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Mackenzie point-man steps down
Gary Park For Petroleum News
A surprise departure from the Canadian government has created even more turmoil around the Mackenzie Gas Project.
On top of uncertainty over the regulatory and economic aspects of the C$16.2 billion project, the Canadian government’s role in the project was turned on its head when Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced Nov. 4 that he was leaving politics for a job as vice chairman of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, one of Canada’s top five banks.
Rated as Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most trusted lieutenant and once of the few in government to have the respect of the opposition parties, Prentice was head-hunted by the bank as he was closing in on his own self-imposed deadline of 10 years in politics. He held three posts during five years in cabinet, the last two in environment.
Whatever ambitions he might have had to succeed Harper as leader of the Conservative party were virtually ruled out by the fact that both men come from Calgary.
Prentice says he’s finished Prentice is adamant he has finished with politics, saying he is “closing that chapter,” despite speculation he is young enough at 54 to make a return.
His cabinet legacy included a reformed First Nations land claims process, a 30 percent increase in the land base for national parks, a timetable to phase out coal-fired power plants and a science-based investigation of the oil sands’ impact on regional water supplies.
But his record was overshadowed by an international campaign against the oil sands and his own government’s failure to impose a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions, pending leadership action by the United States. That left Prentice to field ridicule at international climate-change conferences.
He also carried the cabinet file on the MGP, leaving no doubt that he was a strong backer of commercializing oil and natural gas in Canada’s North.
But observers believe he was unable to gain cabinet support to spend federal money on MGP infrastructure or to sign off on a fiscal agreement for the project.
Sources say John Baird, leader of the government in the House of Commons, will be environment minister and have responsibility for the MGP on an interim basis.
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