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April 24, 2008 At the end of this week’s Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in New Orleans, Prime Minister Harper said that, "Canada really is confident that the next President will also understand the importance of NAFTA, and the importance of the commercial relationship between the United States and Canada.” Harper then emphasized what he understands to be “energy security,” meaning North American energy security. “Canada is the biggest and most stable supplier of energy to the United States in the world,” he said. “That energy security is more important now than it was 20 years ago when NAFTA was negotiated, and will be even more important in the future.” NAFTA energy provisions hurt Canada Linda Diebel highlighted in a Toronto Star article that: “Prime Minister Stephen Harper might have reminded the U.S. [during the SPP summit] how much it depends on Canadian energy imports – and thus, on NAFTA – but he neglected to mention the onerous terms for Canada. Or that an even greater grab for northern energy continues apace, without public consultation.” Diebel is first referring to NAFTA’s proportionality clause that commits Canada to maintaining current export levels to the U.S. even in times of shortage – a lousy deal that Mexico said no to when signing in 1994. Secondly, she is talking about the plan for a fivefold increase in tar sands production that will be guaranteed once several planned pipelines from Alberta to the U.S. are approved and constructed. “There was not one word about Canada's energy security,” Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, told a CanWest reporter this week. “Eastern Canada is still in a position where all of its oil must come through the United States even though it starts in Alberta and Saskatchewan.” Insecure energy supplies for Canada Statistics Canada reported in February that while Canada remains a net oil exporter, our imports have increased to 851,000 barrels of oil per day. About half of this amount comes from Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, while the remainder comes from Norway and the United Kingdom. A National Energy Board report also found that Canada will become a net importer of natural gas by around 2028 if current production and price trends continue, with the shortfall from dwindling Western Canadian output being met by liquefied natural gas from overseas. Greenhouse gas emissions related to energy exports jump 146 per cent The same day as Harper made his comments in New Orleans, Statistics Canada released a report that notes how energy production and consumption are by far the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada, comprising more than 80 percent of emissions in 2005. “As worldwide demand for energy has surged since 1990, GHG emissions from the production of exported energy have jumped 146 per cent,” claims the report. “Growth in investment in the oil sands has been rapid. Just a decade ago, investment by the industry was less than one-tenth that of the manufacturing sector. In 2008, producers intend to invest $19.7 billion in the oil sands, surpassing the $19.6 billion planned investment by the entire manufacturing sector." CBC Radio is reporting that Kinder Morgan Canada is constructing a pipeline from Edmonton through Jasper National Park and Mount Robson National Park in order to ship some 40,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands to the United States. High gas prices make a national energy policy a priority for Canadians CBC.ca also reported this week in a story, Gas prices approach all-time high, that: “The average price of regular gasoline jumped almost a nickel in the past week to $1.23 a litre, according to the latest national pump price survey by Calgary-based MJ Ervin & Associates. That price is second only to the price spike that followed Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, when the average pump price surged to $1.26 a litre.” Recent polling conducted by the Environics Research Group for the Council of Canadians demonstrates that 89 per cent of Canadians agree that Canada should establish an energy policy that provides reliable supplies of oil, gas and electricity at stable prices and protects the environment, even if this means placing restrictions on exports and foreign ownership of Canadian supplies.
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