{"id":75111,"date":"2016-04-29T01:51:45","date_gmt":"2016-04-29T05:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=75111"},"modified":"2025-01-16T13:34:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T18:34:42","slug":"u-s-visit-albertas-new-premier-begins-reputation-rehab-effort-oilsands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/04\/29\/u-s-visit-albertas-new-premier-begins-reputation-rehab-effort-oilsands\/","title":{"rendered":"In U.S. visit, Alberta’s new premier begins reputation rehab effort for oilsands"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cI'm<\/a>
\u201cI’m sure you’ve heard a lot about our province, especially the oilsands,\u201d Notley (in photo) told an audience from Johns Hopkins University on Thursday.
(Photo: Rachel Notley\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON\u2014Alberta’s new premier began her campaign to rehabilitate the reputation of her province’s oilsands in the United States, where it was battered by the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline.<\/p>\n

Rachel Notley walked a Washington audience through the climate-change measures taken by her new NDP government; she also described her province as home to nature-lovers who care about the environment and about being good global citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m sure you’ve heard a lot about our province, especially the oilsands,\u201d Notley told an audience from Johns Hopkins University on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite frankly, it is possible some of it might not have been very positive. But I am proud to say that over the course of the last year, since my government has been in office, Alberta’s environmental reputation has started to change. And, I believe, change for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposition to the oilsands grew during the years-long Keystone debate, as it went from relative anonymity among the general U.S. public to becoming protesters’ preferred poster child for the high-carbon economy. Notley said previous Conservative governments in Ottawa and Edmonton didn’t help matters by foot-dragging on the climate file.<\/p>\n

In an interview, she explained that the goal for her three-day U.S. visit was to start changing perceptions.<\/p>\n

She told audiences about her NDP government’s $30-a-tonne carbon tax, her plan to phase out coal, and the 100 million-tonne cap on oilsands emissions that she said is one-third of some previous long-term emissions projections and said that will force the industry to innovate if it wants to grow.<\/p>\n

There’s one point she didn’t emphasize: that neither Alberta’s efforts, nor the federal government’s, would at this point help Canada meet its emissions targets.<\/p>\n

Alberta’s emissions would not really drop under her plan.<\/p>\n

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They’d grow slower than projected; then stop growing within a few years; and finally decline, landing around current levels in 2030.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

The premier said she knows perceptions won’t change overnight.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

She’s meeting on this trip with a White House environmental official; the head of the Center for American Progress, a prominent progressive think-tank that opposed Keystone XL; and the Republican head of the Senate energy committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I leave here with people going, ‘Oh, isn’t Alberta doing something that maybe we should take a look at, maybe even learn from, and they’re kind of doing the right stuff now,’ then that’s a win,\u201d she said in an interview Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have an important, important story to tell. And it’s not just a story. That’s the new thing. It’s real. We have significant action we’re taking on climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stressed how important the oil industry to her province’s economy. She told the Johns Hopkins audience that it’s responsible for one-sixth of Alberta jobs.<\/p>\n

Notley did not use her trip, however, to promote future oil pipelines.<\/p>\n

She was asked whether she hoped her efforts would help gain approval for some future version of Keystone XL. She said that’s not her focus now.<\/p>\n

The issue could resurface after the current U.S. presidential election.<\/p>\n

Both Republican candidates support the pipeline cancelled by President Barack Obama. The Democrats both oppose it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not a big fan of hypothetical questions,\u201d she told The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n

Asked about the pipeline debates back home, she said she has no interest in letting them strain national unity.<\/p>\n

Notley said she intends to have a respectful conversation based on the facts, allowing both sides of the issue to have their views heard.<\/p>\n

Ongoing pipeline proposals have caused tension with neighbouring B.C., become a hot topic for the Parti Quebecois and prompted Saskatchewan’s premier to express annoyance with Quebec.<\/p>\n

Notley said she’ll avoid finger-pointing.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada is a collection of provinces. Historically some people play that feature off against one another. I don’t think that’s typically resulted in progress,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not in any way, shape or form the appropriate frame for this conversation. And we’re not going to do that with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\u2014Alberta’s new premier began her campaign to rehabilitate the reputation of her province’s oilsands in the United States, where it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":75112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[10513,398,9973,10515,10114,10514],"class_list":["post-75111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-alberta-premier","tag-canada","tag-john-hopkins-university","tag-oilsands","tag-rachel-notley","tag-u-s-a","mauthors-alexander-panetta","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75111","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284638,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75111\/revisions\/284638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}