Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Sunday, July 29, 2012

A pipeline to provincial politics

In 1966, when Joey Smallwood, then the premier of Newfoundland, was trying to dam the massive Churchill River in Labrador, he got frustrated that Quebec wouldn’t let him build power lines to southern markets.

Smallwood wanted to ask Lester Pearson, then the prime minister, to invoke Clause 10 of Section 92 of the British North America Act, which allows Ottawa to assert jurisdiction over interprovincial projects if parliament declares them to be “for the general advantage of Canada.”

Smallwood later described his meeting with Pearson.

“Mr. Pearson said, ‘Joe, I know why you are here and if you ask me I’ll have to say yes, otherwise we would not really be a country. But I’m asking you not to ask me because we will not be able to keep the towers up.’ ”

So Smallwood didn’t ask Pearson, and Newfoundland instead foolishly signed a 65-year deal selling the electricity to Quebec at a fixed rate, which means that Hydro-Québec has been profiting hugely for decades, while Newfoundland gets next to nothing.

Newfoundland is now trying to develop another waterfall lower down the river, and complains that Quebec has used opaque regulatory processes to again block it from building transmission lines.

Instead of agreeing to another deal like the first one, Newfoundland wants to build a $1.2-billion, 30-kilometre subsea link to Nova Scotia, which seems like a lot of bother, what with Quebec just sitting there.

But in practical terms, whatever the law says, Quebec gets to decide who builds transmission lines on its territory.

It’s the same with British Columbia, and the proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline from northern Alberta to Kitimat, where supertankers would load bitumen for refining in China.

This week, B.C. Premier Christy Clark said that her province won’t approve the project unless B.C. gets its “fair share” of income from the deal.

There’s a lot of money at stake. Over 30 years, the project would generate $81 billion in tax revenue for Ottawa and the provinces, but B.C. wouldn’t get much of that.

I am sympathetic to the British Columbians who oppose this project. Nobody can guarantee that there won’t be a tanker spill in the treacherous waters of the Douglas Channel, and the consequences of a spill would be heartbreaking and catastrophic. And the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board recently chided the “Keystone Kops” at Enbridge for a “tragic and needless” 2010 Michigan spill.

Clark, who will likely lose power to the NDP in May 2013, said the pipeline is a no-go unless the deal gets sweeter.

“This project is good for Canada,” she said. “It’s great for Alberta and at the moment it’s not very good for British Columbia.”

Her position angered Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall and Alberta’s Alison Redford, who said Clark wants to “fundamentally change confederation.”

“When you start doing that, that means every commercial project in Canada will now become or would become a matter for interprovincial negotiation,” she said.

While B.C. Conservative MPs sweated silently, Alberta’s Jason Kenney, the immigration minister, said Clark wants to “massively undermine the whole concept of an economic union and efficient operation of the Canadian economy.”

History suggests, though, that Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ottawa and Enbridge would be wise to quietly work to give British Columbia what it wants, because while Ottawa theoretically could force the pipeline through, that is likely not practical.

Clause 10 of Section 92 of the Constitution does allow for Ottawa to unilaterally exert jurisdiction over interprovincial pipeline projects that are “for the general advantage of Canada,” and in an interview in January, Prime Minister Stephen Harper hinted that it is possible.

“What I think I’d make clear is that I believe selling our energy products to Asia is in the country’s national interest,” he said. “It is in our interests for all kinds of reasons, that we diversify our exports, particularly our energy exports.”

The government has acted to “streamline” environmental approvals for such projects, over the strenuous objections of environmentalists.

Harper’s team has also attacked environmentalists, suggesting they are in the pay of foreign radicals, and threatened to take away the tax shelter of charities that do too much politicking, so he looks deadly serious.

But no matter how much the prime minister might like to ram this pipeline through, he likely won’t be any more anxious to invoke Clause 10 than Pearson was.

Peter Hogg, the constitutional expert who advised Michaëlle Jean during the prorogation crisis, wrote in Constitutional Law of Canada that the clause “is in conflict with the classical principles of federalism, because it enables the federal Parliament, by its own unilateral act, to increase its own powers and diminish those of the provinces.”

Because of that, Hogg writes, Ottawa appears “sensitive to the anomalous character of the power,” and is now inclined to use it “sparingly.”

Harper has always opposed such federal intrusions into areas of provincial jurisdiction.

So no matter what anyone might think in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Houston or Beijing, this project likely won’t get done unless British Columbia wants it.

Original Article
Source: montreal gazette
Author: Stephen Maher

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