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How else can we explain why almost alone, Canada has no national energy plan, and is doing no studies on energy security for Eastern Canadians who now heavily rely on imports from OPEC countries for their oil?
The Energy Supplies Allocation Board, set up in 1985 to determine mandatory allocation of energy in case of shortages, seems as if it’s not staffed. The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness was asked in a telephone inquiry about contingency plans for an international oil crisis that would cut oil to Eastern Canadians.
The reply: we’ve never thought of it.
It’s similar with the National Energy Board. Despite its mandate to “promote safety and security ... in the Canadian public interest,” it wrote me that “unfortunately, the NEB has not undertaken any studies on security of supply.”
I asked the NEB if Canada is considering setting up a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, like 24 of 26 members of the International Energy Agency. They replied that Canada was “exempted from establishing a reserve” because “Canada is a net exporting country whereas the other members are net importers.”
That’s a reasonable assumption for Norway, which sensibly supplies its own citizens, before exporting surpluses. But Canada imports about 40 per cent of its oil, 850,000 barrels per day, to meet 90 per cent of Atlantic Canada’s and Quebec’s needs, and 40 per cent of Ontario’s.
Western Canada can’t supply all of Eastern Canadian needs because NAFTA reserves Canadian oil for Americans’ security of supply. Canada now exports 63 per cent of our oil and 56 per cent of our natural gas. Those export shares are currently locked in by NAFTA’s proportionality clause, which requires us to not reduce recent export proportions. Mexico refused proportionality.
Although we have more than enough oil to meet Canadians needs, Canada is the most exposed IEA member. Meanwhile, the U.S. is doubling its strategic petroleum reserve.
The U.S. has a “national energy policy.” The Congressional House has a committee on “Energy independence and global warming.” U.S. officials talk ‘national’ energy policies to their own citizens and only switch terminology to ‘North American’ when speaking with Canadians and Mexicans.
Stephen Harper boasts that Canada is an ‘emerging energy superpower’. Hardly. Through the SPP, the US hopes to extend its national energy policy to incorporate Canada even more tightly as its energy satellite, and to end Mexico’s history of energy independence, celebrated each year as a national holiday. Canadians must choose whether we wish to supply the most energy wasteful country on earth until our conventional oil and gas soon run out, or opt for independence, cut production and consumption, and lower carbon emissions.
After Montebello, Canadians will hopefully awaken to the SPP threat, and tell their political leaders to look after Canadians first. If our governments don’t, who will ensure that easterners don’t “freeze in the dark” when looming international oil shortages strike?
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