As federal and provincial politicians pat themselves on the back for their climate change ‘leadership,’ and pipeline opponents gloat about stalling construction of new Canadian pipelines, tanker-loads of foreign oil are delivered regularly to Eastern Canadian refineries, including increasing volumes from Saudi Arabia.

That’s right. Saudia Arabia, the oil-rich kingdom that is waging a brutal price war to shore up its market share and devastating Canada’s oil and gas sector in the process, dumped an average of 84,017 barrels a day of its cheap oil in New Brunswick’s Irving Oil Ltd. refinery in 2015, according to data compiled by the National Energy Board (NEB). That’s up from 63,046 b/d on average in 2012.

Overall, refiners in Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and New Brunswick imported about 650,000 barrels a day from foreign producers in 2015. In addition to Saudi Arabia, the oil came from the United States, Algeria, Angola, Nigeria, because there is insufficient pipeline capacity to import it from Western Canada, which produces far more oil than it needs.

The reversal of Enbridge Inc.’s Line 9, which is finally up and running after much opposition and moves up to 240,000 b/d of Western Canadian oil to Montreal, means oil imports will drop this year — but not likely from Saudi Arabia.

Wouldn’t it be nice if refineries in our own country took this oil rather than foreign oil?

The Irving refinery, Canada’s largest, says on its website it has a long-term supplier partnership with the Saudis. The company is a big supporter of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Energy East pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick, but until it’s done, it has a 350,000 b/d refinery to keep in business.

“We source crude oil from all over the world for our refinery in Saint

John, N.B.,” said a spokesman for Irving. “Our crude imports come from oil producing regions such as Saudi Arabia, Norway, the USA, and Canada — including Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Canadian crude is processed at our refinery, from some of the same producers who would be shipping product via the Energy East pipeline.”

The Saudi imports alone are equivalent to the daily production of a mid-sized producer such as Calgary-based Penn West Exploration Ltd., one of scores of Canadian companies that are struggling to remain solvent after slashing jobs and budgets to survive the Saudi-instigated oil price collapse.

Where is the political outrage over oil imports from rogue nations with inferior environmental records and deplorable behaviours toward women, dissidents and minorities? Where are the beefed up regulatory reviews of Saudi Arabia’s climate change impacts, or their dumping practices? Why is Canada so consumed with scrubbing its oil clean while oil from foreign sources flows into the gasoline tanks of Eastern Canadians free of scrutiny?

“If we choose to import oil from Saudi Arabia … shouldn’t we estimate the total GHG (greenhouse gas emission) impact of Saudi Arabian oil, which must include the military footprint of safeguarding that oil in the midst of a perpetual war zone?” asks Terry Etam in a column for the BOE Report, an industry online trade publication. “Could someone please show the calculation for how much GHG is emitted by a fighter jet launching air strikes to irritate neighbours, including the chaotic aftermath? What are the CO2 emissions of torched oil wells that will take months to put out? How much GHG is emitted by tanks blowing things up?”

Meanwhile, refineries in Quebec — where mayors led by Montreal’s Denis Coderre are fighting Energy East — are relying heavily on imports from the United States, a lot coming on oil trains, even as President Barack Obama killed the Keystone XL pipeline to frustrate imports of “dirty” Canadian oil.

“If recent history is any indication, like 2015, we will potentially be losing over 500,000 b/d of product from Western Canada due to shut-ins given the price levels,” said Tim Pickering, president of Calgary-based commodities trading firm Auspice Capital Advisors. “This will likely be exacerbated to at least 600,000 b/d by capital expenditure cut-backs. Wouldn’t it be nice if refineries in our own country took this oil rather than foreign oil? It would potentially tighten up the entire North American supply/demand picture.”

Yet the main preoccupation of political leaders like Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to tighten the screws of regulatory reviews of Canadian pipeline projects, by looking at their climate change impacts and expanding consultations, even if it means keeping Canada’s already highly regulated oil in the ground and buying foreign oil to meet demand.

“We are going to say no, we don’t like our oil, we are going to buy oil instead from these countries and we are going to fund these kinds of international behaviors … and that’s OK because we feel better in our conscience,” said Gaetan Caron, a former National Energy Board chairman who is now an executive fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary and questions the priority.

It’s come to this because of pressure of groups such as the Sierra Club, which in a recent statement took credit for rallying Quebec mayors against Energy East. “When the Montreal Urban Community … announced its opposition to TransCanada Corporation’s controversial Energy East pipeline yesterday, nearly two dozen hard-working volunteers with Sierra Club Canada’s Quebec Chapter took a victory lap,” the group said.

Or because it’s an expedient way to build political capital or to show Canada is making progress on its new climate commitments to the international community or because reducing greenhouse gas emissions fairly is a lot harder than picking on pipelines. Less hypocrisy and more respect for the needs of ordinary Canadians would be nice once in a while.

ccattaneo@nationalpost.com

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