The government of Alberta’s decision to become the principal proponent of a planned West Coast pipeline is perhaps the strongest proof yet that the Asian energy export market is a myth.

As reported by The Globe and Mail, the government of Danielle Smith has decided Alberta will financially support the project, given no private sector proponent has come forward. Both Alberta and the federal government had repeatedly insisted the pipeline would be backed by private interests rather than the public purse. The potential cost to the public is considerable: the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline project ultimately cost more than $40 billion, there’s evidence to suggest that pipeline may never recoup its cost to the public, and Canada’s fossil fuel sector receives tens of billions in annual government subsidies, as well.  

If exporting oil to Asia was even remotely as sure a bet as politicians, lobbyists and other fossil fuel boosters have so consistently alleged, the rebranded Oil Sands Alliance — with its combined net worth already in the hundreds of billions of dollars — would have had no problem putting up the capital for the project. Instead, the alliance’s member companies demurred, knowing that, between PrIme Minister Mark Carney and Smith, the political class had worked themselves into a corner and one or the other would come through to offload the expense onto an unwitting public. 

Canada’s fossil fuel sector appears to have been walking away from its end of the grand bargain, as the business case for Asian oil exports went from bad to worse. And given political servility to oil and gas interests, to say nothing of the threat of Alberta separatism, the fossil fuel sector likely........

© National Observer