Father's energy legacy haunts Canada's Trudeau as he seeks to heal rift with angry Alberta

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Father's energy legacy haunts Canada's Trudeau as he seeks to heal rift with angry Alberta

By David Ljunggren

 

FILE PHOTO: Liberal leader Justin Trudeau looks at a poster of his late father, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, during a campaign stop at a coffee shop in Sainte-Therese, Quebec, October 15, 2015. REUTERS/Chris Wattie/File Photo

 

(Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has an unusual challenge as he seeks to charm angry westerners who fear he will destroy the region's oil and gas industry - the legacy of his father, who was reviled in much of the west for his energy policies.

 

Pierre Trudeau, also a Liberal prime minister, pushed through a series of measures in 1980 to artificially depress the price of oil and help the more populous and politically influential east, in what is now the fourth largest oil producer in the world.

 

People in Alberta, home to 80% of Canada's oil production, saw the moves as an expansion of an effort to enrich the east by capitalizing on the west's resource wealth, and drove around with bumper stickers that read: "Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark".

 

    The memory of that era lives on in Alberta, which is now run by a right-leaning government led by Jason Kenney, an ambitious former Conservative defence minister who is in Ottawa this week to press Trudeau for more energy-friendly policies.

 

Kenney said last month that Trudeau's government was "actively hostile" to the energy industry and its workers and ignoring all the revenue generated by oil and gas.

 

"They need to understand that they're killing the golden goose. They have both fists wrapped around the throat of that goose," he said in a speech in Ottawa.

 

Trudeau has seen a return of the enmities his father faced almost four decades ago, when he expanded a state-owned oil and gas company and introduced the so-called National Energy Program (NEP), which cut investments and jobs in Alberta.

 

"The anger is very similar, the alienation is very similar - I would argue it is actually deeper and broader than it was in the 1980s," said Martha Hall Findlay, a former Liberal legislator now at the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation, a non-partisan public policy think tank.

 

Trudeau's previous government introduced tough new environmental assessment rules for energy infrastructure. In the October national election, Trudeau lost his majority and failed to win a single seat in Alberta.

 

Critics also charge that Trudeau, who has promised to make Canada carbon neutral by 2050, failed to expand a pipeline to the Pacific coast crucial to getting Alberta's landlocked oil to international markets, even though the government spent C$4.5 billion ($3.4 billion) to buy the project to ensure it went ahead.

 

An Ipsos poll last month showed some 33% of Albertans backed the idea of separation from the rest of the country, up from 23% in September 2018.

Trudeau has said however that most Canadians voted in October for parties who promised to clamp down on emissions.

 

RALLY THE SUSPICIONS

"The NEP is one of those instant memories available for people who want to rally the suspicions ... it never goes away because it's useful," said University of Alberta political science professor Roger Epp.

 

In a bid to repair ties, Trudeau moved key ally Chrystia Freeland - who was born and raised in Alberta - from the foreign ministry to the post of intergovernmental affairs, where she will be his point person with the province.

 

But a senior conservative in Alberta said while Kenney and other provincial premiers were prepared to work with Freeland, they would ultimately want to deal with Trudeau.

 

"A prime minister can't fob off his relations with a premier on a minister," said the source, who asked not to be identified given the sensitivity of the situation. Kenney is due to meet Trudeau face-to-face on Tuesday.

 

The NEP, which was killed off in 1985 after oil prices came down, hurt Pierre Trudeau, who stepped down in June 1984 after almost 16 years in power. Three months later, under his successor, the Liberals suffered a record electoral defeat.

 

Duane Bratt, a politics professor at Calgary's Mount Royal University, said Justin Trudeau's predicament is more "tragic" because "he was much more aware of that history and has fallen into the same trap."

 

The prime minister's office did not address the historic parallels between father and son, but spokesman Matt Pascuzzo said: "We have been focused on delivering results for energy sector workers and communities, while taking real action to deliver a cleaner economy."

 

($1 = 1.3301 Canadian dollars)

 

(With additional reporting by Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa; Editing by Chris Reese)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-12-11

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[canuckamuck]

That was a very good article, amazing that Reuters could be so honest about the smug little prince and his families destructive and arrogant past. Once again crippling a national industry in the name of sticking it to the conservative population in the west.

[MasterBaker]

eastern Canada produce pretty much nothing but bad politicians and liberal views. They are angry at Alberta for ages for not having PST, which feeds them. My dad had that bumper sticker on his car, it's time to turn the vavle

[canuckamuck]

Time to dig out my Republic of Alberta cap.

[stevenl]

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

That was a very good article, amazing that Reuters could be so honest about the smug little prince and his families destructive and arrogant past. Once again crippling a national industry in the name of sticking it to the conservative population in the west.

Reuters is always honest.

A pity you try to undermine a good article with derogatory remarks.

[philosphrstone]

21 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Reuters is always honest.

A pity you try to undermine a good article with derogatory remarks.

Derogatory?  Smug little prince is a pretty nice way of describing Justin Trudeau.  

[bobbin]

Sometimes hard to read the opinions of my fellow Canadians... but we are still more polite about our political differences than our neighbors to the South.

 

So,, the Canadian government spent C$4.5 Billion  to keep the pipeline to the West Coast alive but they don't want to help the Canadian( Alberta) oil industry? Nothing mentioned about the binding Treaties signed with sovereign Indigenous tribes by our British Colonial predecessors? It hasn't and isn't going to be an easy process...

 

I'm 68 years old and born in Alberta. An original Albertan, not someone born there to displaced Eastern economic immigrants.. ????

 

That "smug little Prince" had the cojones to reverse a 75+ year policy of criminal discrimination against the sizeable number of citizens who believe it's their choice to decide what they do with their own bodies. Something which still scares the bejeezus out of most Western politicians (although this is demonstrably changing, but someone has to be in the front ranks)

 

Republic of Alberta? Would be funny but then I think about places like the former Yugoslavia.

[Samui Bodoh]

1 hour ago, bobbin said:

Sometimes hard to read the opinions of my fellow Canadians... but we are still more polite about our political differences than our neighbors to the South.

 

So,, the Canadian government spent C$4.5 Billion  to keep the pipeline to the West Coast alive but they don't want to help the Canadian( Alberta) oil industry? Nothing mentioned about the binding Treaties signed with sovereign Indigenous tribes by our British Colonial predecessors? It hasn't and isn't going to be an easy process...

 

I'm 68 years old and born in Alberta. An original Albertan, not someone born there to displaced Eastern economic immigrants.. ????

 

That "smug little Prince" had the cojones to reverse a 75+ year policy of criminal discrimination against the sizeable number of citizens who believe it's their choice to decide what they do with their own bodies. Something which still scares the bejeezus out of most Western politicians (although this is demonstrably changing, but someone has to be in the front ranks)

 

Republic of Alberta? Would be funny but then I think about places like the former Yugoslavia.

Thanks very much for this post, @bobbin. You have, in one short piece, nicely summed up many of the fears that I have for Canada as well.

 

By the way, I am also Canadian and extremely proud of that fact. I am from the Maritimes, Ontario, BC, Alberta, the Maritimes again, Ontario again and BC again, with an occasional 'soupcon' of Quebecer thrown in for good measure. Yes, I consider myself a generic Canadian now. And, I also find it difficult to read the opinions of my fellow Canadians as I have been away for quite a while. I always take discussions about Canada on TVF with a grain of salt as, if they were accurate, Canada would currently have a Conservative government with a huge majority and the last time I looked that was not the case. 

 

I recall vividly the early 80's and the slogan "Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark"; by chance I was living/working in Alberta at the time and I had (and still have) a great deal of sympathy for Albertans. What PET did at that time stunk, period.

 

I don't put a lot of faith in the idea of Western separation; I just don't see it happening. Yes, there is certainly some anger out there, but I have faith that cool heads and good old Canadian pragmatism will win the day. Canada to me is somewhat like a very large family; each member of the family will have some justified anger at times, but in the end the entirety of the family remains.

 

The greatest threat that I see to Canada at the moment is (surprise, surprise) from the south; it is the grievance politics of the Trump era. I can't think of anything more un-Canadian than the perpetual whining and grievance-spewing of Trump, but I do have to recognize that our neighbour to the south is sooooo G-D loud that the danger of seepage on a large scale is possible.

 

Canada will muddle through the next few decades; it is inevitable that Alberta's oil and gas industry will go into decline as the fight against Climate Change gathers force, but we will simply have to lower our collective heads, put our shoulder to the problem and deal with it as Canadians are prone to do.

 

The only thing that could stop us is losing the truly wonderful things that we have to the grievance-spewing ideology/ideologues of the south.

 

PS Apologies to my American friends and family! That said, I know you say a great deal of unflattering stuff about Canada, so lets just call it even... ????