Northern Gateway: A Comparative Analysis of the Positions of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and earth scientist David Hughes of the Post Carbon Institute

The Northern Gateway pipeline, first announced by Enbridge in 2002,¹ is a proposed double pipeline running a 1,177 km route from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia carrying 525,000 barrels of oil per day west to the coast for export, and 193,000 barrels of condensate a day back east for use in thinning oil for transport from the tar sands.² The route, which crosses “more than 800 streams and rivers, including sensitive salmon spawning habitat in the upper Fraser, Skeena, and Kitimat watersheds,”³ has led to dedicated resistance from many within British Columbia, alongside a great many within Canada as a whole. Recommended for approval in December 2013 by a federal Joint Review Panel with 209 conditions attached,⁴ the project had already met a second level of conditional approval with the provincial government of Christy Clark when she laid out her five conditions for similar acceptance in British Columbia in June of the same year.⁵ However, until and unless all of these conditions are met, Northern Gateway will remain stalled in the planning phase.

In full support of the project is the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), the influential advocacy group for—and legitimate representative of—Canada's oil and natural gas industries on a whole.⁶ The support stems from CAPP seeing great potential for profits from new markets, job creation and growth, and industry expansion. Following Northern Gateway's conditional approval, in June of 2014, CAPP's vice-president Greg Stringham spelled out company line in a short news release praising the decision, saying it is “another important step for Canada to access global markets and world prices, and earn full value for our oil resource. While more work needs to be done to achieve this goal, significant progress has been made, including work by the federal and B.C. governments and industry to ensure world-class land and marine safety systems.”⁷ One primary goal for CAPP and the companies it represents is an obvious one in the case of Northern Gateway: to further open Asian markets to Canadian oil,⁸ even if it means ramping up tar sands production to dangerously unsustainable levels.

On the other side of the debate is David J. Hughes, a prolific and credited earth scientist, president of the environmentally-minded consultancy group Global Sustainability Research, and a senior fellow with the Post Carbon Institute, an alternative energy think-tank based out of Santa Rosa, California.⁹ His opposition stems primarily from his focus on sustainability and issues of climate change, seeing in Northern Gateway the same concerns shared amongst many of the projects opponents: further potential for pollution and environmental degradation. His rationale for opposition also extends beyond the realm of environmentalism, however, as he argues that the relentless focus on maximizing economic growth is too short-sighted when the non-renewable nature of these petroleum resources is considered. Hughes argues that “[p]roposals such as Northern Gateway ... require uncontrolled growth to the detriment of the national interest” and that “the non-renewable nature of the majority of the energy inputs to Canadian society ... represents an extreme vulnerability to the long term energy security interests of Canadians.”¹⁰ In a 31 page report on Northern Gateway published in 2011 by Forest Ethics Canada, Hughes suggests that a National Energy Strategy geared towards sustainably safeguarding both environmental interests and long term energy security would be in the wisest interest of all Canadians, as without one, “there are no constraints on the uncontrolled liquidation of Canada’s intrinsic energy resources.”¹¹

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, with millions of dollars in industry money behind it, is able to afford the cost of advertising campaigns to present its positions and push its collective agenda nation-wide. In 2012, CAPP bought a half-page advertisement in the Globe and Mail with a picture of an arcadian forest bathed in the golden glow of sunrise;¹² superimposed across the picture was a headline that read: “Energy the world needs. The approach Canadians expect.”¹³ Shirking specific details, the only time the word 'oil' made an appearance was in the provided URL: “OilSandsToday.ca.”¹⁴ The ad's fine print notes the homely arcadian forest is “a ... reclaimed mining operation ... in Alberta’s vast boreal forest, executed by [Canada's largest single source producer of synthetic crude oil,¹⁵] Syncrude.”¹⁶ With this, the advertisement spells out its ultimate intention to create and peddle a friendlier image of Canadian oil, one which associates the industry with some level of environmental responsibility, utilizing vague feel-good mottos and pristine nature images to this effect. Similar CAPP advertisements continue to appear in Canadian newspapers, magazines, websites, and television, always attempting to craft and maintain a market presence that does not conjure up images of black crude bubbling up from within a fissured pipeline.

David Hughes, as an individual, doesn't have the same level of financial backing. He does, however, have the backing of the Post Carbon Institute and is thus able to disseminate his positions on energy via research papers he publishes through the think-tank.¹⁷ He has separately been able to publish through other organizations as well such as Forest Ethics Canada, as was already mentioned on the previous page, and, as was also previously mentioned, he is the president of the Global Sustainability Research energy consultancy group. He has written detailed reports which have called to task many diverse players involved in the energy market,¹⁸ including Enbridge and CAPP,¹⁹ picking apart each organization's forecast reports to create credible contrary reports of his own. In his report “The Northern Gateway Pipeline: an affront to the public interest and long term energy security of Canadians,” Hughes points out that “[t]he need for this pipeline is based on oil exports that would be generated by the Enbridge forecast of more than tripling oil sands production in Alberta by 2035 over 2010 production levels,”²⁰ and that “[e]ven in CAPP’s “growth” scenario, which would see oil sands production grow by two and a half times over 2010 levels by 2025, there is sufficient capacity in existing and near term planned export pipelines”²¹ meaning, primarily for the sake of practicality, that the Northern Gateway pipeline is not necessary, and that its supposed benefits are deliberately embellished and/or unrealistically optimistic.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, at least until the recent election in October 2015, spent money and effort not simply lobbying the federal or provincial governments, but, as has been shown, the general populace as well. In June 2014, as the debate on Northern Gateway was at a critical pitch in British Columbia, CAPP's Vice President yet again decided to push industry line, entering the debate with an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun. In it, he finishes with a forceful plea to end one-half of the debate, demanding: “[w]e need to turn the conversation to how we do this responsibly, not whether we can do it at all.”²² This is, at its core, the same plea Hughes is making, though he's directing it at the industry, pointing out that the perceived need for the Northern Gateway pipeline is based on industry-authored forecasts by Enbridge and CAPP which assume an “unreasonable ... oilsands production growth rate” of more than tripling output by 2035 over 2010 levels.²³ “There already is enough export pipeline capacity for a reasonable ramp up in oilsands. You could double them and still not run out of capacity,”²⁴ Hughes argues. The considerably more aggressive forecast put out by Enbridge amounts to a “no-holds-barred liquidation” of the natural resource,²⁵ meaning it is based on projections which imply the oilsands will be ruthlessly stripped of all petrol-based resource value over the course of the next couple of decades. Not only is this a very serious environmental concern, it is also, as Hughes elaborates in the title of his report, “[a]n affront to the public interest and long term energy security of Canadians.”²⁶ Even within the most reductive form of industry logic—guaranteeing future access to petrol and opportunity for profit—this is not a sustainable business plan. Since the project has been conditionally approved, however, and has thus gone through the review process and is now subject to its 209 conditions, CAPP believes that “naysayers missed their chance.”²⁷ After “18 First Nations, environmental groups and a labour union”²⁸ launched an appeal directed towards overturning the regulatory approval of Northern Gateway, Lewis Manning, a lawyer representing CAPP, told a Federal Court of Appeal in Vancouver that “the joint review panel made ... every conceivable effort ... to accommodate participation and would have done its best to mitigate any concerns.”²⁹ Unfortunately for Manning and CAPP Vice President Greg Stringham, the debate has not (and likely will not) move away from whether or not it should be done in the first place, as many, including David Hughes, would stand firm in the conviction that to “turn the conversation to how we do this responsibly”³⁰ may mean not doing it at all.

It is unlikely, then, with all these factors considered, that there would be any meaningful way to reconcile CAPP's strong position in favour of Northern Gateway with Mr. Hughes's equally strong rebuttal. CAPP, as the lobby group representative of Canada's oil industry on a whole, has a salesman's mandate to embellish the facts and sell these projects to the public. Though they are wisely responsive to opposition and critique, they are also locked into whatever self-aggrandizing bias is needed to push their product. David Hughes, on the other hand, sees no good reason for the project to go ahead, arguing that it currently undermines both the public interest and the country's long term energy security. Though he is not necessarily against all pipeline infrastructure, as a senior fellow with the Post Carbon Institute he is part of an organization which is considering alternatives to fossil fuels. It follows that he would be wary of developing any new oil infrastructure that further locks us into an expanded dependence for the foreseeable future. As Premier Christy Clark has even begun to say, companies cannot simply rely on meeting the basic legal requisites for project development and construction, but must also secure meaningful social license in every community affected. Otherwise, it won't matter if the debate shifts from whether such projects can or cannot be built to how to build them responsibly. They will simply remain stalled in the planning phase unto perpetuity, just as the Northern Gateway project is at the time of writing.

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1 - Global News. “Northern Gateway: Timeline”. Global News, June 17th, 2014.

2 - Enbridge. “Gateway Facts: Project Overview”. Northern Gateway official website.

3 - Pipe Up Against Enbridge. “The Enbridge Plan”. PipeUpAgainstEnbridge, 2012.

4 - Global News. “Northern Gateway: Timeline”.

5 - Enbridge. “Gateway Facts: Five Conditions”. Northern Gateway official website, 2013.

6 - Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. CAPP official website.

7 - Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. “Northern Gateway decision reflects measures to assure world-class safety, environmental performance and need for ongoing consultation”. CAPP official website. June 17th, 2014.

8 - Jones, Jeffrey & Brent Jang. “Northern Gateway pipeline approval boosts oil producers' Asia export hopes”. The Globe and Mail, December 19th, 2013.

9 - Post Carbon Institute. “Our People: David Hughes”. Post Carbon Institute official website.

10 - Hughes, J. David. The Northern Gateway Pipeline: an affront to the public interest and long term energy security of Canadians, 2.

11 - Hughes, J. David. The Northern Gateway Pipeline: an affront to the public interest and long term energy security of Canadians, 29.

12 - Turner, Chris. “The Oil Sands PR War”. Marketing Magazine, July 30^th, 2012.

13 - Ibid.

14 - Ibid.

15 - Syncrude. “Abous us”. Syncrude official website.

16 - Turner, Chris. “The Oil Sands PR War”. Marketing Magazine, July 30^th, 2012.

17 - Post Carbon Institute. “Our People: David Hughes”. Post Carbon Institute official website.

18 - Ibid.

19 - Hughes, J. David. The Northern Gateway Pipeline: an affront to the public interest and long term energy security of Canadians, 2.

20 - Hughes, J. David. The Northern Gateway Pipeline: an affront to the public interest and long term energy security of Canadians, 2.

21 - Ibid.

22 - Stringham, Greg. “Opinion: Canada can develop oil sands responsibly”. CAPP official website, June 26th, 2014.

23 - Krugel, Lauren. “Northern Gateway unnecessary: study”. The Globe and Mail, December 20th, 2011.

24 - Ibid.

25 - Ibid.

26 - Hughes, J. David. The Northern Gateway Pipeline: an affront to the public interest and long term energy security of Canadians, i.

27 - The Canadian Press. “Northern Gateway naysayers missed their chance: CAPP”. Maclean's, October 8th, 2015.

28 - Ibid.

29 - Ibid.

30 - Stringham, Greg. “Opinion: Canada can develop oil sands responsibly”. CAPP official website, June 26th, 2014.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AS A RESEARCH ESSAY FOR MY POLITICAL SCIENCE SPECIAL TOPIC COURSE ON PIPELINES AND POLITICS. IT IS NOT "A" GRADE MATERIAL (TO MY DISMAY), BUT IF ANYONE WISHES TO REQUEST A COPY OF THE CONNECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR FACT-CHECKING OR SOURCE VETTING, YOU MAY DO SO BY LEAVING A COMMENT BELOW, OR EMAILING ME AT: katvolver@yahoo.com