Article content continued

The oil and gas sector makes up one-third of the provincial economy, but capital investment has dropped to $40 billion in 2018 from $80 billion in 2014. McMillan wants to see a return of investment to those 2014 levels.

McMillan said higher corporate taxes and an overly complex regulatory scheme here have pushed away investment, even as it increased by 10 per cent in the U.S. last year. “Did you know it takes four times longer to get an oil well licensed in Alberta than it does in Texas or in Oklahoma?”

Alberta now has cleaner oil to sell, McMillan said, pointing out the industry has cut per barrel carbon emissions by 20 per cent in the last decade.

As for C-69, the best legal advice I’ve heard is that the bill gives pipeline opponents exactly what they want, an open-ended hearing process that will become a show trial for societal grievances, not a scientific assessment of pipeline safety (which is the actual main point of such hearings).

The bill also creates numerous new legal triggers, none of them related to pipeline safety, each of them empowering activist organizations to tie up billion-dollar projects in the courts.

The Trudeau Liberals insist this bill will bring more certainty for investors, but there’s a massive disconnect here. Industry leaders say it will make things worse for approvals.

McMillan said he’s worked hard to get the Liberals to make necessary changes to Bill C-69. He’s been assured throughout the process that changes will happen, yet the bill has only gotten more problematic. “I’m struggling with the government’s line that, ‘This will be fine.’ Because it won’t be fine.”

No, it won’t be fine. But at last oil and gas sector leaders and workers are starting to admit past mistakes and to throw hard punches in this heated political dispute. They’re also no longer getting sucker punched by U.S. interests, which will go a long way.

dstaples@postmedia.com

@davidstaplesyeg

Listen to our Canadian news podcast