With regards to Tom Fletcher’s column in the April 18 Saanich News, ‘Pipeline theatre on TV and in court,’ the current “constitutional crisis” really is pure theatre on the part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Albert Premier Rachel Notley.
When Ontario and Québec said no to TransCanada Pipeline’s Energy East and Eastern Mainline pipe dreams that was that. No need for those provinces to file court challenges, and no mention of interfering with federal powers, passing new federal legislation or throttling down the flow of oil moving east, as Alberta Premier Lougheed did in the 1970s to kill Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program “Made in Canada oil price.”
Why is B.C. being treated differently than Ontario and Québec about being an unwilling victim of Alberta’s pipe dream of exporting tar?
The filp side of Lougheed getting world prices for Alberta Dirty Fuel is that BC’s refinery can replace it with other sources at about the same price per barrel, those tankers moving Alberta Oil from Burnaby to world markets could simply bring oil to Burnaby instead of exporting it. With the fall off in oil use there is a glut of supply on the world market.
The threat of turning down the flow to Vancouver would reduce Alberta’s existing exports through the low volume tanker traffic already happening, and through pipelines that connect the B.C. Lower Mainland to U.S. markets in Washington, Oregon and California. It is a pure bluff.
Kelly Manning
Saanich