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Getting back to business Martin ducks June election; promises early decisions on Alaska, Mac gas lines Gary Park Petroleum News Canadian Correspondent
A last-minute defection by a Member of Parliament and a historic tie-breaking vote by the House of Commons Speaker saved the Canadian government of Prime Minister Paul Martin and kept alive hopes of early decisions to allow progress on the Alaska and Mackenzie Valley gas pipelines.
With the government facing a defeat on budget legislation that would have forced a June 27 election, Belinda Stronach, a high-profile member of the opposition Conservative party, was enticed into Liberal ranks with the offer of a cabinet post.
From almost certain defeat, the Liberals won a 153-152 vote on May 19 to survive through the summer recess and possibly to early 2006 when Martin has promised to call an election once a commission has delivered its findings on allegations that federal advertising money was steered to the Liberal party in Quebec.
The tipping point that averted an election came May 17 when Stronach, 39, who has been a Member of Parliament for less than a year, stunned Canadians by skipping from the Conservatives to the Liberals.
She was a former chief executive officer at Magna International, a global auto parts giant that was created by her father and employs about 82,000 people worldwide.
But it required House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken to give Liberals the single vote that kept them in power — a first in Canada’s 137-year history. Government can settle pipeline issues Survival of the Liberals means in the near-term is that the government can settle outstanding issues that stand in the way of the two pipelines that have been bogged down in indecision over several months.
The alternative was further delays through a five-week campaign, with the possibility of a Conservative victory resulting in a period of transition and the appointment of a new cabinet that would need time to get up to speed on the unresolved matters.
Whether the Liberals can actually reach agreement with all of the stakeholders on the two pipeline projects is another matter.
On the Alaska front, the key issue is whether the government will uphold the 1978 Northern Pipeline Act, effectively giving TransCanada the exclusive right to build the Canadian segment of the 2,500 mile system, or side with the case by Enbridge and North Slope gas owners that it is time to allow a “fair and competitive process” — effectively reopening the bidding.
In a new letter to Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, Enbridge Chief Executive Officer Patrick Daniel and Murray Birch, chief executive officer of the Alliance Pipeline (owned 50 percent by Enbridge) said competition would generate economic, social and environmental benefits.
They said a new regulatory process before the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency would give First Nations in the Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta the opportunity for “real consultation with real input”; environmental issues would get an up-to-date review; and the Canadian government would be able to articulate its required socio-economic and other benefits.
The CEOs also said they are prepared to work with TransCanada and any other parties who might form a consortium.
Spokesmen for Natural Resources Minister John Efford have said that the cabinet is close to making up its mind, but Efford’s own future is in doubt as he undergoes treatment for severe diabetes.
Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, while careful to avoid any hint of interfering in Canadian politics, has impressed on Martin the importance of a decision this summer if Alaska gas is to reach Lower 48 markets by 2012. More Mackenzie problems For the Mackenzie Gas Project, the closer the government moves to resolution with some of the aboriginal communities and the government in the Northwest Territories, the more new problems arise.
The latest surfaced on May 17 when a second aboriginal group filed a lawsuit in a bid to halt regulatory hearings on the C$7 billion project.
The Dene Tha’ First Nation, representing 2,500 residents in the lower Northwest Territories, northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta, want a judicial review of the regulatory process.
Although 60 miles of Mackenzie pipeline will be routed across Dene Tha’ traditional lands, attorneys say the community has never been advised of the process and is only now trying to join the negotiations.
The lawsuit said the Canadian government has failed to ensure that aboriginal concerns are taken into account over industrial development that would have a negative impact on wildlife and natural habitat.
Federal ministers of the environment, fisheries and oceans, Indian and northern affairs and transport are all named in the suit, along with the National Energy Board, the joint environmental review panel and Imperial Oil.
The Deh Cho are already pursuing court action, demanding more power in the regulatory process, while trying to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with the federal government. A further meeting is scheduled for late May to consider a new federal offer.
Had the Conservatives won an election they were ready to give urgency to resolving land-access and benefits disputes, said Jim Prentice, the party’s Indian and northern affairs spokesman.
He said the Mackenzie project would have received priority from a Conservative government because of the potential for northern Canada to become “one of the driving engines of the Canadian economy.”
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