With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/411627
44 BCBusiness December 2014 john gaucher September on the promise of pursuing new oil pipeline capacity as his top pri- ority. He is familiar with the obstacles faced in B.C. during his brief stint, early in 2014, as an envoy for Enbridge, tasked with trying to repair relations with First Nations on theWest Coast. Prentice knows that opposition won't easily be overcome. He sees Clark's five conditions as a guidebook to understanding what B.C. wants, and what changes are needed, to earn social licence. "Legitimate questions have been raised about protection of the environment and the role of the First Nations in environmental protec- tion and economic partnership," he says. "I always felt that the markers designed by Premier Clark would need to be addressed." Prentice was out of politics when Clark made a splash with her five conditions for approving oil pipelines in 2012. Today, he says he wishes his predecessor, Alison Redford, had recognized more quickly that B.C. had actually created a vehicle for pipelines to move ahead, not an obstruction. "I thought it was unfortunate we didn't make more progress," he says. He notes that he has been delivering the same message for five years—be it in federal politics, in private industry or wearing his hat for Enbridge. "I have repeatedly pointed out there will be no access for Alberta's energy resources to the tidewater on the West Coast unless there is a meaningful partnership with First Nations and a recognition of some of the issues that Premier Clark has put forward." With the deep opposition to the Enbridge project in particular, the B.C. government appears comfortable to stay out of the fray—leaving it to indus- try and other governments to resolve the remaining issues. The accommo- dation of First Nations' interest will likely prove the most difficult of B.C.'s five conditions to address, but there remains the contentious issue of just how much B.C. is due as a "fair share" of the financial benefits. Clark is wait- ing for industry to make the "what's in it for us" case to British Columbians; the province has never said just what that share should be, only that the expected slice of the pie isn't enough. In the end, weighing the risk against the benefit will be a complex formula, and it will ultimately be decided at the political level—and in the boardroom. Alberta has already made it clear that it will not share its royalties, so B.C. is expecting pipeline proponents to stand and deliver. Whether it is Kinder Morgan or Enbridge, or some other new champion of an oil pipeline, B.C. is waiting for an offer it can't refuse. One former politician with an inti- mate understanding of all these com- peting interests is Stockwell Day. The former federal Conservative MP from B.C. is also a former cabinet minister in the Alberta government and played an important role in Clark's electoral victory in 2013, campaigning at the BC Liberal leader's side to help her shore up her party's right-of-centre support. Using his political connections in Edmonton, Victoria and Ottawa, Day has been working behind the scenes as a broker, trying to forge some common ground between the two provinces and the federal government. (Day is also a senior advisor to Pacific Future Energy, a Vancouver company that hopes to build a $10-billion "green" oil refinery along B.C.'s north coast.) Day sees a path for more Alberta oil to reach B.C.'s ports. As an insider in the BC Liberals' 2013 election cam- paign, he followed the party's intensive polling on the oil pipeline issue that helped Clark craft a position that she could sell to voters. "We did a lot of polling before and during the elec- tion," he says. "One of the things we really drilled down into was the whole issue of social licence. What we found was the majority of British Columbians said, If it is safe environmentally, if First Nations have been properly dealt with, and if there is a net economic benefit—that's the trifecta—then the support for a pipeline is there." The five conditions happen to cover that trifecta. "It was brilliant politics on the part of Premier Clark to be stand- ing up for British Columbia and the environment and saying it's not going to happen without these five condi- tions. But the really brilliant part is that it was also the right thing to do." Tempering his praise, Day offers the premier a cautionary note against overplaying her hand. Does B.C. need Alberta and its oil dollars? Maybe not today, but perhaps tomorrow: "As hopeful as we are about LNG in B.C., people are realizing you can't put all your energy eggs in one pipeline." ■ Alberta Premier Jim Prentice. " Legitimate questions have been raised about protection of the environment and the role of the First Nations in environmental protection and economic partnership" —Alberta Premier Jim Prentice 38% Of British Columbians say the Enbridge Northern Gateway project should proceed the west speaKs out