Alberta—the Old South in the Cold North

Reading the book All God's Children, I encountered a section about the relationship of the American South to the Union just prior to the Civil War. As I read on, I realized it was remarkably similar to the relationship of Alberta to our federation today.

Prior to the Civil War, cotton was king. It was the country's major wealth-producer, particularly for the South—America's richest men lived in the Mississippi River valley—but also for the North, from textile mills in New England to banks in New York.

But by the 1850s, the Southerners felt they were under siege. They saw the economic and population growth in the North as a threat to their interests. Most troubling, the North paid undue attention to the trouble-making abolitionists. The cotton industry was founded on the also very profitable slave industry. By challenging slavery, the abolitionists threatened both the economy and the way of life of the Southerners who in turn saw this threat as huge ingratitude for all they had done for the nation.

Furthermore, as the 1860 election approached, the South feared the Republicans would elect their nemesis, Abraham Lincoln, who had famously said, "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." When Lincoln was indeed elected, the South saw the betrayal as complete, and secession became the only answer.

The South was solid. Ending slavery threatened every white man. As the Edgefield Advertiser stated in 1850, "It is African slavery that makes every white man in some sense a lord." Southern politicians had for years exploited the issue to fire up their constituents. As one planter put it, "You have to say but nigger to the south to set it on fire, as one whistles to a turkey to make him goggle." In the words of a wealthy planter's wife, "nobody could live in this state unless he were a fire-eater."

Substitute "Alberta" for "the South," "oil" for "cotton," "global warming" for "slavery," "environmentalist" for "abolitionist," "Trudeau" for "Lincoln," "Kenney" for "Southern politicians" and "conservative" for "fire-eater" and you've got the relationship between Alberta and the rest of Canada today. History does indeed seem to repeat itself, if in strangely related ways.

Southern distrust of the North was fully justified just as Alberta's distrust of the rest of the country is justified today. The abolitionists did intend to shut down slavery and environmentalist do intend to shut down fossil fuels. In both cases the economies, to say nothing of the ways of life, of the two societies were and are seriously threatened. Unfortunately, the threats were also fully justified, both on the right side of history. Slavery was long overdue for its demise and fossil fuels are long overdue for theirs. But, like the Southerners of the day, most Albertans are exhibiting little introspection. They see the assault on their prize industry, but they refuse to recognize that it is justified and demands accommodation, and all they've got for a leader is a fire-eater. Change can be hard, and change of this magnitude is very hard indeed. So we hear angry voices and talk of secession.

Serious Albertans don't take secession seriously and serious Canadians wouldn't go to war with them if they did. Canadians have a gift for compromise and that is required here, yet you can no more morally compromise with global warming than you could with slavery. Prime Minister Trudeau's challenge is as daunting as Lincoln's.

"Alberta is in danger of becoming the Don Cherry of Canadian politics."

Nothing quite like a good one-liner. Wisdom in a few words. And Graham Thomson, one of the better columnists writing about Alberta politics, started my day off with a beauty in a CBC column about the current Alberta-Quebec contretemps. The column was titled "Alberta Premier Jason Kenney might be bilingual but he needs to learn a new language" with a sub-head that asks the pertinent question "Canada and the world are changing. Can Alberta keep up with the conversation?"

And the one-liner: Alberta is in danger of becoming the Don Cherry of Canadian politics, unable to deal with change.

Comparing the province to the hockey guru whose bigotry finally caught up with him—a classic old white man who can't deal with the changing face of Canada—is as delicious as it is timely. Not that Alberta is bigoted—far from it—but its inability to deal with global warming represents the same kind of reactionary mindset as Cherry's. Unfortunately, its also far more problematic. You can't fire a province.

Would It Help To Dump Alberta?

The G20's Climate Transparency group issued its annual report this week grading all member countries on their climate performance and found them all wanting. The report said only about half the countries are on track to meet their targets for cutting emissions by 2030 and those targets are much too low in any case. And who were the worst performers? Australia, South Korea and—no surprise—Canada.

We are indeed slackers on the global warming front. Not only will our existing plans leave us short of our 2030 goal, but that target is only half what it needs to be. The report gave us high marks for introducing a carbon tax and for implementing tougher environmental reviews for major projects like pipelines and mines, but criticized us for approving the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (for the second time). The report noted we are among global leaders in phasing out coal power but lag on energy use and emissions from cars and buildings. Only two other countries use more energy per dollar of economic production.

That brings us to Alberta, the pollution province. It has 70 percent more emissions than Ontario with less than a third of the population, and whereas Ontario's are declining Alberta's are rapidly increasing. Furthermore, it contributes almost 40 percent of Canada's emissions with only 12 percent of the population.

There have murmurings about separation in the province, so what if we gave it a nudge and sent it on its way. Our emissions would drop 40 percent overnight and we'd be well on our way to meeting our goals. But would we be any better off?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Alberta would still be out there, prolifically pumping out greenhouse gasses, perhaps the world's highest per capita emitter. And those emissions would continue to contribute to global warming every bit as much as they did before. The fact is we are all in this together. Global warming doesn't recognizes borders. We have to deal with this challenge as human beings, not as members of our various tribes: Albertans, Canadians, Americans, Nigerians, Japanese, whatever.

So we have to deal with Albertans' excessive emissions whether they're in or out. They make us look bad, true, but the answer is not to dump them, but rather to help them kick the habit of high fossil fuel dependence. And that, considering the province's belligerent, reactionary premier, is one hell of a challenge. But it must be taken on. In the meantime, our reputation as a climate change slacker will persist.

Alberta after Fossil Fuels

Alberta and oil are almost synonymous. But if the province is to do its share to avoid the apocalypse that global warming threatens, it must kick the oil habit, or at least the fossil fuel habit. The transition to greener energy is much harder for this prairie province, of course, because of its particular dependence on oil and gas or, if you prefer, bitumen. Nonetheless, we Albertans must face up to the challenge.

Fortunately, Alberta has alternatives to fossil fuel dependence. Oil and gas in themselves have multiple uses other than as fuels. Petrochemicals are used to manufacture thousands of products essential to the modern world: plastics, medicines, fabrics, detergents and other cleaning products, fertilizers, cosmetics, furniture, appliances, electronics, synthetic rubbers, asphalt, pipes, home siding, and yes, solar power panels and wind turbines. Almost all pharmaceutical feedstocks and reagents are derived in some way from petrochemicals—they provide both the medicines and the bottles they come in. 

In the 1970s, the Lougheed government encouraged the growth of an ethane-based petrochemical industry and it is now one of the largest manufacturing industries in the province. Rachel Notley’s government instituted a petrochemical diversification program establishing a new propane-to-plastics industry. Inter Pipeline Ltd. and Pembina Pipeline Corp. are now building propane-to-polypropylene facilities north of Edmonton. This is one NDP initiative Jason Kenney has had the good sense to maintain. Alberta provides royalty credits to companies in exchange for building facilities that turn feedstocks into plastics and other products. Not all subsidies to the oil and gas industry go toward fossil fuels.

Another intriguing initiative is producing hydrogen from hydrocarbon reservoirs in situ. Most hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide released as waste products. If the hydrogen is produced in situ, these gasses would be left in the reservoir. A team of Alberta engineers presented such an in situ method at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Barcelona this summer, turning heads around the globe. According to University of Calgary professor David Layzell and energy researcher Jessica Lof, "There is no region in North America that is better positioned than Alberta for cost-effective, large-scale production and distribution of zero-emission hydrogen fuel." Meanwhile, the province's drilling prowess is being applied to a geothermal pilot project that could help unlock the province's considerable geothermal assets.

Alison Cretney, managing director of the Energy Futures Lab, insists that Alberta is almost ideally positioned to capitalize on the decarbonization of the global economy, both because of the skills and education of its population and the opportunity to apply both to a host of new challenges. "We just need to get beyond that view that when we talk about oil and gas it's extract and burn," she says. "The world moves on without us. And we'd miss a huge opportunity for Alberta and Canada to lead that change, to lead the transition, rather than it ultimately catching us unaware down the road. It's disrupt or be disrupted."

Quite aside from oil and gas, Alberta has other arrows in its quiver such as tourism, forestry and, of course, agriculture. The province produces half of Canadian beef and a quarter of its wheat.

As is typical of a mature economy, most Albertans work in services, including finance. The TSX Venture Exchange is headquartered in Calgary, and the city has a robust industry serving the securities market. It also has the second highest number of corporate head offices in Canada after Toronto. Edmonton hosts the Canadian Western Bank and ATB Financial, the only major Canadian banks west of Toronto.

Clearly, Alberta can look forward to a bright future beyond oil. But embracing a future of dramatic change is always difficult. People tend to cling to the past they know rather than embrace a future they don't, especially when that past is based on one of the most lucrative industries this or any province has ever experienced. It can be frightening, and Premier Kenney aggravates this fear when instead of presenting Albertans with a vision for the future, he doubles down on bitumen and then goes on the warpath against Justin Trudeau and assorted environmentalists, even fanning the flames of separatism in order to gain leverage. The wrong leader at the wrong time, holding us back.

Albertans will have to rise above their reactionary government. The potential ls there. And this is a very entrepreneurial place—at one time making money off bitumen was a pipe dream. The feds can help. During the federal election campaign, Trudeau promised a "Just Transition Act" to ensure workers can get the training and support they need. Alberta should be a central focus of that effort.

But how smooth or rough the transition is will depend heavily on Albertans willingness to accept change that must come. As Blake Shaffer, an economist with the University of Calgary and a former energy trader, puts it, "I hope that rather than putting our head in the sand and focusing on where we were 10 or 15 years ago, we embrace the skills and strengths that we have and go forward." I hope so too, Blake.