Alberta’s latest pipeline push dredges up ghosts of projects past

The government of Alberta's renewed push for a pipeline to the west coast is dredging up the ghosts of several failed projects past.

Few are as acquainted with Canada’s graveyard of defunct oil pipelines as Alex Pourbaix, a former executive at the company behind the Keystone XL and Energy East proposals.

“You can see the scars on my back,” he quipped at a news conference earlier this month, twisting his body at the lectern for emphasis.

Pourbaix was on hand as the Alberta government announced plans to propose a new West Coast bitumen pipeline to the freshly created federal Major Projects Office, which aims to speed along projects deemed in the national interest.

The former chief operating officer at TransCanada Corp. — now known as TC Energy — and CEO of oilsands giant Cenovus Energy Inc. is co-chairing a panel tasked with developing Alberta’s pipeline application.

Industry players and the Alberta government have said the province’s intervention is necessary to get a project off the ground.

As they see it, Canada’s convoluted regulatory system and onerous climate policy has made it near-impossible for private businesses to justify investing.

“No pipeline executive would go to his or her board of directors and ask for development money to build a pipeline in Canada,” Pourbaix told the news conference.

Industry advocates and several politicians have placed the blame for past derailed pipelines squarely at the feet of the federal Liberals.