23 octobre 2017
Jean-Marc Fournier – Government House Leader and Minister responsible for Canadian Relations and the Canadian Francophonie
TransCanada has withdrawn its Energy East Pipeline project, a decision that has elicited strong reactions in certain quarters of western Canada, including the accusation that Québec is an economic adversary of Alberta.
I was in Calgary and Edmonton two weeks ago and pointed out that our trade in goods and services stands at $16 billion a year. For those who would like us to engage in divisive mutual bashing I reply: do we want our trade to increase from $16 billion to $25 billion or fall from $16 billion to $5 billion?
If we want to expand our trade and take advantage of all of the other possibilities that reconciliation can generate, it is essential to go beyond perceptions and to understand the facts.
First, TransCanada’s termination of the Energy East project is not due to Québec’s position.
Many observers have noted that it was a business decision related to the project’s profitability, based in particular on factors such as the price of oil and the recent approvals granted to Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain network expansion, to the replacement of Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline and to TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline.
On June 19, 2017, Gordon Laxer, founder of the Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta, asked why we should increase the transportation capacity of oil pipelines or propose new projects such as TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline when oil sands development is heading towards a wall.
Two days ago, in The Globe and Mail, associate professor of Economics at the University of Calgary, Trevor Tombe, wrote the following on the topic of equalization: “While reasonable people can disagree over whether the federal government should support poorer provinces, and how such support is structured, most of what Albertans hear on the topic is wrong and the proposal to remove natural resources from the formula will backfire.”
Alberta does not speak with a single voice, nor, of course, does Québec. In Ottawa, Gérard Deltell, the Conservative MP from Québec, said it was a “sad day for Canada.” At the same time, another Québec MP, the parliamentary leader of the NDP, deplored the lack of social acceptability for the project as a result of TransCanada’s inadequate approach to the communities affected.
There are multiple viewpoints in Alberta as there are in Québec, and this reflects a healthy democracy. To present one society as a block opposed to the other is nothing more than taking a deliberate shortcut in order to divide and polarize. To quote again the University of Calgary associate professor Trevor Tombe: “Blaming others, dividing the province and misleading voters does real harm. It's not equalization that's broken; if anything, it's our politics.”
Let us not be content with shortcuts, but focus on the facts. Let us remember that Québec adopted seven principles to examine the Energy East project, the same principles Ontario adopted, inspired by those of British Columbia. Even the New Brunswick government, which was clearly in favour of the project, recognized the legitimacy of those principles. TransCanada abandoned the project before it was evaluated based on the seven principles.
On the other hand, the Alberta government’s disappointment is legitimate. The drop in oil prices is affecting Alberta’s economy and the Canadian economy overall. None of the federative partners can rejoice at the economic difficulties of the other.
By taking the time to dialogue in a spirit of respect and trust and attempting to understand each other, we observe that the facts contradict perceptions and allow us to move beyond them.
Our interests will inevitably occasionally diverge but we can refuse to turn into adversaries. We are already partners. Why not develop mechanisms to broaden our partnerships?
Our governments and politicians in general, civil society, business, social or community stakeholders and individuals in our respective provinces must meet more frequently and broaden their interactions. In short, we must engage in reconciliation.
Dialogue does not eliminate our differences but enables us to honestly, and properly resolve such differences in a spirit of respect.
It is in this type of shared citizenship that I invite us all to participate.
