Economic Recovery and Pipelines - A Short Comparison

"Canada is broken" wrote Jason Kenney in 2018, referencing B.C.'s opposition to the Trans Mountain Expansion.  The pipeline issue is, according to a recent poll by the CBC, among the top concerns for Albertans.  While economic recovery is evident in both growing job vacancies and increased weekly earning for Albertans, people don't "feel" like there's a recovery.  In many minds in Alberta, there is a lone key to economic success: Trans Mountain.  The problem is that B.C. opposition to pipelines began a number of years prior to both the provincial NDP governments of today and also before the current federal government came to office.

From 2011 to 2015, the NDP was the Official Opposition
in Ottawa

Opposition to the proposed Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain Expansion began when the Harper Conservative government and Clark's "blue Liberal" (conservative) government were in office.  BC residents participated in "tens of thousands" of varying consultations with Enbridge on the proposed Northern Gateway but by April of 2014, it was becoming clearer that concerns about climate change were only getting stronger.  (Albertans can be forgiven for not making a fuss about it as there were no federal MPs attempting to gain support for the project at that time.)

Upon approval of the Northern Gateway project in 2014, Justin Trudeau claimed the Conservative government "approved Northern Gateway despite serious concerns of local communities, Aboriginal Peoples, an British Columbians", stating that if he became Prime Minister, Northern Gateway would not "become a reality".  Even though opposition was already in place prior to the Conservative government's approval, a coalition of First Nations groups launched "at least 9 constitutional challenges" to the project in July of 2014.  In October of 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned approval of the project and on November 29, 2016, the Liberal government ceremoniously rejected Enbridge's proposal.  But let us get back to feelings.

In 2017, Abacus Data released a poll on public perception of oil and pipelines and discovered that Canadians increasingly prefer to see the demand for oil decrease within the next ten years.  Politically-speaking, more than 50% of Conservatives would like to see the demand for oil decrease within 30 years.  Even in Alberta, a greater number of those polled would like to see the demand for oil decrease within 30 years, regardless of their political stripe.

Abacus Data; 2017

While Albertans have tied their short-term economic prosperity to a pipeline, even they don't appear to be in favour of continuing to increase production.  Granted, polls are a mere snapshot in time and this poll was conducted in April and August of 2017.  At that time, Kinder Morgan was still trying to gain support for the project.  Just because an additional 10% of federal Conservative Party supporters would prefer to see the demand for oil decrease within 30 years doesn't mean things are changing does it?  I guess it depends on how you feel.