David Staples: Alberta’s strange referendum on whether we’re angrier at Kenney or Quebec politicians against oil

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Albertans are about to have the strangest of provincial referenda, a vote on whether we are angrier at Prime Minister Jason Kenney or at Quebec politicians who have led efforts to thwart and denigrate Alberta’s oil industry. .

It’s going to be the closest call, I suspect.

The real question in the Kenney administration’s Oct. 18 referendum is whether the commitment to make matching payments should be removed from the Constitution.

In this century alone, Alberta paid $ 324 billion more to Canada than it has received in transfers and federal expenditures, such as equalization, said Bill Bewick, CEO of Canada. Fairness Alberta, a group formed to fight for Alberta’s economic interests, who debated Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary, on Thursday on the referendum.

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The referendum issue is puzzling primarily because Albertans in general are grateful for our prosperity and have deep ties to other Canadians. This means that we are somewhat willing to help pay for social programs across the country, including federal matching, which causes taxpayers in rich provinces to fund social programs in poorer provinces.

Albertans have only one stipulation to break agreements about making these kinds of wealth transfers: leave us alone, free to pursue our economic interests with as much energy, creativity, and hard work as we can.

In recent years, however, that social contract has been repeatedly violated. Quebec politicians, in particular, have led aggressive efforts to thwart Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

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Things heated up in 2016 when Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre led the charge against Energy East, a pipeline that would have ensured Canada’s energy security by moving Alberta’s oil across the country to the Maritimes. But Coderre pointed to the environmental risk of the project and the lack of economic benefits for Montreal.

In October 2017, when pipeline company TransCanada discontinued the project, Coderre celebrated. “It is a huge victory.”

In fact, it was a great victory, but not for the environment, Quebec or Canada.

Less Alberta oil does not mean less oil used by Quebec consumers. It means less oil in pipelines and more oil in foreign trains and tankers. It means more oil from foreign countries, including the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela with their dubious dire environmental and social policies.

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Between 1988 and 2020, Canada spent nominal $ 488 billion on foreign oil imports, says a new report from the Canadian Energy Center. “Quebec is by far the largest importer of foreign oil in Canada, importing $ 228 billion in foreign oil since 1988.”

It’s not just Albertans who were upset in 2017 by the disappearance of Energy East. Global News national commentator Charles Adler also pointed out how misguided Coderre’s joy was. “The reason children in Quebec are in a daycare system where parents pay as little as $ 7.55 a day is because of the multiple billions of dollars that flow to Quebec in compensation payments, courtesy of Alberta. .. How does one of Quebec’s most prominent politicians show gratitude for the massive gifts each year from Albertans? Dancing on their graves “.

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Of course, it didn’t stop there. In December 2019, Quebec Prime Minister François Legault referred to Alberta’s “dirty oil” and said that “there was no social acceptance of oil in Quebec.”

Bewick put all of this together in the opening lines of his debate on Thursday. “Ottawa has shifted too much wealth from Albertans to Quebec and the Maritimes for too long, and in recent years it has even become hostile to the work of our energy sector, from which much of that wealth has been generated. This is not fair, and this referendum is intended to put the issue of wealth transfer on the national agenda. “

Tombe argued that Alberta’s own Peter Lougheed was strongly in favor of equalization, as it gives all provinces the ability to provide reasonably comparable levels of social services without overly high taxes. There is room to improve the EQ, but that requires us to be productively involved, Tombe said. “This referendum only increases tensions, inflames polarization and makes it more difficult to achieve sensible reform.”

On this last point, I differ from Tombe. It is Alberta sharing her wealth with others, only to be despised and frustrated by them, which has increased the tensions here.

Alberta needs to find a way to shake the box, to spark a national debate on a more sensible pipeline policy and a more reasonable and fair deal between the provinces. This referendum is one way to do it, although it could well be that this consideration is absorbed by the general outrage against Kenney over his COVID policy and the desire not to give him a political victory.

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