I hope you had the chance to check out Maclean’s national leaders’ debate last week.
Although nothing major and unpredictable happened during the debate, the leaders certainly provided Canadians with a clearer indication of where they stand on key issues (well, at least some of them).
It also became clear that, when it comes to pipelines, their position is not as straightforward.
Pipelines remain a contentious issue in the country, especially in British Columbia. A recent poll conducted by Insights West suggested that more than half of British Columbians - 52 per cent - are currently opposed to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project while 41 per cent of B.C. residents support it.
At the start of the debate, I still had lots of questions about the leaders’ positions on pipelines. And as it turns out, the leaders also seemed to have lots of doubts about each other’s positions. Throughout the debate they accused each other of being inconsistent when it comes to supporting pipeline projects.
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau accused NDP leader Thomas Mulcair of saying different things in different languages.
“In English he’ll say that he supports the Energy East pipeline; in French he said that it’s out of the question,” said Trudeau about the Energy East pipeline - a 4600 km pipeline proposed to carry 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada.
Shortly after, Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused Trudeau of doing the exact same thing.
“You go to one part of the country, Atlantic Canada, you’re for Energy East; you go to Quebec, and you’re against it,” said Harper.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May takes a much more straightforward approach, saying the Green Party opposes every single one of the proposed oil pipelines.
“Every single one of these raw bitumen, unprocessed oil pipeline schemes are about exporting Canadian jobs,” she said.
Mulcair said both Harper and May’s current approach to pipelines is flawed.
“Opposing these pipelines systematically in advance is just as wrong as supporting them in advance because; in both cases, what you need is an objective study,” said Mulcair.
Although Harper was accused of blindly supporting all pipelines, he defended himself by saying the conservatives take a “scientific expert evaluation of every project” before deciding to proceed, adding that he fully trusts the government’s environmental assessments.
“All of these parties have opposed all of these [pipeline] projects before we’ve even had environmental assessments,” said Harper. “That’s not the responsible way you do things.”
Trudeau’s position on pipelines has been much less predictable than May and Harper’s. Trudeau has openly rejected Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project, saying the pipeline places an unacceptable level of risk on B.C.’s coastal economy and environment. Meanwhile he has consistently supported the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline - a proposed 1897 km crude oil pipeline beginning in Alberta and extending south to Nebraska.
Mulcair, on the other hand, opposes Keystone XL, but his position remains unclear about Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion project. Kinder Morgan proposes to triple the bitumen-carrying capacity of its existing Trans Mountain line by building almost 1000 km of new pipe between Edmonton and Burnaby.
During the debate, May put Mulcair on the spot, asking the NDP leader if he would join the Green Party’s fight against Kinder Morgan’s “risky pipeline” and tanker expansion.
“Will you help us defend our coastlines?” May asked. Mulcair provided a general response, saying all pipeline projects would have to be “studied and looked at objectively with thorough, credible environmental assessment processes.” “So you take no position,” said May defiantly.