Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

A time of walls

A number of years ago, I had a conversation with Pat Bell about trade. He was a minister at the time and responsible for economic development. My contention was simple.
col-whitcombe.01_4302018.jpg

A number of years ago, I had a conversation with Pat Bell about trade. He was a minister at the time and responsible for economic development.

My contention was simple. You could put up a big wall around British Columbia and we could manage as an isolated nation. His contention was fairly complex but boiled down we are a trading nation and rely on trade for much of our wealth.

Could you put up a wall around B.C.? Yes, but it would require a major reworking of our economy and a significant shift in the work force. For example, we would no longer need the 20 or so saw mills in the province. We could likely make do with one.

On the other hand, we would need automobile manufacturers, cell phone factories, and farmland to grow all of the food for our population which would mean converting developments back to agriculture. It could be done.

I mention this because we appear to be engaged in trade wars with our neighbours. Alberta is threatening to take action to limit the amount of oil entering our province which will have a significant impact on our economy. The United States and Canada are arguing over the North American Free Trade Agreement. And British Columbia is still engaged in a dispute over softwood lumber with our neighbours to the south.

Trade is critically important to our economy as it is presently constituted.

I have said before I do not think we should be simply exporters of raw materials. I have argued we need to move our economy to secondary manufacturing - to a value-added economy. We import many things we could be making right here which would provide skilled employment for our youth.

But having said that, we presently have an economy built in large part on exporting raw materials - whether it is wood, ore, and hydrocarbons. It is not going to change overnight. It will take a couple of decades to change the direction of the ship of state.

Which means we are wedded to the export of fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. Alberta is even more embedded in the fossil fuel economy. It is easy to see just how much their economy is linked to the resource by the deficits their government has run in the last couple of years. And those deficits are the result of decreased prices, not stopping the flow of oil.

This puts Premier Rachel Notley in an awkward position. As a progressive individual, I suspect she realizes the need to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions generated from the petroleum and petrochemical industries. At the same time, it is going to take Alberta a number of decades to wean their economy from oil and natural gas.

It also puts Premier John Horgan in an awkward position. He feels he has a mandate to protect British Columbia's coastline but he also recognizes we are a trading nation and the west coast of Canada provides one of the busiest ports in North America in the city of Vancouver. To deny access to tidewater for crude oil is to jeopardize the whole structure of interprovincial trade.

What to do? I remain convinced the pipeline will eventually be built. It would be almost hypocritical for the government to block the flow of oil when so much is already being shipped out of Vancouver.

I have seen some arguments about "dilbit" being more toxic or deadly than simple crude. In a rare moment, I would have to agree with a recent letter by Art Betke and say dilbit is neither more nor less toxic than any other form of crude oil. It is simply a potpourri of organic molecules like any other sample of oil

We use the term "oil" as if it is a singular entity. It is not. Any oil - from crude petroleum to products such as gasoline to cooking oils - is a blend of many, many different organic chemical compounds.

The compounds in diluted bitumen are the same compounds found in any other form of crude or refined oil. The vast majority are not toxic nor particularly noxious. Some are even edible. There are thousands of different compounds in a sample of oil. It really isn't a question of what sort of compound but a question of quantities.

In any case, the only real detriment to shipping bitumen is it very thick and viscous which is why it must be diluted in order to flow down a pipeline.

Stopping the flow of oil puts at risk the $21.4 billion in Alberta imports and exports which flow through the port of Vancouver. It would put at risk thousands of jobs in the entire transportation chain. It will ultimately affect trade.

And B.C.'s economy depends on trade.