January 22, 2008

The timing couldn't be better for a national energy program
in Canada.

We are burning fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow.
Unfortunately for our children and grandchildren there will
be a tomorrow so it might be a good idea to start planning
now.

In the absence of a national plan, nothing is done. Or
worse, irrational regulations develop. Despite the fact
that we have large oil fields, we have no oil security. In
the event of a global crisis or national emergency, we would
be scrambling for fuel to run our industries, drive our
cars, and heat our homes. Unlike the U.S., we have no
stockpile of oil. They have the world's largest
government-owned emergency stockpile of crude oil in the
world.

Unlike our other partner in NAFTA, Mexico, we must supply
the U.S. with our oil even if we are running out.

But what about the Security and Prosperity Partnership being
negotiated between Canada and the U.S., you might ask?
Wouldn't partners want security and prosperity for each
other? That might be true except that it's their security
and their prosperity which are being negotiated, not ours.

Then there's our irrational distribution system. Canada
imports oil despite our huge oil fields. While Western
Canada is busy pumping oil south, Central and Eastern Canada
are importing oil from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

The U.S. as a country understands what we don't: take care
of yourself first. While one part of Canada fuels a U.S.
war machine that Canadians loathe, the other part goes
shopping for oil in uncertain global markets.

That's not all. Lacking any good sense, the government of
B.C. ensures the price of electricity will rise by
contracting out power generation to private companies while
prohibiting publicly-owned plants that produce cheap power.

And Alberta is digging oil sand out of the ground at a
reckless pace. Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed
bemoans the hasty development of the oil sands. He
advocates controlled development, one plant at a time. That
would allow for some control of the environmental and
economic impacts.

Instead, the sticky goo is being dug up faster than it can
be refined. Reminiscent of B.C.'s shipment of raw logs to
the U.S., Lougheed laments the transfer of Alberta's jobs
south. He told delegates at an energy conference in Calgary
"I just find it completely unacceptable that our resource
involves shipping jobs down the pipeline with bitumen to the
United States."

Mining of bitumen from the oil sands is the single largest
contributor to greenhouse gas in Canada. The oilsands use
as much water daily as the city of Calgary but unlike the
city, they leave the water so polluted that it can't be
reused.

Alberta's oilsands are the reverse of the ancient alchemy
which turned lead into gold. The oilsands transform
clean-burning natural gas into dirty oil. The daily natural
gas consumption could heat three million homes a day but all
you get for your trouble is a messy sludge that requires
more refining.

Dirty oil is getting harder to sell to markets like
California because they demand imports that don't produce
unacceptable greenhouse gases. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach
was recently in Washington trying to assure Americans that
no, no, our oils sands are as soft on the environmental as
the morning dew.

Alberta's economy is spinning apart from uncontrolled
oilsands growth as workers can no longer afford to live even
with skyrocketing wages. And the infrastructure - - the
construction of schools, hospitals and roads - - can't keep
pace.

A national energy program could bring some sanity to
Canada's incoherent energy scene and Prime Minister Harper's
Conservative government has the best chance in decades
because he is from the West.

The last prime minister from Central Canada who tried to
impose a national energy policy was Prime Minister Trudeau
and he ended up a hated man in Alberta. Resentment still
lingers from the former infamous National Energy Program of
1980 which was seen as an oil grab.

Canadians have a chance to let our prime minister know how
important a national energy policy is on Saturday, February
2. That's when the Council of Canadians is organizing a
national day of action on Canadian energy strategy and the
local chapter is involved.

Nature abhors a vacuum and thoughtful Canadians hate the
hollow where our energy policy should be.
 

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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