Northern resource corridor pitched

Andrew Scheer, leader of Canada’s Conservative party, calls for creation of corridor to end foreign crude oil imports by 2030

Gary Park

for Petroleum News

The leader of Canada’s Conservative party and a serious contender to topple Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a national election scheduled for October has rolled out his plan for a new coast-to-coast energy corridor aimed at jump starting economic activity in Western Canada and ending foreign oil imports by 2030.

Andrew Scheer said a northern “right of way” connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans could “minimize environmental impacts, lower the costs of environmental assessments, increase certainty for investors and, most importantly, get crucial projects built.”

He said the planning and consulting for the corridor would be conducted up front, sparing industry from the complicated process of submitting proposals for new projects.

The idea would be developed in full consultation with provinces and indigenous communities, Scheer said.

In laying out a “positive vision” for the economy, Scheer said Trudeau has turned Canada into a country that says “no” to everything by squandering a “booming labor market, world-leading clean technology and a rich abundance of a finite resource the world demands. We have a winning lottery ticket. And he wants to throw it away.”

“Instead of unity ... Trudeau has sown division,” through an “all-out attack on oil,” he said.

If he wins the election, Scheer pledged that Canada would pursue a goal of meeting all of Canada’s crude oil needs over the next decade, ending imports from “rogue” states such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia that “abuse human rights and take virtually no steps to protect the environment.”

Delivering on that objective would end the reliance on Quebec refineries of crude imports from the Middle East, Africa and the United States that have an estimated annual cost of C$11 billion.

But one of his toughest tests would be engaging Quebec in the corridor project at a time when that province is firmly opposed to either buying more oil sands crude from Alberta or even allowing crude bitumen to cross Quebec on its way to Atlantic Canada refineries and export terminals.

Hydroelectric included

The concept of establishing a corridor is not new, dating back three years to a multi-modal concept proposed by academics at the University of Calgary and CIRANO (a center that brings together researchers from Montreal universities) serving as a highway, rail line and telecommunications link as well as oil, natural gas and hydroelectricity.

A Canadian Senate committee on banking, trade and commerce endorsed the proposal as a visionary project “that could unlock extraordinary economic potential.”

Although no specific geographic route for the corridor was formalized, the initial proposal would cover about 4,200 miles, following the boreal forest across the northern region of Western Canada and continue across northern Ontario and Quebec to Labrador.

An earlier version of the concept was floated in 1970 without making any progress.

Other similar schemes have involved plans for a C$16 billion pipeline led by First Nations from the oil sands to a port near Prince Rupert, while the Northwest Territories government has been working for years to win over the Canadian government on a multi-purpose resource route along the Mackenzie Valley.