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In the leadup to the expected federal Cabinet decision on whether or not to approve the proposed Teck Frontier mine, all manner of tales were spun about it that it was one of the "greenest" oil sands projects ever (false), that it got the sign-off of all affected First Nations in the area (mostly true), that it was going to burn through Canada's carbon budget (not necessarily true), that it would create thousands of jobs and billions in revenue (about that…), and above all, it became this totem on both sides either of the future of the energy industry in Alberta, or of humanity's downfall in the face of the climate crisis.  The nuance of reality was never to be found, and in the days after which the Teck Resources permanently shelved the project, the mythologizing of the project has only gotten more intense.

The first and most important thing to remember was that even if the Cabinet had approved the project over the objections of the bulk of the Liberal caucus it was almost certainly never going to be built.  Why?  Because, like so many oilsands projects, the current price of oil simply doesn't make it economically viable.  Teck Frontier, like many other projects, were dreamed up in the mid-to-late nineties when the words "peak oil" were on everyone's lips.  It was surmised that conventional oil reserves were about to be used up, and less conventional and more expensive sources like the oilsands in Alberta were going to become much more in demand, and given the laws of supply and demand, diminishing conventional supplies would drive up the price of oil so that massive, decades-long oilsands projects would be economically viable.

And then the shale boom happened.  Cheap oil and gas flooded the American market, and Canada, which has built an industry on the assumption of having a perpetual market to the south of us, was caught flat-footed.  With almost no capacity to export to tidewater, our heavier and more difficult to process crude became less valuable.  And when the shale boom turned America into a net exporter rather than a net importer, other OPEC nations opened the taps to flood the market with supply in order to further drive down the global price of oil, in the hopes that it would help make the shale boom uneconomical.  Alberta has been hurting ever since, with future oilsands expansions looking less and less viable  particularly Teck Frontier, which needed oil to be somewhere in the vicinity of $75/barrel to be viable, and had made its economic assumptions at $95/barrel to generate the supposed $70 billion in revenues that conservatives both federal and provincial lament will never be realized.

So many of the narratives over the past few weeks have given rise to the notion that Teck Frontier was going to somehow reverse Alberta's fortunes, and be a step toward the good days coming back.  But they're not coming back the market has changed too much, and unless someone can invent a time machine in order to stop the shale boom from happening, it's only false hope that Jason Kenney and Andrew Scheer have been peddling.  Aside from wilfully misrepresenting the environmental credentials of the project its emissions would actually have been around the median in the industry, and the Joint Review Panel had concluded there would be significant environmental damage to the area they also fail to mention that it was simply the promised benefits may have been enough to justify it.  With oil prices so low that those benefits would not materialize, the equation changed.

But these facts have proven impervious to the likes of Scheer, who scoffed in Question Period at the notion that commodity prices were a factor in Teck withdrawing their application.  "That cannot be true because there are investments pouring into Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States," Scheer declared, apparently oblivious of the fact that the ease of drilling for lighter, sweeter crude in Saudi Arabia, or the economics of the shale boom in the U.S., are not equal to a massive oilsands mine.  Other Conservatives have completely misrepresented the letter from Teck's CEO when he withdrew the plan, claiming that "political unrest," threats to public safety, or the ongoing rail blockades were somehow responsible.  None of those things were in the letter.  What was included in the letter was the statement that the different levels of government in Canada needed to come together to have a clear climate plan because global investors were now looking at green projects and by adding that Teck supported a carbon price and a hard emissions cap, the CEO was signalling that the federal plan and that of Rachel Notley's government were more likely to attract that capital, rather than Kenney's belligerence.

The other false charge was that Trudeau's government had somehow "politicized" the approval when it was being conducted under the 2012 rules that the Harper government put into place, which mandated Cabinet approval for the first time.  And that wasn't a bad thing one of the reasons why it should be a Cabinet decision to approve projects like this instead of just a technocratic rubber stamp is so that there is political accountability for the balancing of economic benefits and environmental damage.  These should be political and not technocratic decisions.

If there was a bright side to the project proposal, it was how the Notley government did the hard work of engaging with the local First Nations and getting buy-in and sign-off from them.  (There were separate concerns from First Nations in the Northwest Territories who were downriver from the project, but those were out of Notley's jurisdiction).  In response to the Teck decision, Justin Trudeau noted that this engagement could serve as a model to future projects, which is a good lesson to take from it.  But so long as the project is held up as a symbol for the province's salvation, and all of the false justifications that come along with it, then it will be hard for anyone to take the proper lessons from this incident.  The lies will only serve to build resentment, which may serve Kenney and Scheer's short-term political goals, but will do significant long-term damage.  The good old boom days aren't coming back, and if there is to be a sustainable path forward for the province and the country, they should be taking those lessons now.

Photo Credit: CBC News

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