What does Canada think about the Keystone Pipeline?

As someone who has lived in the United States for most of my life, I have to admit that I spend very little time thinking about Canada. At one point I lived near the northern border of Minnesota, and also in Alaska, but as for spending physical or mental time there? Not really.

Lately the Keystone Pipeline project has been all over the U.S. news. The Keystone Pipeline would send synthetic crude oil from Canada down through several refinery hubs in the U.S. and end in Texas near Houston.

As you would expect, environmentalists tend to think this is a poor idea, while business-people tend to think it's a great idea. President Obama has endorsed construction on pieces of the U.S. part of the pipeline based on assurances from pretty much everyone that the pipeline poses no real issue to the environment. The final go ahead for the whole thing, though, is still elusive.

But what does Canada think?

Merran Smith writes a great mock-letter from Canada to America about the proposed Keystone Pipeline. You can hear more from Smith, who is a great speaker, here. She speaks compellingly about a strong vision of a future where most of our energy comes from clean sources. Her touch point is something called the resource economy, where she argues that Canada has been selling resources to the U.S. for a long time, and that upping the ante with even more oil now is a move in the wrong direction.

Her point, in brief, is that much of Canada is uncomfortable with the idea that the U.S. wants to use it as a gas pump. Yes, it's been that way for a while (she cites a stat that the U.S. actually imports twice as much oil from Canada as we do from Saudi Arabia), but she points to this current debate over the Keystone Pipeline as a line in the tarsands.

Why now?

It's a turning point in time. A few years ago, the U.S reaffirmed our desire to not be part of global environmental change as a group when we opted, again, out of Kyoto. But now we have President Obama in the White House, and he talks a lot about the advantages and imperatives of looking deeper into environmentally responsible alternatives. That's smart, but if he is talking about that in the State of the Union speech and then turning around and either letting or pushing a new oil pipeline through, I question his motives a little.

But I think the fact that Obama is having to play nice with both sides is a sign of the times. It's just where Smith gets when she tries to answer the question at the core of this issue: Should we invest in more fossil fuel infrastructure or in clean energy alternatives?

Smith writes (as Canada to the U.S.): "What’s the way out? The truth is, Canada needs to have a bigger conversation. How do we transition our economy to get off the resource-economy roller-coaster, reduce our fossil fuel dependence, and lead in the global low-carbon economy? How can we help create a broad movement around solutions and economic transformation — one that our government can’t ignore?"

I'm with her up to this point. It's the right question. How do we transition? Not should we change, or which clean energy should we focus on, etc., but simply, how do we do this transition. But then she drops the final question that I think is way off:

"So what could you do to help us tackle these questions?"

I give her points for thinking in partnerships and communication, but the truth is, asking the U.S. for help on this issue is not the answer. We have slithered our way out of every opportunity to engage on the global scale of that conversation, and I don't think we have any reason at this point to start engaging in it. Certainly not with Canada, who seems willing to sell us more oil.

I think that question should be something more along the lines of:

"So, we're going to charge you more than double for crude oil from this point forward. Do you want to pay it or talk about clean energy?"

That's the only thing that is going to bring the U.S. to the table. Even bringing the price of clean alternatives down will only help a little. There is a lot of history with fossil fuels and people don't like change, especially in times of turmoil, which is what we are in.

My Letter

So, Ms. Merran Smith, thank you for starting that conversation. Unfortunately, your argument is not compelling enough to stop the pipeline. Here is how I suggest you write your next letter.

Dear America,

We know you want our oil. We're happy to sell it to you, but only if you are willing to pay 3x what you pay now. No? OK. Come back in a few years when you really need it.

Or, let's talk about clean energy alternatives. We'll sell you some expertise on that for 1/3 of what you're paying for oil.

Best,
Canada

Image courtesy of jasab via flickr