Looking for a dance partner

Leader of Canada’s socialist opposition party gives priority to domestic crude pipeline from west to east, opposes Northern Gateway

Gary Park

For Petroleum News

Thomas Mulcair, the leader of Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party, is now offering to partner with Canada’s right-of-center petroleum industry after a year of alienating much of the sector.

When first elected to head the main opposition party in the Canadian Parliament he blamed the energy sector for undermining the national economy by inflating the value of the Canadian dollar at the cost of the manufacturing sector, attacked the use of fracturing techniques to develop shale deposits and voiced his criticism of plans to ship oil sands crude to the United States and Asia.

He has continued to accuse Prime Minister Stephen Harper of “gutting” Canada’s environmental laws to accelerate regulatory approval of major resource projects, while arguing that foreign investment in the industry poses a threat to Canadian sovereignty, including control over natural resources.

But, in a late February visit to Calgary, he also said the construction of pipelines from Western Canada to Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic region should be a national priority to build energy security, get higher prices for Canadian crude and create jobs.

Promises to partner

“We will be there with you,” he said, while pressuring the industry to work harder to obtain a “social license” to operate, hold serious consultations with First Nations and correct the impression that many executives around board tables want to “get rid of environmental legislation.”

Mulcair also struck a chord with many in the industry by insisting that the Harper government’s new foreign investment rules for the oil sands, blocking takeovers by state-owned enterprises in other than “exceptional circumstances,” remain obscure following its approval in December of China National Offshore Oil Corp’s acquisition of Nexen and the takeover of Progress Energy Resource by Malaysia’s Petronas.

He said Harper has failed to explain which foreign-initiated takeovers will be permitted and disclose what commitments have been made by the purchasers.

Mulcair described the CNOOC-Nexen deal as “a tragic deal for Canada” because the government failed to act on Alberta’s call for guarantees from CNOOC that 50 percent of its management positions would be held by Canadians, that workforce levels would be maintained for five years and that planned capital spending would become a priority.

Call for overhaul

Mulcair said that if Canada ratifies its Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China, CNOOC could demand and receive “national treatment” for future expansion in Canada.

Should CNOOC believe that its right to expand oil sands holdings was impeded, the legislation would give it the right to sue the federal government, and even before an international tribunal, he said.

Mulcair also said that once CNOOC is on the same level as a domestic Canadian company its “right to purchase new leases will not be subject to review,” while undermining the Alberta government’s constitutional control over its natural resources.

What Mulcair hasn’t changed is his “adamant opposition” to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.

“It is madness to think of bringing supertankers into the pristine (West Coast waters). It is a non-starter and the most abject misunderstanding of the importance of protecting the environment that I have ever seen in Canada,” he said.

On the future of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline currently awaiting a final decision from the U.S. government, he offered only a terse comment.

“That’s up to the Americans,” Mulcair said. “I would have made it a priority to take as much (crude) as we could from the West to Eastern Canada. The rest, I’ll leave up to the Americans.”