Actress Daryl Hannah, shown here on the cover of the November 2003 Playboy magazine, has been a strong opponent of the Keystone pipeline project in the summer of 2011. What does such a wonderful lady really know about energy policy, you might ask. But wouldn’t you rather have her on your side in any case?

A casual encounter with the Business News Network (BNN) the other day suddenly brought some of us face to face with what could be a looming issue of some importance for the mid to longer term economic development of what, say whatever else you like, remains Canada’s most populous province, by some considerable distance. But it’s hard to hear much related talk on the subject from Ontario politicians, in the provincial election campaign that is more or less seriously getting underway this week.

A letter to the editor in yesterday’s Toronto Star – from the seasoned veteran Gareth Skipp in Mississauga – touched very gently on one side of a no doubt complex issue. It’s called “We’re not benefiting enough from our oil.” Some guy who goes by the name of Trent on the small dead animals site claims:  “Clearly, Gareth is retarded.” At the same time, a few individuals closer to the action on the moose jaw forum have shouted out loud “Right on Gareth”!

The deeper issue in all its complexity first surfaced for some of us on BNN in connection with the current US debate on the Keystone pipeline. A Calgary Sun report a few weeks ago sketched the essential background here: “A broad environmental movement [including the likes of actress Daryl Hannah and former US Vice President Al Gore] has coalesced in recent weeks against TransCanada Corp’s pipeline that would bring more than 500,000 barrels per day of oil sands crude from Alberta to refineries in Texas … The opponents want President Barack Obama to block the line, arguing that producing oil sands emits more carbon dioxide than developing other kinds of crudes … Besides being a major project for TransCanada, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sees it as pivotal in a national energy strategy to maximize production of the tar sands, the world’s third largest crude deposit … The Canadian and Alberta governments have lobbied hard in Washington to sell the benefits of the project.”

Alberta oil sands up close, as seen by National Geographic magazine.

All this is no doubt true enough, as far as it goes. But there is apparently another quite different side to the story – even in Alberta these days, but especially in Canada east of the Lake of the Woods (aka the Ontario-Manitoba border). And it puts a very up-to-date, oil-stained finger on ancient northern North American debates about the comparative virtues of north-south and east-west transportation (and “piped service”) corridors, in the true north, strong and free.

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Another more recent side of Ms. Hannah herself does seem quite convinced that “dirty oil” from the sands of Alberta is ... well, pretty dirty. She is not just another pretty face (or great body). In Washington last week she “sat down on the pavement near the White House and refused orders from US Park Police to move.”

Very quickly (and as best we can make out on a very first rush), it seems that Eastern Canada and especially Ontario pay higher “world market” prices for oil from Western Canada than discount-price customers in the United States, who will be served by the north-south Keystone project. An alternative east-west “TransCanada” pipeline project that served both Eastern Canada and (via the Port of Vancouver) new growth centres in such places as India and China, could apparently (or arguably) – over the mid to longer term future at any rate – make more money even for Alberta and Saskatchewan oil producers (to say nothing of its other undoubted energy security blessings for consumers across Canada, coast to coast to coast).

One first reaction to thoughts of this sort could of course be “Remember the discredited National Energy Program of the early 1980s, which so incensed so many people west of the Lake of the Woods?” (Or so it has been said!) The appearance of at least some Western Canadian voices for some theoretical east-west corridor seems to soften this side of the debate somewhat (however realistic it may or may not be). And, whatever else, a hasty surf on the world wide web reveals various intriguing Eastern Canada perspectives in the early 21st century.

The oil sands, mostly in Alberta, with a minor spillover into Saskatchewan, are one key ingredient in the US Keystone pipeline debate.

Here are some quick and dirty notes and quotes from half a dozen items, starting early in 2008 and ending just this past July:

January 2008 : Eastern Canada Vulnerable to Oil Shortages; Report from Polaris Calls for Canada to Set Up Strategic Petroleum Reserves

February 26, 2008 : Canada’s Oil Achilles Heel … “No one is looking after energy security in Canada …” says Dr. Gordon Laxer, founding director of the Parkland Institute and political economy professor at the University Alberta “ … The government is so concerned with exports and fear of taking on the oil industry in Alberta that they are not taking care of Canadians” … in an era of tightening global oil supplies … any nation that wants to maintain energy security must focus on four areas: 1) Locking in long-term oil supply contracts ; 2) Developing the military might to obtain and protect the flow of oil ; 3) Prioritizing domestic oil needs above oil exports ; 4) Developing strategic petroleum reserves to temporarily supply oil in times of crisis … Currently, Canada is failing in all four areas. Eastern Canada does not have long-term oil-supply contracts locked in ; Canada’s navy is small and has no vessels larger than multi-role patrol frigates ; NAFTA prohibits Canada from reducing the proportion of oil sent to the US ; and Canada is virtually the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have an emergency oil reserve … “Shocking stuff for a nation that believes it is an ‘energy superpower.’”

February 24, 2010 : Review of “Eastern Canadian crude oil supply and its implications for regional energy security” … Dr. Hughes’ study … was recently published … In the case of eastern Canada, there is the obvious solution of supplying this region from western Canada.  Hughes examines this and other options, and points out certain complications, including the decline in crude production in Atlantic Canada, the lack of pipeline infrastructure from western Canada to Atlantic Canada, and Canada’s commitment to exporting crude oil to the United States under the terms of the North American Free trade Agreement (NAFTA).

July 14, 2010 : With more than enough oil in our own backyard, Canada’s too dependent on others for energy. But is oil really the answer?

Oil from the Bakken Formation, underlying parts of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Montana, and North Dakota, is another ingredient in the Keystone pipeline debate.

October 8, 2010 :  Why Eastern Canada needs a strategic oil plan … Eastern Canada receives some of the West’s surplus. Oil from the West provides three-quarters of Ontario’s consumption, but every drop passes through the US in pipelines whose main function is to carry oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to US customers. (Nearly all the balance of crude oil used in Ontario is imported, with OPEC countries providing the largest share.) In the event of a crisis, the US may decide it needs the oil en route from Western Canada to Ontario  more than Ontario does. Western Canada producers may acquiesce, deciding that they need US customers more than they need Ontario customers.

Thursday, July 7, 2011 : Oil trade leaves Eastern Canada vulnerable: economist … Canada’s north-south oil trade is leaving the eastern half of the country vulnerable to supply shocks from politically vulnerable suppliers and costing $4.6-billion a year in higher crude bills, economist Peter Tertzakian says … While Canada is a net crude oil exporter and one of the largest producers in the world, refiners in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces import roughly 700,000 barrels per day of crude due to the lack of adequate pipeline capacity from western Canada … Mr. Tertzakian is due to make a presentation to federal and provincial energy ministers when they meet in Kananaskis, Alta., later this month, on the need for a more coherent national energy strategy … He offers eastern Canada’s import dependence as Exhibit A on the ramifications of policy failure, saying governments should have encouraged greater access for western oil to other Canadian markets, rather than rely solely on the US.

It is no doubt hard to believe that anything of much practical consequence is going to actually happen on any of this any time soon. Several quick searches on the WWW have failed to turn up any further intelligence on Mr. Tertzakian’s presentation to federal and provincial energy ministers this past July. Notwithstanding the struggles of such celebrities as Daryl Hannah and Al Gore, there seems a reasonable enough chance that President Obama will finally OK the Keystone pipeline. An east-west alternative inside Canada – that could also facilitate shipping Western Canadian oil to India and China through the Port of Vancouver looks very much like an impossible dream at the moment (something only Don Quixote could take altogether seriously).

Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004).

Still … some discussion of the subject could enliven the energy policy debate in the gathering Ontario provincial election campaign. Even if that too is an unlikely prospect at best.

Whatever … we can at least confidently announce that one of our number has decided what one might call the Tertzakian angle on the Keystone pipeline debate in Washington has finally convinced her to throw her support behind Daryl Hannah. The argument seems to be that if American environmentalists eventually do shut the Alberta oil sands product out of the US market, maybe our Alberta brothers and sisters will finally have no choice but to build an oil pipeline to those hated customers in their own country, back east??????