Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice, one of Canada’s top bankers and a former trusted inside member of Harper’s cabinet, have a bit of advice for those frustrated with the U.S. government’s plodding progress towards a decision on Keystone XL: Be patient, President Barack Obama will be gone in three years.
Harper, who has been openly critical of Obama for “punting” on XL, now says the project is headed for a “necessary and inevitable victory,” if not under Obama than under his successor.
“I can’t see how it will be otherwise,” given that approval of the pipeline is “clearly and overwhelmingly in the national interest” of the United States, he said.
What is happening now with XL is interfering with a mutually beneficial energy relationship that was established during the Second World War when the U.S. War Department got an agreement to build a 600-mile pipeline across Canada’s north to supply a military base in Fairbanks.
Since then, in 1988 the Canadian government agreed to terms in the U.S.-Canada Free Trade pact that Canada would not reduce supplies of crude to the U.S. in times of shortages except on a mutual scale.
Prentice, who figures on most lists of contenders to replace Harper when the prime minister retires, urged Canadians to think beyond the Obama era if they favor elevating cross-border economic integration to a new level.
He said that includes pressing for an end to the logjam on XL, but may require Canada to set its sights on the next U.S. administration.
Once the next president is installed, Canada will have 18 months to capture Washington’s attention on bilateral issues.
“We must set our priorities, tailor our agenda and make our preparations with that small window of opportunity in mind,” Prentice told the Economic Club of Canada on Feb. 11.
He said the “comfortable and familiar relationship (between the U.S. and Canada) in the realm of energy has been radically transformed by North America’s supply revolution.”
While Canada waits for a new president, it must push forward on pipeline construction, especially to the British Columbia coast for oil sands crude and LNG exports to Asia, he said.
Prentice, whose cabinet postings under Harper included environment, also urged a greater focus on climate change, not exclusively on moral grounds, but as an economic imperative.
“Around the world, the wave of concern over climate change crested a few years ago, but those who are paying attention can see that the next wave is building,” he said.
“The wave will come and Canada needs to be ready for it. If you are in the energy business today, you are in the environment business,” Prentice said.
