Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is investing a lot of political capital in the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMX). It’s a smart move for the federalist premier, but it could be a nightmare for regular Albertans for decades to come..The rally cry for Kenney and his supporters on energy infrastructure is “Don’t mess with TMX.” TMX is, of course, already a mess. The project was approved in 2013 by the National Energy Board (NEB) but immediately faced legal challenges and an increasingly hostile regulatory environment. In April 2018, Kinder Morgan announced that “the project is now facing unquantifiable risk,” signalling the end to the company’s involvement in the venture and the subsequent nationalization of the pipeline by the Trudeau Liberals. But Kenney needs a win for Alberta, and his TMX posturing is likely to deliver results. .The same people who supported Kenney’s ambitious merger of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties are now looking to the Premier to back their own ambitions for a radical restructuring of Alberta’s place in confederation, if not outright independence. While Kenney has called sovereigntist ambitions “irrational,” he must give the appearance of taking this movement seriously or risk alienating his base. Complicating matters is Kenney’s constant eye on Ottawa. After twenty years as a federal Member of Parliament – many of those as a high-profile government cabinet minister – the Prime Minister’s Office could be within reach for Kenney, should timing and circumstances avail themselves. Kenney needs a win at home to keep the sovereigntist movement in check, and a win on the national stage to keep a return to Ottawa in play. The construction of TMX does both..Using TMX as a bargaining chip also buys Kenney valuable time. He has promised a referendum on equalization payments should TMX remain mothballed. While the referendum threat is mostly political theatre and falls short of what Albertans are asking for, Kenney can avoid a vote on equalization and keep his federalist credentials intact so long as progress on TMX creeps forward.. MACKINNON: Regional Subsidies in CanadaAlberta Premier Jason Kenney .And creep forward is exactly what TMX is doing. In June 2019, the federal cabinet directed the National Energy Board (NEB) to approve construction and operation of the project — and despite the exaggerated and often-repeated claim of First Nations’ opposition, the Indian Resource Council (IRC) representing 134 First Nations has expressed interest in buying the project, which has been owned by the Canadian Development Investment Corporation (CDIC) since August 2018..John Ibbitson with the Globe and Mail wrote of the mood in Alberta that:.“The anger over pipelines is premature. After all, the Liberals did nationalize the Trans Mountain project. If the government is able to construct the pipeline, despite opposition from the British Columbia government and from environmental and Indigenous protesters, then Alberta will have no cause to complain. If the government fails to build Trans Mountain, however, Alberta’s oil-dependent economy will have been let down by Ottawa, and people there will and should howl.”.Nationalizing TMX after deliberately making the project an “unquantifiable risk” is not, however, what Albertans – especially those who remember the National Energy Program – wanted from their government..The founding of Petro-Canada as a crown corporation in 1975 and the creation of the National Energy Program (NEP) in 1980 by Pierre Trudeau allowed the federal government to conduct what author Dr. Michael Wagner describes in his book Alberta Separatism: Then and Now as a “raid on Alberta’s oil industry.” .In 1987, Stephen Harper told delegates at the Reform Party’s founding convention that:. GUEST COLUMN, ROB ANDERSON: Independence if necessaryEarly days... Preston Manning and Stephen Harper in the Reform Party .“Property rights should be entrenched in the Canadian constitution. As well, a more serious privatization policy should be adopted. At the top of the list should be Petro-Canada. Both federal ownership and control of Petro-Canada must be terminated so that it can never again be used as a vehicle for central Canadian colonialism and expropriation. This is the critical missing link in the job of dismantling the National Energy Program.”.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – lacking for imagination and common sense – might very well be creating the policy vehicle for the implementation of another National Energy Program with the purchase of TMX. This would allow him to rebuild his father’s legacy and keep Alberta beholden to the whims of the federal government on energy and environmental matters..Kenney’s “Don’t mess with TMX” battle cry could aid in the recreation of the Petro-Canada / NEP apparatus that was so effectively used as a tool for “colonialism and expropriation”..TMX needs to be built, but not before it is returned to private hands free of any connection to the federal government..We’ve seen this political maneuver before, and we know how it ends. It’s time for Kenney to serve to long-term interests of the province. He must resist the temptation of rushing toward a pyrrhic victory on TMX and navigate these treacherous waters carefully.
