Is it possible that oil might some day fuel the breakup of Canada?
This has nothing to do with Keystone XL or Northern Gateway, and everything to do with petrodollars, the currency that made Alberta wealthy and might some day make Quebec independent.
Few Albertans have heard of Old Harry (except perhaps in off-colour jokes) but in Quebec it's creating a bit of a buzz, notably in the current election campaign. Old Harry is the name given to an offshore oil deposit that straddles the border between Quebec and Newfoundland. It has significant energy potential – two to five billion barrels of oil, seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas – and a significant revenue potential in royalties and downstream spinoff taxes.
All this matters because there is precious little about Canada that matters to Quebecers now. There was a lingering affection among the older generation, those who fought in the war. But those under 50 are massively indifferent, having been raised on a drip feed of nationalist propaganda.
So what keeps Quebec in Canada? Mostly it's a fear of economic dislocation around jobs, investment and the rivers of funds that run from Ottawa into a variety of social and regional development programs – in short, money.
This has always been the federalist trump card, playing to Quebecers' fears that they will pay an onerous, personal price for independence. The separatists know it too, which is why they joke that a referendum should be held on a Saturday evening when much of the populace is worry-free.
But now there's Old Harry (as well as a smaller deposit on Anticosti Island) and with it the tantalizing prospect of petrodollars – money that could be used to pay down Quebec's enormous debt, fund any number of provincial programs and, yes, allay those fears of economic dislocation.
Polls in the Quebec election show the Liberals trailing the Parti Quebecois who can certainly be counted on to press every advantage to make Quebec an independent state.
Even so, it's far from certain that the Old Harry file will move ahead quickly, or even slowly. To begin with, any move to develop an offshore oilfield would rouse the kind of fierce opposition that has emerged in resistance to Northern Gateway – environmentalists, fishermen, possibly an Atlantic premier or two.
But more important, perhaps, is the aversion that Quebecers have to fossil fuels. Quebec has enormous reserves of shale gas along its southern border with the United States, enough to keep it warm for decades. Most jurisdictions would see this as a blessing from heaven, but not Quebec. On the contrary, the idea of developing these reserves, which would be done by fracking, has triggered a backlash.
It helps, of course, that Quebec has an endless supply of hydroelectricity, and this in turn has two important consequences. First, it earns a lot of money on the export market and, second, it allows Quebec to claim smugly that it is greener than green, quite unlike those carbon-heavy places like Alberta.
This attitude will spill over to any development of Old Harry, so maybe the threat of oil greasing the skids of independence is unwarranted. But here's another thought: Quebec governments have a boundless appetite for spending. If you think Alberta is bad, Quebec would make you faint.
So eventually, because it offers the possibility of so much money, Old Harry will come on stream and every royalty dollar will embolden those who dream of independence. As Albertans know well, and Quebecers will eventually learn, oil makes for interesting politics.
- St. Albert Gazette, a Great West newspaper
