It is going to be very interesting to see what happens with Enbridge and Line 5.
The reason why the Federal Government cares about keeping Line 5 operational is because it processes about half of the crude oil that is refined for southern Ontario and Quebec. You can take a car to Sarnia and see the refineries.
A shutdown of Line 5 would, needless to say, be very disruptive for the region. There isn’t a good way to get additional capacity into the area – the other routes are fully utilized.
The federal government only cares about what is good for, roughly, the traditional boundaries of Upper and Lower Canada. Any policies that are tailored for areas away from this geography is strictly coincidental.
Thus, the Keystone XL cancellation was of little concern to Ottawa. The usual lip service of condemnation by politicians, when it is so obvious they don’t mean it.
I am still somewhat mystified today that the federal government bought out the Transmountain pipeline project – most people do not know that there is an existing (profitable) pipeline in place. Its existence does not matter an iota to Ottawa.
Line 5, however, is different. It fuels Ottawa’s core geography.
It was not longer than a decade ago when this strategic and political vulnerability was identified and hence the Energy East project was conceived. After the Liberals got into office in October 2015, they proceeded to kill the project with a never-ending wall of regulation.
We fast forward today and see where such lack of strategic thinking is par for the course in Canada.
It is not my job to moralize about the inadequacies of government thinking, but rather to pick out winners and losers.
I am still puzzled why so many people are in love with Enbridge as being a staple in their yield portfolios. There is far more risk than they imagined.
The sentiment will change when there is a real connection between very poor decisions and actual hardship experienced by people. The lag between the two, however, could take many, many years and attribution of blame may be misdirected.
Likewise, few lament over how much richer we could have all been, collectively as a society, had we had our act together to begin with.
Politicians, however, are not rewarded for making optimal or efficient decisions. In fact, they have a gigantic incentive to not solve problems, lest their purpose of existence be threatened.
Well it was just branding. Keystone XL had a lot of fighting and protest to start with, and XL, come on, who needs an extra large pipeline, it’s just excessive. As soon as they got the approvals they should have rebranded to ethical energy S. Transmountain is much better: it’s the mountain’s right to be its best self and to choose whether or not to have a pipeline, and the government is going to support that.
8/10 on humour, this one.
I think Line 5 is fairly safe, as Whitmer’s order is being challenged in federal court. From legal stand point I don’t see any chance of for Michigan to stop it, not to mention economical harm this would bring to Michigan. So I’m considering this stop order more like Whitmer’s PR in light of expected Biden’s cancellation of Keystone XL, rather than something serious.
Stopping the flow of line 5 would be devastating. Most of the aviation fuel for Pearson Airport is also derived from the refineries in Sarnia. The majority of propane for heating fuel in Ontario and Michigan also is cracked in Sarnia from line 5 feed. Shutting line 5 will pretty much end life as we know it in Ontario and there would be an exodus of people. People always fail to think of the spinoff economies. With gas shortages good luck buying food. I agree that not doing energy east was a huge blunder, thanks again Quebec. Just another in a long line of poor decisions by politicians in Canada. I’m more optimistic now that keystone is cancelled that line 5 is safe for now.
“Politicians, however, are not rewarded for making optimal or efficient decisions.” If they were, we would have a national electricity grid. Yes, I know, a topic for another day.
I absolutely agree about your comments about preserving the flow of oil to Sarnia. Canadians that live outside Upper Canada generally have no idea how politically important the Chemical Valley in Sarnia remains in Ontario and the existential risk the closure of the refinery businesses in the area are keeping alive the industrial ecosystem there.
living about 40 mins from Sarnia and having spent entire life in SW Ont the closing of line 5 would be devastating to Sarnia,Lambton county and Ontario. There is a tremendous amount of expertise related to the petrochemical field and the loss would be enormous. Like the automotive industry besides the large petrochemical plants in Sarnia there are a number of smaller supplier companies feeding into the plants. This area was so essential to Canada that after Sept 11th the military on both sides of the border were patrolling the skies to ensure no further terrorist attacks would strike the area.