Commentary: Diversifying Canada’s energy markets and streamlining the regulatory process

Canada is on the edge of a historic choice: to diversify our energy markets away from our traditional trading partner in the U.S., or to continue with the status quo. 

Virtually all our energy exports go to the U.S. As a country, we must seek new markets for our products and services, and the booming Asia-Pacific economies have shown great interest in our oil, gas, metals and minerals. For our government, the choice is clear: we need to diversify our markets and create jobs and economic growth for Canadians across this country. We must expand our trade with the fast-growing Asian economies. We know that increasing trade will help ensure the financial security of Canadians and their families. 

Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydroelectric dams.

These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical, ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loopholes they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest. They attract jet-setting celebrities with some of the largest personal carbon footprints in the world to lecture Canadians about not developing our natural resources. Finally, if all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further. They do this because they know it can work. It works because it delays a project to the point that it becomes economically unviable. 

Anyone looking at the record of approvals for certain major projects across Canada cannot help but conclude that the projects have been delayed for too long. In many cases these projects could create thousands of jobs for Canadians, yet they take years to get started owing to the slow, complex and cumbersome regulatory process. 

For example, the Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline review took more than nine years to complete. In comparison, the western expansion of the nation-building Canadian Pacific Railway under Sir John A. Macdonald took four years. Under our system, building a temporary ice arena on a frozen pond in Banff required the approval of the federal government. This delayed a decision by two months – two, valuable months to assess something that thousands of Canadians have been doing for over a century.

Our regulatory system must be fair, independent, consider different viewpoints including those of Aboriginal communities, review the evidence dispassionately and then make an objective determination. It must be based on science and the facts. We believe reviews for major projects can be accomplished in a quicker and more streamlined fashion. We do not want projects that are safe, generate thousands of new jobs and open up new export markets to die in the approval stage because of unnecessary delays. 

Unfortunately, the system seems to have lost sight of this balance over the past years. It is broken. It is time to take a look at it.

It is an urgent matter of Canada’s national interest.

– The author is Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources. The preceding open letter was first published on Jan. 9, 2012.