SASKATOON - Premier Scott Moe cited the need for certainty as the reason behind his post on social media this week that pipeline requests in Saskatchewan would be considered pre-approved.
Moe was asked at a news conference in Saskatoon on Friday why he made that post given the environmental laws, regulations, First Nations consultations, and private landowners' rights that had to be complied with.
“To provide certainty for an industry that is in a very uncertain time,” Moe replied.
He pointed to two reasons.
“One, the first reason would be some of the rhetoric that we hear coming up from south of the border. And two, would be because of almost a decade of detrimental policies that have come out of our own federal government. Whether it be carbon taxation, whether it be the rewrite of pieces of legislation like Bill C-69. This is an industry that has repeatedly been faced with uncertainty by our Canadian federal government.”
Moe said that if Canada was “truly serious about being independent as a nation and coming together and ensuring that Canada is energy secure and food secure and manufacturing secure in the future, that needs to be reflected in our policy development. And I would say that over the course of the last decade, that has not been the case.”
Premier Moe said if there was “any chance of energy dominance across North America, which is the new US administration's goal, all of our policies need to be about creating certainty for these industries that are going to ultimately do that for us. And I would say that we've dropped the ball on that the last nine years at the federal level.”
He added that this was “not about circumventing in any way all of the requirements that industry and companies would have moving forward. Those requirements would certainly still stand.”
Moe also put out his call for “other subnational leaders in the federal government to join us in doing what we can do to provide certainty to all of the energy industry, not just the oil and gas industry, but all of the energy industry that we want you to develop in Canada.”
When presses again about whether pre-approval overlooks the environmental assessments and duty to consult requirements, Moe again emphasized no.
“All of those criteria certainly are still in place. However, the pre-approval provides certainty to the industry that we are in Saskatchewan going to ensure that you can bring a project from those very pre-development stages through development and ultimately into an effervescent project, whether that's a mine site, whether that's a pipeline, whether that's an investment in the energy industry. This is where Saskatchewan very much differs from some of the policy initiatives that have come out of our federal government over the last number of years.”
Moe pointed to what happened with Energy East, when a proponent that backed away “because Bill C-69 came into place, and the proponent was informed by the federal government that not only are you responsible for your direct emissions, but you're going to be responsible for every emission that's ever in any way related to the product that's flowing through this.”
Moe went on to slam the federal Liberal government for Bill C-69.
“So that's ridiculous. There's no criteria like that anywhere in the world. It's a deliberate policy that's put forward to make our nation less energy secure. I would encourage Canadians to remember that as we find our way to the ballot box nationally over the course of the next year. We have a federal Liberal government that has put our nation in a very tenuous position by enacting policies that are not focused on taking care of Canadians when it comes to ensuring we're energy secure. And I would say in turn, starting to threaten through inflation some of the food security and other quality of life standards that really have been the hallmark of what it means to be a strong and free nation, and really been the hallmark of what it means to be Canadian.”
