[quote=“Jabber63”]Albertans think otherwise though. they think Ottawa can use the constitution to push it through even it is a vague at best
vancouversun.com/business/bc … story.html[/quote]
That article, based on an interview of former Alberta energy minister Ted Morton (defeated in the last election), is very entertaining.
I particularly liked this remark about our province: “B.C. has been making unreasonable demands of the federation since 1870. We should be used to it by now.”
So colonial Governor Anthony Musgrave was “unreasonable” by making a transcontinental railway a condition for joining confederation in 1871? And premier Clark is continuing the tradition of unreasonableness by saying that the costs/risks of Northwest Gateway far outweigh the benefits?
The article goes on to suggest that “… if a joint federal review panel rejects the development next December following its extensive hearings, Harper could still use the Crown’s power to sanction Gateway”.
Sure, the NEB is an independent agency operating under federal jurisdiction, and the Harper government can overrule its’ decision in the unlikely event that it comes out against the project. That might be all that it takes to push the project through if Enbridge was wanting to load tar onto rail cars and transport it to the coast for shipment. Inter-provincial railways and ports are both under federal jurisidiction.
The problem, though, is that Enbridge wants to build a pipeline across public lands that are under provincial jursidiction. Alberta pundits and whoever else can spout off about Clark being unreasonable, but if the project is approved Enbridge still needs provincial approval to acquire statutory rights-of-way across public lands. The province does not have to agree to that.
That is why some in Alberta think that Harper should use federal jurisdiction over inter-provincial “railways and canals” to force the pipeline through. The theory is that Harper can use federal powers to expropriate provincial lands. Like all constitutional questions there are serious problems. I don’t think, though, that we need to wade into all of the legal scholarship as to why things are not as simple or easy as the article suggests.
As a political matter Harper is not going to say that he will expropriate provincial lands for a pipeline, let alone take steps to do that. He’d be out of his mind to embark on that course, even if he thought that the law was on his side.
When Clark went to Alberta to meet her provincial counterpart she was treated very harshly by the media. Morton simply adds further invective. She was “unreasonable”, “unpatriotic” and no one knew quite what she was doing there, as if somehow she was out of her depth, even impertinent, going to Alberta to say that Enbridge is a bad deal for British Columbia.
Notwithstanding the negative publicity, especially from outside of BC, I think that she has succeeded, more than anyone else (Dix included), in coalescing opposition to Enbridge where it counts. As the article points out, 61% oppose the project. Of the remaining 39% many would have no opinion; there are now relatively few strong supporters. Opposition to Enbridge has grown over the past year, particularly in recent months, to a level that well exceeds the NDP’s support in the polls, even best case.
Clark has succeeded in bringing out the political centre in opposition to the project. To many moderate-thinking people if Christy Clark does not think that it’s a good deal, it’s probably a bad deal. Among those are people whose support Harper needs if he wants to stay in power.
If Harper took steps to expropriate provincial land so that Enbridge could build a pipeline that the province opposes the result would be a protracted court battle. (It is interesting, by the way, that Clark brought in former AG Geoff Plante to lead the provincial legal team at the hearings.) Commentators in Alberta can make quips about using federal jurisdiction over “railways and canals” to force through a pipeline, but the result would be a fierce and very public legal battle with BC, whether the Liberals or the NDP are in power.
That is simply not going to happen. The federal Liberals have bottomed out. Harper is not going to take votes from them next federal election. His numbers are fine nationally - against a Liberal party with an interim leader and an NDP leader who is still finding his way - but Harper’s party is not doing well in the polls in this province. Harper will need every seat that he can keep or get in BC during the next election. He’s not going to risk that on a jurisdictional dispute with our provincial government (that he would probably lose).
The course of least resistance, legally and politically, is to sell tar to the Americans, even though the price is somewhat lower, or send it back east. Clark will almost certainly lose the next election, but on the Enbridge issue and in the great poker game of federal-provincial relations, she will have won in the end, even though she is unlikely to get any credit for it. Dix will come into office in a stronger position than he would have been in if he only had the NDP’s base of support to rely on.
