If we truly want to tap into lucrative U.S. energy markets, politicians need to quit the turf wars and petty power plays

by Jim Meek

You can spot the Atlantic Canadians in heaven, because they're standing guard at the Pearly Gates to make sure their good friends and relatives don't get in. Back here on Earth, Shawn Graham is already rehearsing his role as a prefect of Paradise.

Premier Graham's little bit of heaven on earth is his own New Brunswick, and this spring he sounded like a man determined to keep other Eastern Canadians off the hallowed turf. Specifically, he was battling foreign devils-from exotic locations like Nova Scotia-that might want to transmit power to the U.S. over New Brunswick's energy grid. "New Brunswick has been out in front on developing an energy hub for the past two years," he said. "Our government is not going to allow other jurisdictions to catch up to us [to the] detriment of what we're trying to obtain here."

The normally sedate premier of New Brunswick blew out his circuits after federal cabinet honcho Peter MacKay announced $4 million to support the development of renewable energy in Atlantic Canada. MacKay shamelessly linked this modest sum of money to the ever-insatiable market for energy in the northeastern United States. Truth is $4 million might buy you a decent condo in Manhattan but not a major tidal-power dam or wind farm, so it was difficult to understand Graham's angst. He went to so far as to call Ottawa a "Johnny Come Lately" when it comes to supporting energy projects in the region.

Well, maybe the premier should have said "Shawnny Come Lately," instead, for New Brunswick no longer lives in a world where it can risk building a fortress around its energy sector. Quite the contrary; all the hubbub about the province's energy hub will amount to little if American markets aren't open to energy supplies and the U.S. imposes tough restrictions on electricity exporters.

I risk simplifying a complex regulatory situation by saying that the American rules would force New Brunswick to provide open access to its grid system for would-be exporters. This is a term of engagement both for American utilities that wish to sell power across state borders and for Canadian provinces that want to export electricity.

Today this is becoming a high-stakes game. States in the U.S. northeast will increasingly look to Canadian supplies as they mothball aging or dirty power plants. So the race is on. 

If proposed new projects go forward in New Brunswick alone, the southern part of the province will soon be populated by more construction cranes than Dubai in its heyday. A second refinery in Saint John, a new generating station fuelled by LNG, a second nuclear plant at Lepreau-these are not modest undertakings.

Of course, there are other challengers in the field. Hydro Quebec wants to develop a massive new hydro project near the Labrador border to export green power to the U.S. And New Brunswick was not part of the story later this spring when Emera Energy Inc., a Nova Scotia-based holding company, was signed up to broker U.S. hydro exports "wheeled" through Quebec on behalf of Nalcor Energy in St. John's. This is exactly the kind of multi-provincial, multi-corporation "wheeling" and dealing that Atlantic Canada will have to get good at to become a supplier of choice to American electrical utilities.

In fairness to Premier Graham, it must be said that the man recognizes this. A day or two after his "Johnny Come Lately" tirade, he told the Economic Club of Canada that he would co-operate "in any way we can" with MacKay's stated purpose of "selling our surplus to the energy-hungry United States." Graham also told his Ontario blue-chip audience he had been a "little surprised" by the fact that the federal funding announcement was made in Sydney, N.S., with so much going on in the energy-hub town of Saint John, N.B. To which I say: Stop sounding paranoid and start acting smart.

New Brunswick's geography does give the province an advantage: access to a sweet corridor for power exports to nearby American states. So it should build the grid capacity and generating capacity and work with sister provinces and utilities in doing both. Everyone wins in heaven, after all, and no residents on the north side of the clouds are excluded from even the best of parties.

Jim Meek is a freelance writer and consultant with Bristol. He can be reached at jmeek@bristolgroup.ca.