Saskatchewan's Natural Resources and the NDP

(Sunday, 09 December 2012) - Contributed by John W. Warnock - Last Updated (Sunday, 16 December 2012)

This past week Stephen Harpers government announced that they had approved the takeover of Nexen Corporation by CNOOC Ltd., a Chinese state-owned oil corporation, as well as the takeover of Progress Energy Resources Corporation by Petronas, Malaysias state-owned oil corporation. The details of these foreign takeovers had been well known for a long time. Brad Walls government had approved of the takeovers. One would have expected the Saskatchewan NDP to have worked out a position, but there has only been silence. Do any of the four candidates for the leadership of the NDP have a position on foreign ownership and control of our natural resource industries? The takeovers approvedStephen Harper, while approving these two takeovers, announced that in the future state-owned corporations would be limited to minority ownership in corporations operating in the Alberta tar sands. Foreign-owned corporations dominate this sector. However, this policy would not apply elsewhere in Canada. Aside from the tar sands, the free market in corporate ownership would prevail.

The federal NDP under the leadership of Thomas Mulcair has opposed the takeovers. But they have taken a position no different from that of the Liberal Party. Energy critic Peter Julian has consistently stated the NDPs opposition. The Harper government has not held public hearings. They are ignoring public opinion on the issue. There is no guarantee that these state-owned corporations will keep their promises. The public does not know the record of the operations of these corporations in other countries.

Peter Julian, speaking for the NDP in the House of Commons, has stated that foreign investments are crucial for reenforcing our economy. Is this true of the oil and gas industry? How do they finance their new investments in Canada? Why has the NDP been unable to come up with a real alternative national energy policy? The Parkland Institute in Edmonton has produced one. Public opinion polls have indicated that a high percentage of Canadians would support of policy goal of Canadian ownership and control of the oil and gas industry. Is this too radical for the NDP? Saskatchewan policy on natural resources Stephen Harper stated to the press last Friday: To be blunt, Canadians have not spent years reducing ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead. This reference would include the decisions by the Grant Devine, Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert governments to privatize the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Corporation, the natural gas sector in the province developed by Sask Power Corporation, as well as the developments by the Allan Blakeney NDP government (1971-82) to gain some ownership and control of the potash, uranium and forestry sectors. Nexen currently owns and operates1322 natural gas wells in Southwest Saskatchewan. These natural gas wells were part of Sask Oil when it was a Crown Corporation and are now going back under state ownership. In 1986 majority control of Sask Oil was privatized by Grant Devines Conservative government. The new owners changed the name to Wascana Energy. In 1988 the Devine government sold Sask Powers natural gas holdings in Alberta to Wascana Energy for $325 million; the market price at the time indicated that the natural gas was actually worth $984 million. Wascana Energy was then bought by Occidental Petroleum Corporation of California. Nexen was spun off in order to use it to invest in Yemen, which prohibited ownership in the oil and gas industry by U.S. corporations. No changes under the NDP While many believed that the sell off of Crown assets would end with the election of the Roy Romanows NDP government in 1991, this was not to be the case. Instead of moving to take back control of previous developments in the area of natural resources, the Romanow government completed the privatization of Sask Oil and removed the restrictions on foreign ownership that had been imposed by the Devine government. This was just the beginning of NDP privatizations in the resource sector. The worst case was the privatization of the Lloydminister Heavy Oil Upgrader. Here in Saskatchewan people are looking for the NDP to provide an alternative vision on resource policy. This was very evident in the debate over the ownership and control of the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. The NDPs pathetic policy position at the time no doubt contributed to their devastating defeat in the 2011 provincial election. So we have four young men running to be the next leader of the NDP. Yes, education and health policy are important issues. But the key issue will certainly be ownership and control of the provinces economy. Brad Wall has made this clear as the Saskatchewan Party has already begun an attack campaign on the NDP leadership candidates on this issue. Of the four candidates, only Erin Weir has touched the issue, arguing that if elected leader he would cancel the tax
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breaks given to the oil and gas and potash industries by Lorne Calverts NDP government. The other three candidates have offered no specific policy proposals on this central issue. Who is going to represent the view that the people of Saskatchewan should own and control their own resource industries? We have demonstrated that we have the people right here who can do the job. John W. Warnock is a Regina political economist and political activist. He is author of Saskatchewan: The Roots of Discontent and Protest.

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