EDMONTON — Denis Coderre has accomplished a feat that many have attempted, most without success. He got Albertans to agree on something.

Albertans seldom agree on which of their NHL teams are underperforming the most this season, or whether to blame low prices or bad weather for grain farmers’ grief. The mayor of Montreal got them all on the same page when he came out against the Energy East pipeline.

In fact, Coderre’s strange power to bring people together hasn’t been limited to Alberta. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has been a loud and effective voice for pipelines; he was tearing into Coderre on Twitter last week. Last Friday, Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley appeared alongside Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne as they both voiced support for the project. And today, the government of New Brunswick joined the chorus of those who see the importance of getting Alberta and Saskatchewan resources to tidewater.

Albertans are generally unhappy when they’re subjected to what they see as Eastern ‘interference’. Overheard in an Airdrie coffee shop yesterday: “I will be damned if I am going to be lectured to by the mayor of a city that dumps raw sewage into the St. Lawrence.” Not sure what the one thing has to do with the other — but this is a column about perception, not just reality.

And the perception among a growing number of Albertans, expressed on social media and in call-in shows, is that the rest of the country doesn’t appreciate them and what they bring to the table. Some believe that, after years of being a net contributor to the federation, too many people in the East are still incapable of acknowledging — or even understanding — where equalization payments come from.

Alberta — or, more appropriately, Albertans (contrary to a common belief, equalization does not come from the Alberta government) — contribute $18.9 billion annually to federal coffers. The average Albertan, until recently, paid $6,000 more in federal income tax than he received in federal services and programs in his home province.

What perplexes me — and Albertans in general — is why the Denis Coderres of the world believe that if pipelines are not built, bitumen will somehow have to stay in the ground. It won’t — it will simply be moved by more expensive, more dangerous methods, such as trucks and trains. What perplexes me — and Albertans in general — is why the Denis Coderres of the world believe that if pipelines are not built, bitumen will somehow have to stay in the ground. It won’t — it will simply be moved by more expensive, more dangerous methods, such as trucks and trains.

Things have changed. The number of Albertans who filed for Employment Insurance last year was double that of the year before and there are now over 60,000 open EI files here. It is more than possible that Alberta will soon become a have-not province, one that actually needs equalization.

Which brings us back to Energy East. Even when oil prices were higher, Western Canadian crude was undervalued. Failing to get product to tidewater or to the Gulf Coast meant selling oil below Brent international and West Texas Intermediate prices, respectively.

The world still runs on fossil fuels. Some might wish it were otherwise. Someday it may be — but for the foreseeable future, Canada and the world need oil and gas to heat our homes and to move our people, goods and services.

So as long as there’s a market, oil and oil products are going to be moved from where they are extracted to where they are needed. What perplexes me — and Albertans in general — is why the Denis Coderres of the world believe that if pipelines are not built, bitumen will somehow have to stay in the ground. It won’t — it will simply be moved by more expensive, more dangerous methods, such as trucks and trains.

Pipelines pose a risk. But the risk pipelines present pales in comparison with the risk that results in the type of tragedy that obliterated much of the town of Lac-Mégantic — where a runaway train derailed and exploded — or the derailment and spill that did so much ecological damage at Lake Wabumun in Alberta. Opposing pipelines purely because of the risk they present means irrationally embracing options that are far worse.

Finally, I’m not sure what business any of this is of Coderre’s in the first place. He’s a mayor. No municipal official has the authority to block a pipeline or dictate conditions. Interprovincial pipelines are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Energy Board. The new Liberal government is changing the regulatory approval process to ensure that projects are approved only if they are compliant with all environmental regulations. And surely Energy East’s route will divert around major metropolitan areas.

The last time there were serious rumbling of western alienation was in the post-National Energy Program period of the 1980s, when Alberta was in another deep recession. Political parties appeared on the scene to reflect that sense of outrage, such as Western Canada Concept and later the Alberta First Party, which morphed into the Separation Party of Alberta — which, thankfully, went nowhere. It doesn’t take much, however, to alienate an unemployed westerner if he feels that the contributions he’s made to a federation he takes pride in are somehow regarded as meaningless.

I hope that oil prices rebound, that the economy improves and that the country stays united. And I hope we can all step back, cool down and remember where this sort of thing leads. Any and all rhetoric that pits one region against the other — or, given Atlantic Canada’s support for Energy East, one region against all others — does nothing to improve either the economy or the health of the nation.

Brent Rathgeber was the Conservative MP for the riding of Edmonton—St. Albert from 2008 to 2013, when he resigned from the Conservative caucus to protest the Harper government’s lack of commitment to transparency and open government. He ran and lost in the 2015 federal election to a Conservative candidate. He is the author of Irresponsible Government: The Decline of Parliamentary Democracy in Canada.

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