations inform the decisions we make about preparedness?

Clearly, what we currently have in place in this province and in Nova Scotia (where hundreds also remain without power) are insufficient to withstand the new normals climate change metes out. 

For, make no mistake, this is what we are beginning to experience. 

Last winter’s brutally long winter on this continent was, most experts think, the ironic result of a steadily warming planet. Higher temperatures in the polar region played havoc with the traditional gradients in air pressure which, in turn, sent the jet stream literally all over the map.

This produced wild swings between iron cold and almost balmy conditions sometimes within a matter of mere hours. The result: Ice, rain and snow storms within single 24-hour periods with the predictable effects of downed power lines, blankets and games of Old Maid by candlelight.

That was last December in New Brunswick. It’s harder to blame climate change for this month’s storm. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States predicts a near-normal Hurricane season for the Atlantic coast.

Even so, it takes only one of these violent tumults to exacerbate, through storm surges, another demonstrable effect of global warming: rising sea levels. According to NOAA: “There is strong evidence that global sea level is now rising at an increased rate and will continue to rise during this century. While studies show that sea levels changed little from AD 0 until 1900, sea levels began to climb in the 20th century. The two major causes of global sea-level rise are thermal expansion caused by the warming of the oceans (since water expands as it warms) and the loss of land-based ice (such as glaciers and polar ice caps) due to increased melting.

“Records and research show that sea level has been steadily rising at a rate of 0.04 to 0.1 inches per year since 1900. This rate may be increasing. Since 1992, new methods of satellite altimetry (the measurement of elevation or altitude) indicate a rate of rise of 0.12 inches per year. This is a significantly larger rate than the sea-level rise averaged over the last several thousand years.”

For New Brunswick and every coastal area of Canada, these are real nuts and bolts, dollar and cents, issues. Every time a tempest storms into our environs, we can measure the economic costs in the millions and tens-of-millions of dollars – costs that will, in time, only escalate.

It’s now time, if it wasn’t before, for closer regional cooperation on protecting and managing our respective power grids.

After all, Mother Nature doesn’t observe provincial borders. Why should we?

 

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Jun 02 2014
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Environment, Politics

Political palaver is making global warming worse

 

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If Prime Minister Stephen Harper is waiting for his frenemy in statecraft, U.S. President Barack Obama, to establish a regulatory agenda for carbon emissions before he raises any finger but his middle ones to his critics in the environmental lobby, his patience will soon be rewarded.

Today, the putative leader of the free world introduces what one news report describes as “the most significant action on climate change in American history.”  According to the Guardian online, “The proposed regulations Obama will launch at the White House on Monday could cut carbon pollution by as much as 25 per cent from about 1,600 power plants in operation today.”

Consider that these facilities account for as much 40 per cent of all emissions in the United States, and you can’t help suspect that these rules might actually possess some gravitas for a change. 

Consider, also, that Mr. Obama is using his executive authority without the imprimatur of Congress, where nearly half of sitting Republicans publicly reject the science behind climate change. That means no pesky horse-trading when it comes to the language and substance of the new regs.

In effect, reports the Guardian, “The rules, which were drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency and are under review by the White House, are expected to do more than Obama, or any other president, has done so far to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions responsible for climate change. They will put America on course to meet its international climate goal, and put US diplomats in a better position to leverage climate commitments from big polluters such as China and India.”

Or as the president told graduates of West Point during a speech last week, “I intend to make sure America is out front in a global framework to preserve our planet. American influence is always stronger when we lead by example. We can not exempt ourselves from the rules that apply to everyone else.”

Hmmm. What say you now, Mr. Harper?

For years, Canada’s prime minister has insisted he can’t do much to further his international commitments – particularly, the ones he made in 2009 at the Copenhagen climate change conference – to reducing this nation’s carbon footprint without a clear signal and comprehensive guidelines from its largest trading partner.

Now, he has it. 

In fact, one could argue, he’s had it for nearly a year. 

“Today, President Obama is putting forward a broad-based plan to cut the carbon pollution that causes climate change and affects public health. The plan, which consists of a wide variety of executive actions, has three key pillars: Cut carbon pollution in America; prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change; lead international efforts to combat global climate change and prepare for its impacts.”

That’s an excerpt from a document entitled, “The President’s Climate Action Plan”, dated June 25, 2013. It is, apparently, the fountainhead for this week’s regulations. And, according to a recent report in the Globe and Mail, somebody in the environment ministry was well aware of the plan on the day of its unveiling last summer.

“The United States has implemented limits on emissions from the oil and gas sector that are ‘significant’ and ‘comparable‘ to those the Conservative government is considering, says a newly releases Environment Canada memo, one that contradicts Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s assertion that Canada is waiting for the U.S. regulations before it will act,” the Globe piece revealed. “The June, 2013, memo. . .was produced after President Barack Obama released his Climate Action Plan that day.”

How curious, then, that Mr. Harper – apparently oblivious to Mr. Obama’s initiative – should tell Global News in December, that regulating Canada’s oil and gas  emissions “would be best done if we could do this in concert with our major trading partner…so that’s what I’m hoping we’ll be able to do over the next couple of years.”

The good news is, of course, nothing now prevents Mr. Harper from boldly going where no westernized, reform Tory has gone before: To the front lines in the battle to save the planet from too much hot air; a commodity, it seems, that’s common to polluters and politicians, in equal measure.

 

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May 07 2014
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Energy, Environment, Oil and Gas

Slow-dancing with shale gas in New Brunswick

 

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Government and industry types, desperate to envision a way out of New Brunswick’s straightened economic and fiscal circumstances, routinely point their fingers to the future and declare it full of shale gas. 

Now, a new report by a group of people that actually knows something about science, evidence and the perils of jumping to conclusions advises us to cool our jets. The future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.    

The multidisciplinary (and excessively named) Expert Panel on Harnessing Science and Technology to Understand the Environmental Impacts of Shale Gas Extraction, convened by the Council of Canadian Academics at the behest of Environment Canada, warns that not only do we lack adequate information about the effects of tight-play, onshore petroleum production in Canada, most of us are even too ignorant to ask the right questions.

In essence, to paraphrase former U.S, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, we don’t know what we don’t know.

“Society’s understanding of the potential environmental impacts has not kept pace with development, resulting in gaps in scientific knowledge about these impacts,” the report says. “In most instances, shale gas extraction has proceeded without sufficient environmental baseline data being collected (e.g., nearby groundwater quality, 

critical wildlife habitat). This makes it difficult to identify and characterize environmental impacts that may be associated with or inappropriately blamed on this development.”

The solution, it appears, is to adopt a go-slow approach, the advantage of which “allow for additional data collection, to permit adaptation to the implications of new information, and to encourage integration of multidisciplinary expertise. . .There may also be some negative impacts of development that cannot be eliminated, and the scientific basis for identifying areas that are particularly vulnerable has not been established.”

None of which is especially good news for the likes of Premier David Alward or his energy czar, Minister Craig Leonard.

For at least three years, they, like most members of provincial cabinet, have been crowing as loudly as they can muster about the extraordinary economic benefits that will accrue from a safe, reliable, environmentally responsible shale gas industry. On this point, they have assembled, drafted, edited, amended and finally released what they claim are the toughest standards and guidelines for shale gas development anywhere in North America.

But, as the report points out, they’re getting woefully ahead of themselves.

Although the panel goes out of its way to acknowledge that the industry in Canada has cleaned up its act in recent years through “recycling (and) reducing land disruption by concentrating more wells at each drilling site, reducing the volumes of the toxic chemicals it uses, and reducing methane emissions during well completions,” it also stipulates that “other impacts, such as cumulative effects on land, fugitive GHG emissions, and groundwater contamination, are more problematic. 

“This is the case because available mitigation technologies are untested and may not be sufficient; scientific understanding is incomplete; and the design of an adequate regulatory framework is hampered by limited information.”

A proper rules system, the experts insist, “must be based on appropriate science-driven, outcome-based regulations with strong performance monitoring, inspection, and enforcement.”

For his part, Mr. Leonard is playing it cool. The report, he says, does nothing to dissuade him from pursuing the current course in the manner he has chosen. Slow down? But, of course, he declares. 

“When people say ‘Slow the process down,’ the fact is we haven’t done anything except for seismic testing over the last three years,” he noted last Thursday, following the report’s release.

“We aren’t going to have any new drilling taking place at least until next year and we probably won’t even have any actual hydraulically fracked wells being drilled in shale formations for a couple of years. So there is time to be building this information.”

And, perhaps, a better consensus across the province. 

Lack of information breeds systemic ignorance, which, in turn, fuels unproductive rancor and fear (as opposes to useful and constructive debate). 

The time this report suggests we purchase for ourselves should be spent educating ourselves about the true and likely impact of shale gas development in the specific geological and geographical conditions that are native to New Brunswick.

Only then will any of us possess the knowledge to accurately foresee the shape of things to come.

 

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Mar 12 2014
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Energy, Environment, Idiocracy, Oil and Gas

The roiling tale of two imaginary pipelines

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In one hand, New Brunswick grips the key to its putative economic salvation; a pipeline spanning the better part of the second-largest landmass on the planet, from the oil fields and tar sands of Alberta right into little, old, plucky Saint John where the Irving refinery awaits, with bated breath, another profitable lease on life.

In the other, the picture-perfect province loosens it grip on everything its forebears allegedly designed (a healthy, self-sufficient, environmentally pristine part of the world) in the backwash of a curtailed and stolen future; a pipeline that would foul the ground, incinerate communities and spoil the water; a horrible industrial project that would return fleeting boons to short-term-thinking politicians, their confederates in commerce and not much else.

It’s odd how deliberately these opposing views manage to express themselves in New Brunswick’s print and broadcast media – as if never the twain shall meet, as if we, the sidelined majority, have nothing useful to lend to the debate over the province’s energy providence except, of course, our taxes and (sigh) our ears.

“Putative” and “alleged” are good words to describe the cases for and against a pipeline that does not, in fact, yet exist.

There are, of course, several ways to build a permanent way into a community. None of these, however, should have anything to do with terrorizing the citizenry or fictionalizing the landscape.

When Colleen Mitchell, president of Atlantica Centre for Energy, boosts on the front page of the Saint John Telegraph-Journal the benefits of an East Coast pipeline (without, I will note, a word of reasonable rebuttal), her kite flew so low, her hot air claimed its tail. She both terrorized the citizenry and fictionalized the landscape.

Here she is on her extraordinarily well-written rant:

“Five years (after the Great Recession of 2008) the gap between Atlantic Canada and the rest of Canada remains significant. . .The development of key oil and gas projects have the potential to reverse these economic trends. . .This project (TransCanada’s East Energy pipeline) is of such significance that if it proceeds to completion it will have a profound impact on the Atlantic region”

So profound, she says, it could amount to $35.3-billion in new gross domestic product across the country. So profound, she says, it could result in $266 million in new taxes to New Brunswick (during pipefitting) and maybe as much as $500 million after that. Moreover, she claimed with the sort of authority only an insider gets (and, trust me, she’s no insider), Irving Oil might just well spend upwards of $2 billion upgrading its coking and refining facilities in Saint John.

Oh, really?

This is irresponsible, unverified piffle; its feedstock derives directly from industry, itself. There is no way to credibly measure the merits of her assessments, just as there is no way to calibrate the real value of what she parrots are vast reserves of trapped shale gas in New Brunswick sedimentary rock. Why? Because industry, itself, is still reckoning the commercial viability of the resource. And, frankly, they’re not talking (which, in and of itself, should tell us something).

Still, she’s not the only partisan in the arena. Bid a welcome to the died-in-the-wool naysayers, who would rather buy their hemp oil from The Body Shop than see any of the dirty, necessary stuff that fuels their spectacularly energy-efficient homes spoil their golf-course-sized and well-fertilized lawns and gardens splendidly attended by certified “green” landscapers.

TransCanada Corp. has run afoul of four of nine National Energy Board regulations regarding its proper care and feeding of pipelines. This motivates New Brunswick Green Party honcho David Coon to theorize that “anything that suggests an increased risk of leaks will make everyone nervous.”

Furthermore, he postulates, “Since Stephen Harper has been prime minister, his orientation has been to ensure the National Energy Board is greasing the wheels of pipeline construction, not slowing it down because of things like safety and environmental impact.”

In other words, he seems to be saying, since the National Energy Board is, ipso facto, already compromised by the Conservative agenda, we must assume that its recent “harsh” judgement of TransCanada Corp. actually amounts  kid gloves’ treatment.

Again, so much for empirical evidence.

In one hand, the conspiracy theorists taketh away.

In the other, the apologists giveth back.

And, finally, no hands actually come together.

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Jan 15 2014
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Energy, Environment, Oil and Gas

How Neil Young gets it right (and wrong) on oil

Oil is everywhere and everything?

Oil is everywhere and everything?

Fossil fuels make hypocrites of every environmental activist in the world.

The bright ones know that as consumers in the unavoidable petro-economy, they are just as culpable as anyone for climate change; but they push their planet-saving agenda anyway. After all, why remain silent on strategies for using oil and gas to transition to a cleaner, more sustainable future?

The dimmer ones, who never seem to suffer from a loss of words, prattle on about “us versus them” in apparent ignorance of the enormously complex socio-economic web this and other nations have spun with the products of refined dinosaur bones. Forget transforming the world; let’s just shut it down.

Thanks to celebrity big mouths and the media’s even bigger appetite for controversy, the question of the moment is: Into which camp does Canada’s legendary folk-rocker Neil Young fit? Is he a shining light or a broken bulb? A not entirely unrelated question is: Does it matter?

The Prime Minister Office seems to think it does. Why, otherwise, would it have dispatched its spokesman Jason MacDonald to defend Alberta’s curiously vulnerable tar sands against Mr. Young’s vituperative attack on them last Sunday night during the launch of a countrywide tour. At that time, the Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer said, using his outside voice:

“To me, it’s a basic matter of integrity on the part of Canada. Canada is trading integrity for money. That’s what’s happening under the current leadership in Canada, which is a very poor imitation of the George Bush administration in the United States. It’s lagging behind on the world stage and it’s an embarrassment to Canadians.”

To which, Mr. MacDonald responded: “Canada’s natural resources sector is and has always been a fundamental part of our country’s economy. . .The resource sector creates economic opportunities, and employs tens of thousands of Canadians in high wage jobs, contributing to a standard of living that is envied around the world, and helping to fund the programs and services Canadians rely on. . .Even the lifestyle of a rock star relies, to some degree, on the resources developed by thousands of hard-working Canadians every day.”

For Mr. Young, overall, so far so good. Whether or not you agree with his characterization of political leaders who are almost giddy at the prospect of selling their country – and First Nations communities in Alberta – down the river for a bag of bucks, you must, at least, acknowledge that he takes a principled stand.

More than this, perhaps, he is keenly aware of his stature, an effective weapon in the public relations battle to win friends and influence people (though methinks the man has already won enough hearts and minds for one life).

But, then, a funny thing happens on Mr. Young’s way to mainstream credibility regarding oil and gas. In his response to Mr. MacDonald’s jab about rock stars‘ reliance on natural resources, “Shaky” gets a little. . .well, shaky.

“Of course, rock stars don’t need oil. I drove my electric car from California to the tar sands and on to Washington DC without using any oil at all and I’m a rock star,” he says. “My car’s generator runs on biomass, one of several future fuels Canada should be developing for the Post Fossil Fuel Age. This age of renewable fuels could save our grandchildren from the ravages of Climate related disasters spawned by the Fossil Fuel Age; but we have to get started.”

He’s right. We do have to get started. But if, as he insists, rock stars don’t need oil, is he suggesting his life is a petroleum-free zone? For, if it is, that would be a neat trick, indeed.

According to one calculation from Ranken Energy Corp., “Americans consume petroleum products at a rate of three-and-a-half gallons of oil and more than 250 cubic feet of natural gas per day each.”

In fact, oil is in just about everything, from floor wax to bicycle tires to golf bags and purses. “Anything that’s not iron or steel or metal of some sort has some petrochemical component,” West Virginia University chemistry professor Dady Dadyburjor told The Associated Press not long ago.

This, one presumes, includes the chassis of Mr. Young’s electric car.

Of course rock stars need oil. We all do. And owning up to our collective addiction is the first step on the royal road to recovery from hypocrisy.

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Dec 29 2013
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Business, Economy, Energy, Environment, Oil and Gas, Politics

2013: The year of treading water

U.S. economy may be heading for a hard, post-election landing

N.B. economy is heading for a repeat of 2013. . .only worse

New Brunswick enters the new year much as it did the outgoing one: Treading shark-infested waters, praying that the mighty predators will ignore it in favour of fatter, tastier castaways.

Under the grim circumstances, it’s a miracle that the government of David Alward was able to accomplish the little it did.

In 2013, population growth was at a standstill, general unemployment was among the worst in Canada (especially among what remains of the youthful labour force), the participation rate (those actively searching for work) was in a nose dive. About the only bright spot was low inflation and a relatively fixed consumer price index (measured in 2002 dollars).

Worse, perhaps, than any of this was the evident lack of new economic opportunities, without which the annual provincial deficit was fated to hover at $500 million on a structural, long-term debt of at least $11 billion in perpetuity. Theoretically, that meant that every New Brunswicker was on the hook for thousands of dollars.

The reality was that fewer public services were available to a dwindling number of people. And in the absence of any real vision for the future – any sense that timely sacrifices will ultimately yield durable boons – the province descended into caterwauling and complaining.

Some, of course, did their best to reverse the tide of bitterness and recrimination, while acknowledging the patently obvious.

“What we are facing in New Brunswick is a structural, secular decline,” former premier and current deputy chairman of T-D Bank Frank McKenna told me one wintery afternoon in his downtown Toronto office. “The problems we have don’t ebb and flow with the quality of our leadership. There is something more serious going on here. We face circumstances that combine to create a very negative outlook. The entire atmosphere is hugely challenging.”

In fact, he said, “the resource base that remains can be exploited with fewer workers and more mechanization, so it can’t support the number of workers that it once did. Yet, we remain a resource-based economy in a world where the Canadian dollar looks to be in a fairly constant state of parity with the U.S. dollar. So, this, too, is a peril.”

And yet, he said, “Even though I think our situation in New Brunswick is quite pessimistic, I don’t think that it is terminal. There are many places in the world that have faced dramatic challenges. In fact, adversity, itself, became the platform upon which they built sustainable economies. . . This isn’t just a problem of leadership in government. It’s also a problem of followership.

“Our citizens have to understand the full depth and breadth of the dilemma that we are facing, and they have to be prepared to face up to some inconvenient truths. It means that they have to become less reliant on government and more entrepreneurial. It means that they have to take responsibility for their own futures.”

For Mr. McKenna and, indeed, Mr. Alward, taking responsibility for the future means brining Alberta oil east for refining in Saint John – which would create thousands of construction jobs – and developing the province’s nascent shale gas industry.

“The way I look at it,” Mr. McKenna said, “the real win comes when we take our indigenous shale gas in the province and hook it into the Canaport liquified natural gas (LNG) facility in Saint John.”

His voice rose as his enthusiasm peaked. “We have in situ now, calculated by Corridor Resources Inc., 67 trillion cubic feet of gas. That’s bigger than western Canada. It’s a huge deposit. If ten per cent is exploitable, that’s enough to create a revenue source for New Brunswick for decades to come. All in, it would result in about $15-20 billion in investment and 150,000 person years of work. And for governments, it would result in between $7-9 billion worth of royalties and taxes.”

By and large, however, these were mere musings of a former public official. They did little to quell the outrage of a vocal minority of residents – people who firmly believed the provincial government had no business encouraging the development of an industry that they said would poison them.

Would it poison them? Was there, instead, a safe, environmentally responsible approach to the whole affair?

The issue will carry forward into 2014 and, like just about every other issue in New Brunswick, remain there unresolved, as the sharks keep circling.

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Dec 17 2013
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Business, Economy, Energy, Environment, Oil and Gas, Politics

The political art of fomenting depression

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What’s perplexing about the David Alward government’s decision to spend a few thousand taxpayer bucks on TV ads showing New Brunswickers mourning the state of their province’s economy is not that it reflects poorly on our lawmakers’ vision of the future.

What’s perplexing is that our lawmakers seem to believe it reflects well on their own political fortunes.

Less than a year before the general election, the Tories are bringing up the rear in popular opinion. Poll after poll suggests that if the ballot were held today, they’d lose to Brian Gallant’s Liberals by a wide margin.

This somehow impels the big brains who occupy the small offices reserved for government communications to remind New Brunswickers in convincing fashion, and just before the holidays, that the past three-plus years in office have been an unmitigated disaster for the Progressive Conservatives.

The ads show various men and women, who are presumably en route to the oil-black and money-green pastures of western Canada, hanging out on tarmacks and in airport departure lounges, their brows appropriately furrowed.

“I’ve been going for four years,” says one.

“We haven’t got enough opportunities here, we have to go do it out west,” says another.

Finally, up pops the kicker, accompanied by a stern-sounding VoiceOver: “This message is brought to you by the Government of New Brunswick.”

Now, we witness the game, if untried, Mr. Gallant mumbling under his breath and, indeed, over it: “Thank you, Mr. Alward, you just made my day.”

Of course, in the local media, he sounds more like this:

“New Brunswickers don’t need an ad to tell them that there aren’t enough jobs in New Brunswick. This is an ad that is virtually discouraging people to stay and invest in New Brunswick. It’s even demoralizing.”

To which, Premier Alward retorts, “Every day there are families that are living with separation and we believe there are good options long term to see our economy be stronger, our province be stronger, and our people be able to decide to be here and build their communities here. . .It’s a message to all New Brunswickers that we need to be saying yes to allow development to take place.”

Well. . .no, actually.

It is a message to all New Brunswickers that they are at death’s doorstep, and that their only salvation is via the kool aid of shale gas development, which may or not be true. (It’s too early to know anything with certainty).

What I do know, from my years in the marketing communications and advertising industry (I call them my “lucrative” epoch), is that scaring the bejesus out of people is guaranteed to produce only one, durable response: shoot the messenger.

Again, Mr. Alward, Mr. Gallant thanks you.

What’s intriguing about all of this is just how unnecessary it is.

The Alward government holds all the cards in the shale gas industry deck. Its regulations for development are, purportedly, the toughest in North America. It has the benefit of knowing all the best and worst practices. It even has a scientific panel, convened to guide its decisions (though only The Almighty knows when this efficacious advice will be forthcoming).

What’s more, its foes on this file are, though vocal, largely in the minority.

If it truly wants to win the hearts and minds of the majority, why doesn’t it produce ads that speak directly to the issue – spots that fight the fictions swirling around shale gas with facts?

Why not emphasize the positive attributes of an industry that, properly regulated, could help transform the province’s economy – thanks to the money it will generate for public coffers – into an incubator of commercially viable innovations in sectors not specifically related to resource extraction?

Those who argue that the provincial government has no business using public dollars to promote its economic agenda are, among other things, on the wrong side of history. Governments do this sort of thing all the time. In fact, we expect it of them, especially when they don’t do it. What is tourism, except a giant public-sector promotion campaign?

This Tory reign has staked its mandate on transforming the New Brunswick economy through its responsible stewardship of natural resources. Its most recent ad campaign, however, indicates that it has not yet learned how best communicate this otherwise clear and simple message.

Meanwhile, as goes its mandate, so goes any chance New Brunswick has of seizing its future for its now-departing citizens.

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Nov 26 2013
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Environment, Politics

How to fight the good fight, especially when it’s wrong

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Those picket-line-protesters who may worry that their shoe leather will wear out before the shale gas industry’s resolve does should cheer up after reviewing a World Trade Organization (WTO) decision this week – a decision some are calling a victory for the hard-scrabbling, morally superior little guy.

Of course, it is hardly that.

The WTO has simply upheld the European Union’s (EU) 2009 ban on imported seal products (meat, pelts, oil, etc.), which affects Canada most among the world’s pinniped-hunting nations (a small club that includes Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Namibia).

In its ruling, the organization allowed that while the prohibition probably violates at least the spirit of impartiality in global trade, it nonetheless “fulfills the objective of addressing EU public moral concerns on seal welfare to a certain extent.” What’s more, it added, “no alternative measure was demonstrated to make an equivalent or greater contribution to the fulfillment of the objective.”

In other words, consumers’ decidedly non-commercial interests can and do trump those, however legitimate, of producers, either small or large.

That’s good news to all the assorted rebels with various causes among us, though, naturally, none of this is sitting well with the federal government or Canadian sealers who are screaming about the dirty they’ve been done at the hands of a powerful, disingenuous protest lobby.

In a statement from Ed Fast, Minister for International Trade, Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of the Environment, and Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the trio declared, “On February 11, 2011, our government requested the establishment of a World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel to challenge the European Union’s unfair ban on seal products in order to stand up for Canadian sealers and to vigorously defend the interests of Canada’s Inuit and Indigenous communities.

“The WTO panel confirmed Canada’s long-standing position that the EU ban is discriminatory and treats Canadian seal products unfairly. However, the panel also took the view that such a ban can be justified due to some of the public’s concerns regarding seal harvesting. Canada remains steadfast in its position that the seal harvest is a humane, sustainable and well-regulated activity. Any views to the contrary are based on myths and misinformation, and the Panel’s findings should be of concern to all WTO members.”

The government, of course, promises it will press on with an appeal. But, realistically, this battle is over. The Harper government is not likely to threaten the stability of its freshly minted European trade agreement over an industry that generates few economic benefits for citizens who live south of the 60th parallel – i.e., most Canadians.

All of which provides several object lessons for less mature social agitations, the first of which is that the “facts” at one’s disposal need not actually be true.

The trick to winning hearts and minds in the seal debate was always steadfastly ensuring that the message of carnage and cruelty on the ice floes was front and centre and before the public. Even after the industry effectively cleaned up its act (to the degree that any mass predation can be absolved of moral ambiguity), the message never changed, a fact which truly bugged even some ardent environmental pioneers.

“We have to be logical,” Jacques Cousteau reportedly once said. “We have to aim our activity first to the endangered species. Those who are moved by the plight of the harp seal could also be moved by the plight of the pig – the way they are slaughtered is horrible.”

The second lesson is that celebrities can vastly enhance a movement’s credibility.

In 2006, Paul McCartney and his then-wife Heather Mills, took Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams – who was linked to the show via a scratchy phone connection – to task over the annual cull. They called him by his first name and beseeched him, several times, to stop the killing. They were wrong on every account, every statement of fact. But, it didn’t matter. Subsequent polling showed that, in the eyes of the average viewer, they’d won the debate.

Was this sensible? Was this reasonable?

Who cares?

All’s fair in love, war and on the picket lines.

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