{"id":186560,"date":"2018-10-23T02:03:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T06:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=186560"},"modified":"2018-10-23T05:35:36","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T09:35:36","slug":"albertas-notley-proposes-ottawa-get-into-the-crude-by-rail-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/10\/23\/albertas-notley-proposes-ottawa-get-into-the-crude-by-rail-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta’s Notley proposes Ottawa get into the crude by rail business"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cThat means that more money is being taken out of the Canadian economy and sucked into American bank accounts,\u201d she said. (File Photo<\/a>: Rachel Notley\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CALGARY \u2013\u00a0Alberta\u00a0Premier Rachel Notley is proposing Ottawa get into the crude-by-rail business \u2013 at least temporarily \u2013 so that producers in her province can get a better price for their oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the midst of putting together a specific business case that we’ll be taking to the federal government late this week, early next week, where we lay out the specific costs,\u201d Notley said Monday following a meeting with energy industry leaders in Calgary.<\/p>\n

Notley noted that\u00a0Alberta\u00a0heavy oil producers have been dealing with a punishing price gap between their product and U.S. light oil \u2013 in the order of around US$40 to US$50 a barrel in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means that more money is being taken out of the Canadian economy and sucked into American bank accounts,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Absent new pipeline capacity connecting\u00a0Alberta\u00a0crude to international markets \u2013 like the stalled Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to the B.C. coast \u2013 Notley said moving oil on rail cars can be a stop-gap measure to help narrow the price discount.<\/p>\n

And she said Ottawa should step up to making it happen, noting the federal government won’t be recouping $2.6 billion it loaned to Chrysler in 2009 to keep the automaker afloat and save jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely if Ottawa can write off $2.6 billion in tax dollars paid to the auto industry in Ontario, it can support our oil industry with smart investments to help close the differential and return billions of dollars to the Canadian economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Notley did not provide a price tag for the proposed federal crude-by-rail investment, she said it would be significantly less than the auto writeoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore to the point, it’s something that ultimately will be paid for by way of increased value to the federal government’s own coffers, let alone to the economy,\u201d Notley said.<\/p>\n

Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, characterized the idea as \u201cpouring good money after bad to subsidize oil companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPremier Notley should be working with the federal government to make\u00a0Alberta\u00a0the leader in green energy development that it can and should be,\u201d Stewart said in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are the jobs of the future and as a bonus they won’t fry the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notley did not specify what exactly the federal investment might look like, but noted more rail cars and locomotives are needed. She was adamant that she is not suggesting that oil supplant grain shipments on the railways.<\/p>\n

She said it’s statistically safer to move crude through pipelines than on railcars, so looking to trains is \u201cnot the best outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the plan to triple the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline between Edmonton and the B.C. Lower Mainland is in limbo. Ottawa bought the pipeline earlier this year from Kinder Morgan after the U.S. energy company became frustrated with a litany of political roadblocks.<\/p>\n

In August, the Federal Court of Appeal quashed Trans Mountain’s approval and now Ottawa is working to fulfil the court’s requirement to consult Indigenous communities and consider the environmental impact of additional oil tankers off the coast.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Notley said, rail can provide some short-term relief for landlocked\u00a0Alberta\u00a0producers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some other ideas out there, but I think rail is one of the most immediate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CALGARY \u2013\u00a0Alberta\u00a0Premier Rachel Notley is proposing Ottawa get into the crude-by-rail business \u2013 at least temporarily \u2013 so that producers …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":91726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","category-uncategorized","mauthors-lauren-krugel","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}