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Yukon News
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
INSIGHT
Billion-dollar bets mere $430 million in construction and working capital for its proposed Yukon mine. It would by Keith take roughly 90 Victoria Golds to Halliday equal the economic footprint of just the Petronas project. Given the much lower profit margin a typical mine has compared to a gas well, the tax revenues from the Petronas project are probably much more than 90 times bigger than what a mine like Victoria Gold’s would generate. ast week I wrote about how These billion-dollar investnorthern B.C.’s fracking industry had garnered global at- ments, assuming they actually happen, will change the ecotention. This week the news got nomic map of our region. It even bigger, and turned into a used to be that our part of North regional story involving Alaska. America was in the upper left of Malaysia’s prime minister a map with Toronto and New announced that Petronas, the government-owned energy com- York at the centre. Now Asia is pany, will invest an eye-popping at the centre of the map, and $36 billion to move B.C. natural natural gas trade routes converge there from around the periphgas to Asia. Meanwhile, Alaska’s ery of the Pacific Ocean: Kenai, big three oil companies and pipeline company Trans-Canada Kitimat, Oregon, Latin America and Australia. announced that the Kenai PenLike it or not, and many don’t, insula was the leading contender liquefied natural gas looks like for a gas export terminal for a new Alaskan gas pipeline system it will be the central part of the economic story in our part of that could cost anywhere from the world for the next few dec$45 billion to $65 billion. ades. Alberta has a long-standing On top of these announcegas industry too, and even the ments, China’s CNOOC and N.W.T. hopes to get in on the acother North American energy tion with its Canol shale gas play. companies have announced several other multi-billion-dollar N.W.T. politicians were recently in North Dakota marvelling at natural gas projects in B.C. the opportunities and excesses To put this in perspective, that state’s fracking boom have Victoria Gold is looking for a
YUKONOMIST L
created. There is strong opposition to natural gas production in the Yukon. Anti-fracking groups have dominated the headlines. The Yukon Party government, keen as it appears to be to mine the Peel watershed, even took gas exploration in the Whitehorse trough off the table last year. Unresolved land claim issues in southeastern Yukon also limit the potential in that potentially gas-rich region, just across the border from the now worldfamous gas fields of Fort Nelson. The regional natural gas mega-trend has big implications for the Yukon, even if we don’t end up with a natural gas industry of our own. This is because, although the tax revenues from gas mostly stay where it is produced and transported, the economic impacts and climate impacts travel across borders. Consider a future where we have a gas industry similar in scale to Fort McMurray spread out from Kitimat to Fort Nelson, and another in Alaska. Businesses will be attracted to invest in nearby regions rather than the Yukon. Workers will be getting offered higher pay and better benefits to work in the gas sector. All of this will put upward pressure on costs here in the Yukon. Even if our mining industry is in the doldrums in a few years,
it will still cost us top dollar to build new schools or renovate our houses. This is because we’ll be competing with booming regions for businesses and labour. Some businesses and workers based in the Yukon will be able to travel to the boom regions, which will be good for them, but the rest of the Yukon population may not share in the benefits. The incremental tax revenue to the Yukon government may be more than outweighed by the higher prices it ends up paying for infrastructure and construction. Climate change also crosses borders. All those wells, flare stacks, pipeline compressors, LNG tankers and Asian power plants will be pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Even if the Yukon says no to fracking and a big natural gas industry, global warming will affect us as much as it does everyone else. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report says it is extremely likely that humans have been the primary cause of warming observed since 1950, and that increases in global surface temperatures are likely to exceed 1.5 C this century in most scenarios. There are also scenarios where temperatures go much higher. The effects would be very serious.
Future generations may wonder whether responding to recent climate change science by building an enormous natural gas industry in northwestern North America was a good idea. Nonetheless, elected governments in our region are charging ahead with natural gas. The recently elected B.C. government has appointed a special minister for natural gas development. Premier Alison Redford of Alberta is headed for China soon to discuss petrochemical business opportunities. N.W.T. ministers, as noted above, are touring North Dakota’s energy industry. Even the left of the Alaskan political spectrum is pro-gas. Here’s what Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat who is up for re-election in 2014, had to say recently: a “liquefaction plant and export terminal will be a multi-billion investment and huge shot in the arm to both Alaska’s economy and confidence in our state’s energy future… a gas line from Prudhoe Bay to the Kenai Peninsula can meet Alaska’s in-state energy needs while supplying the energy-thirsty countries of the Asia Pacific.” Keith Halliday is a Yukon economist and author of the MacBride Museum’s Aurore of the Yukon series of historical children’s adventure novels. You can follow him on Twitter @hallidaykeith
Missing and murdered aboriginal women deserve an inquest Ryan Leef
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here has been a lot of discussion around the call for an inquiry into the serious and troubling issue of murdered and missing aboriginal women in Canada. In the Yukon, this was cemented by Premier Darrell Pasloski passing a unanimous motion in the Yukon legislature calling for a national inquiry. This decision was born from the premiers’ meeting on July 24 of this year at Niagara-on-theLake where our country’s 13 provincial and territorial leaders called on the federal government to have such an inquiry. At that time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that he remains skeptical of commissions of inquiry generally – not to say they never work, or never produce good recommendations, but his experience has been they almost always run over time, over budget, and often the recommendations prove to be of limited utility. The federal government has taken concrete and measurable action that deals, head on, with many of the conditions that contribute to the alarming rates of murdered and missing aboriginal women. We have been studying several different venues and have provided funding for multi-year studies within various branches of our government.
Funding elements within the justice system have been provided to increase the efficacy of both prevention programs as well as investigative techniques delivered by organizations and police services. In the House of Commons we supported a unanimous motion calling for a parliamentary committee on murdered and missing aboriginal women: a report is due in 2014. This committee is continuing its in-depth study, and parliamentary committees have a much higher impact on legislation necessary to address Canadian issues. While the opposition has been calling for an inquest, it is important to note that an inquest alone is not the solution in and of itself, and to stop short with merely a call for action is not a genuine effort to address the issue. The opposition has failed to support our government’s very real efforts to improve the lives of aboriginal women. Our introduction of real matrimonial property rights legislation; budget measures to support groups and organizations that focus on violence
prevention; literacy investments; affordable housing funding like the $110 million for Nunavut and $600 million Canada-wide in Budget 2013; education and job-specific training initiatives; all of which are designed to improve social conditions providing opportunities that help reduce the risks currently faced by aboriginal women and girls. Inquests can provide some challenges, and in the worst cases they fail to honour the victims and the families seeking closure, answers, and solutions. To that end, I believe that a meaningful and complete inquest requires the participation both in human resources and financial terms from the provinces, territories, and the First Nation governments. Many of the social conditions that enhance the risk and account for the disproportionate percentage of aboriginal women that go missing, are murdered, and suffer desperately low solution rates fall within the jurisdictional control of the provinces. From social services, to housing, to municipal and provincial
police forces, education and health care delivery, an inquest that does not have a solid partnership and participation of the provincial and territorial premiers and First Nation governments will only disappoint and frustrate those we seek to serve – those who deserve answers, solutions and closure. As a former member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and as an investigator with Yukon’s Safer Communities and Neighborhoods Unit, I have seen firsthand the path that leads an individual to increased risk and the impact of violence on individuals, families, communities, and our territory. I do understand why Yukoners are seeking such an inquest, and it is my job as their representative to carry their message forward. So, I have joined the voice of Yukon citizens asking for a national inquest on missing and murdered aboriginal women. I also believe, that done properly, an inquest will serve to complement the already outstanding efforts our government is making to provide opportunity, hope, healing and prosperity to all First Nation communities in Canada. Ryan Leef is Yukon’s member of Parliament.